r/GeneralContractor

I am on the journey to starting my own business as a Residential Remodel Construction Company. I plan to not only be a successful company, but I want be a successful boss too. I have some ideas to make sure every employee is treated with respect, they are compensated well for their time and overall just taken care of. I understand that finding great carpenters can be difficult so I will need to do what it takes to reach them and meet them in the middle. I've worked for terrible GC's as well as great ones so I will be taking some things out of the playbooks for the do's and don'ts.

But I want to ask everyone one really important question...
What makes you stay?

I am a building code instructor, a Senior Building Inspector, and a Certified Building Plans Examiner. I teach building codes to all walks of life. I've heard a decent amount of construction horror stories and seen some REALLY horrible craftsmanship myself. I could use some fresh ones for the introductory building code class I will be teaching soon. Does anyone have any good ones? I am open to DMs or having a group discussion here. Try to keep it clean, somewhat... lol.

I finished a job last month which was a large 15x17’ pavillion. Permitted job. We passed all inspections including the final and the permit was passed. Then we ask for the final payment which is a large sum & he refuses to pay over tiny cosmetic details such as 1/8” gaps in the wood (which are there to allow for expansions/contraction). Other non issues which he lists such as flashing not being installed properly which it is. The list is 10 points long and all of which are insanely small when considering it is a 255 square foot roofed structure.

I am in California and he has now filed a complaint with the cslb and my surety company. I’m not worried about losing either dispute but wondering how other contractors have delt with situations like this. How do you collect the final payment?

Thanks

Do you guys ever go back to old estimates that never closed?

I’ve got some where the homeowner never actually said no, they just stopped responding after a few follow-ups. Usually I just mark them as lost and move on.

But I’ve been wondering if anyone here goes back through old estimates a few months later and tries to reconnect with them.

Has anyone actually had success doing that, or once they stop responding is it basically a dead lead?

Curious what you guys do with those old estimates.

I'm starting a position as sales/estimator/consultant for a general contractor - end to end construction. So literally anything - residential & commercial but probably 90% residential

My job is to basically go out to leads' homes, figure out what they want to be done, what they need to be done, create an estimate, and close business.

I have a very strong background in B2C sales but don't know much about construction, and know almost nothing about estimating. I've worked sales for multiple one call close home improvement companies - mostly windows, and gutters. For those I typed in measurements into the company software and it spit out a price.

Other than that my construction knowledge is limited. I want to learn as much as possible as fast as possible. What resources should I look into? What videos should I watch? What learning apps or courses should I take? I'm typically pretty good at what I set my mind to and can learn quick

Hey everyone, just wondering if anyone here is a GC in the state of Georgia. I submitted my paperwork about three months ago, and I only just heard back from them saying that every page needs to be notarized and that I have to resubmit everything. Has anyone else run into this issue? The whole process is taking forever. At this point, I’m even considering getting a GC license in Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, or Tennessee and bidding on jobs there instead. It’s nearly impossible to get ahold of anyone or even get a response from them.

Is there a way to tell if water got behind the walls and if there's mold without ripping out the drywall? Had a bootleg roofer tear off roof and then didn't ntarp it right and it was left basically open a couple mow with pouring rain almost daily beith high humidity.

read look behind peeling paint for mold. I saw a lot of mold behind the back of the large paint chunks that were peeling off. Does that mean there mold behind the drywall?

Noticed several cracks running along the drywall all across the ceiling and horizontally across the walls in some of the rooms. Also saw crack above front door . Does this mean there is foundation issues now or is it just drywall and how can I determine?

is there any other possible damage that may be hidden I should look for?

I plan on getting some quotes by there's a lot of scammers here and if you don't know what your looking at they will take you for a ride

Roof, mold, water, foundation, structure