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^ so you're saying that overseeing the project and hand out the work to various trades is better?
I think that makes a lot of sense.
In Alaska you can act as your own contractor. I live in the Matanuska Susitna Borough, where no permits are required if you're in the unincorporated areas, which is 99.9 percent of the borough. You would do just as you said...subcontract each phase of construction to a specialist in the field.
Electrical, etc. in most states need to be installed to the code followed by inspection (in order to be approved for connection to the grid).
If you build yourself you'll need lots of free time. You can't do that while working and doing it after work.
More general questions are your time frame (are you in a hurry?) and also do you have an alternative home during the building process. Living in a house as it's being built can be a nightmare and delay the whole project.
I had the footings, basement walls, insulation and drywall, siding & gutters and the basic plumbing done by other contractors. I did all the carpentry, electrical, all the plumbing trim, cement flatwork,, roof, trim, painting, staining, heating, including a fireplace, AC's, and landscaping. I was the General Contractor, and all the sub-contractors. I got a loan from a bank, did all the paper work, paid myself wages as the subs, and signed all the waivers of liens. By the end of the job (It took me a year and a half because I worked my regular job too) the bank said "Never again will we let somebody do this". I even lifted the framed walls by myself with the help of wall jacks. The longest wall was 65' and when I got it standing up, a neighbor down the street came running and said "How the hell did you lift that wall by yourself "? He hadn't seen the wall jacks. Oh, and I did the brick work too. This was in 1979. I saved a lot of money and did things the way I wanted them done.
Unfortunately overseeing it yourself is a worse idea than building it yourself. Building it yourself is practical if you can commit full time and have a lt of help, and you are in good health and mechanically inclined and a good reader. Yes you can figure it all out with some help and advice.
Managing it yourself will likely be a disaster. This is because the trades do not know you. They know you will not provide any future work for them so you become their lowest priority. If you mess up the schedule, you then must pay them for return trips or waiting around. If you split responsibilities and something goes wrong, they point their fingers at each other and at you and you get no resolution. You just have to pay to start over. If you do not anticipate long lead materials and you do not understand the concept of a critical path schedule, you may end up with your job sitting for weeks or months while your trades-persons go off to other jobs, then it is a struggle to get them to come back when you need them again. If you do not understand the contracts, one or more of them will end up taking advantage of you. If you do not have connections, you will not be able to get someone to fill in if a critical trade fails to show up, makes mistakes or does not man the job sufficiently.
Lets say your plumber shows up to put in the block outs for plumbing in the slab. He drops off a kid and leaves. Part way through he day, you ask the kid what he is working on and he tells you he is blocking out the plumbing for the wet bar. Your house does not have a wet bar.The kid is sing the plans for some other house and has blocked out the wrong locations. Concrete will be placed tomorrow and the boiler arrives the next day to be placed right from the truck onto the basement slab. Framing is supposed to start the day after that. What do you do?
If you are DIY the whole thing, you do not have these kinds of problems. If you mess up YOU work until five a.m. to get it right before something shows up, Or you just start over the next day because the only one waiting on you is you. It takes ten times longer, but there is actually less risk if you use common sense.
A guy was building a very modest 2bdrm ranch on a crawl space foundation, he literally built, installed everything himself (other than some framing help). This was a rural area that had no permitting process or inspections. He said he followed every applicable code requirement for the state as if it were to be inspected.
It took him a little over 5yrs to complete.
This is crazy!
In the summer of 2013, I built a "very modest 2 bdrm ranch on a crawl space foundation", in northern Maine, at the age of 65. With me was my 69 yo BIL and one of my sons-in-law. We got that thing closed in and mostly finished inside, within 5 months. Even then, I thought it took us too long. Stick frame construction goes up fast...unless you're dealing with union carpenters....
I went back home for the winter, while my BIL stayed up there and finished the kitchen and bath cabinetry. He had nowhere else to stay at that point, anyway. The following spring, we moved up there to stay (wife and I), and my BIL found an old mobile home to tow to the back of our land (33 acres), and he proceeded to renovate that for his own home. It now looks better than my ranch.
Don't listen to the nay-sayers. If I can build my own place at age 65, you can do it, too. It just isn't that complicated. It's hard work, and I recommend you tow a trailer or camper to live in while you're building. Sub out some of the work, if you're not comfortable with it. But definitely do it.
If you need a construction loan to do this, you may hit a snag. My place is mortgage-free!
I had the footings, basement walls, insulation and drywall, siding & gutters and the basic plumbing done by other contractors. I did all the carpentry, electrical, all the plumbing trim, cement flatwork,, roof, trim, painting, staining, heating, including a fireplace, AC's, and landscaping.
My father did something a bit like this, although not quite as much DIY as you managed. He hired a contractor to build the shell and do electric/plumbing/heating. We lived in the basement with makeshift kitchen and bathroom while my father did most of the finish work during the winters (he was a grain farmer). He/we hung the drywall, built all of the cabinets, stained and installed trim/doors. He hired a professional carpenter to help hand the doors and do a couple other things.
We built our house ourselves - served as the GCs. Yes, it was a huge job. I do not work outside the home; during the main part of the project, I was on call virtually around the clock. My dh managed some of the technical aspects of the initial permits (he is an engineer).
I don't agree that the subs will not get any future work from the owner/builder. To the contrary - some of our subs did excellent work, and I send work to them frequently via my network of friends.
I just realized you live in New Jersey. I think you're pretty much hosed on doing anything yourself.
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