If You’ve Hired a General Contractor, or if you’re
buying a house, or remodeling…

 

this website is still a must for you.  Why?

 

Because you’ll find indispensable, complete house building knowledge here, knowledge that you can obtain only in bits and pieces from other sources, if you can obtain it all. 

 

If you’re building a house and have hired a general contractor to build it for you, or if you’re remodeling, the more you know about how a house is built, the more understanding you have of what your contractors are doing, the less likely it becomes that they will do something that isn’t right, something that makes you an unhappy house builder.

Things can go wrong.  Money can be wasted. 

 

 

Your best defense against either is knowledge.  Knowledge applied with your common sense makes a good combination.
 

When your contractor is working on a particular phase of building, go to the chapter on this site
that applies to what he is doing.  

The information and the illustrations can be valuable to you.  Every chapter concerning aspects
of actual construction contains the following…..


Things You Should Watch For

On another page, I write about how you can and should take an active role in seeing that your subcontractors don’t make avoidable mistakes.

Contractors, even the best ones, can and sometimes do make mistakes.

You don’t have to be an expert yourself to spot these mistakes and to get them corrected while it’s still easy to do so.  Here are some things you can double-check.

Remember, double-checking is all you are doing.  You’re not telling him how to do his job, so don’t worry that you’re stepping out of line.

It’s your house.

 

And that is followed by a list of the type of things that can go wrong, the type of mistakes
that get made in foundations, framing, plumbing, drywall, or anything that has to do with building
your house.

I learned a lot of these things the hard way.  You shouldn’t have to.  Even though someone else may be building your house, it’s still your house.

Learn as much as you can, be an observant house builder, and you’ll be a happier house owner.