Self-Contracting Isn’t Necessarily a Savings

Regarding “Even the Contractor’s Overwhelmed by His Own Project” by Katherine Salant, July 23: I have been actively involved in financing custom home construction for the last 15 years of my 30-year banking career. Owner-builders such as Richard Donnelly are convinced that they have the expertise to design and build their own homes better and cheaper than a local expert general contractor.

Although they may save dollars by using their labor rather than that of the general contractor, they really do not build the home for much less. If you calculated the time that Donnelly spent on the job and multiplied that by his hourly rate, you would be surprised at the “cost.” The additional hidden cost is the lost or delayed business that he could have had in his own practice if he devoted the time that was spent on his home.

Donnelly discovered the most difficult part of building your home--how to determine and verify the correct budget. Most people obtain three bids for the construction of their home and decide mostly by price. The problem with that is that it is nearly impossible to compare the actual bids. What one subcontractor includes in the bid may not be included in the second bid, so there is no basis of comparison. The lowest bid often turns out to be the one that did not include what the other bids included.

The solution is simple: Let the experts in each of the trades and services provide the work and the result will be what you had expected--your dream home. Good general contractors have good subcontractors. Good financial experts have the opportunity to see the entire process and can guide you in all of the areas of construction and help your dream come true.

RANDALL SEGERSTROM

Irvine

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In Katherine Salant’s article concerning the pitfalls of self-contracting discovered by Richard Donnelly, she made the point that good subs were hard to find and manage.

I have something to add from the sub’s point of view. When I bid a job for an owner-builder, the first thing that crosses my mind is that the job will be badly run. This is axiomatic since a novice cannot be good at such an enormous and complicated undertaking for many of the reasons the author describes. One key reason, not mentioned, relates directly to the inexperience of the builder: lack of communication among the trades.

If a plumbing fixture, roughly installed at the early stage of the job, is not correctly located for the tile that comes later, then the domino effect can add weeks to the builders’ time frame. When I go into one of these situations, I must add onto my cost the time it takes to seek out and discuss with other subs possible problems of this sort.

In other words, I have to do the contractor’s job. Of course, I seldom get these jobs because my price ends up too high, and a sub who may not be aware of all the pitfalls of an owner-builder situation steps in.

When the subs realize how much extra work and aggravation they have taken on, tempers flare, quality slips and the job becomes an unhappy one for all concerned.

MICHAEL MORAN

Redondo Beach