Owner/builder for garage-shop build. Should I be scared?

kaiser715 said:
I talked about self-contractors with with a few of the subs on our house. It works like this: Our GC charged cost plus. The plus was 10% markup on labor and materials. The subs I talked to said that basically, when they do something for an owner/builder/self-GC, they upcharge 20-25% over what they would charge one of the GC's they regularly work for. Part of that is kind of a volume discount, part is because an owner/builder always has screw-ups...wrong materials, stuff not delivered yet, last minute delay because they aren't quite ready for that sub yet, etc.

So....pay a GC 10% markup, or go direct to the subs and pay them 20% more.

Sort of same with materials...doing odd stuff for myself and others, I usually spend a grand to a few grand on materials in any given year. A busy GC will be in the hundreds of thousands. They get better pricing.

Now, if you are doing a substantial part of the labor yourself, that is where you actually save money. But don't fool yourself there...years ago, friends of mine built a new house....they bragged up on doing a lot of the work themselves and how much money they saved. Talking further, I find that most of the work was stuff like cleaning the jobsite each day....minimum wage labor at best that a GC usually gets a flunky to do.
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I understand this line of thinking but there is another side to that coin.
As a sub and supplier who has worked for a select handful of contractors for 25 or so years...I know (BEFORE I BID) if my contractor has the job cost plus or is competitively bidding it. And my cost varies accordingly.
 
Loganwayne said:
Yes yes they are.

I’m currently working on a small “favor” job to a local nonprofit and the guy that is the owners rep freaked out on me when he asked why the project management expected cost was about to be surpassed and we are 1/3 of the way though it. I told him calling me 3 times on Sunday every Sunday and having dang near daily meetings with him was in my budget.


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^^^ And I dont mean this with any disrespect. But given what I know of @Fabrik8 from an internet persona, he is one of the dudes Id actually recommend GC'ing himself.
1) He is a smart enough dude to pull it off
2) He is picky enough that he probaly isnt going to e happy with any GC he hires in the end.
3) His attention to detail is 10x beyond the level of a typical residential contractor and I suspect there is a high % chance any GC he hires walks before the job is finished...
 
Ron said:
^^^ And I dont mean this with any disrespect. But given what I know of @Fabrik8 from an internet persona, he is one of the dudes Id actually recommend GC'ing himself.
1) He is a smart enough dude to pull it off
2) He is picky enough that he probaly isnt going to e happy with any GC he hires in the end.
3) His attention to detail is 10x beyond the level of a typical residential contractor and I suspect there is a high % chance any GC he hires walks before the job is finished...
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I agree, the only other thing about doing it himself would be insurance requirements from subs and anyone at the job. There are still people/companies that don’t carry general liability or worker’s compensation


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I'm dying to know what an architect drawn 1200sqft shop looks like. I have a hard time imagining how complicated you could actually make a 30x40 building that it required an architect to sort out.
 
Ron said:
^^^ And I dont mean this with any disrespect. But given what I know of @Fabrik8 from an internet persona, he is one of the dudes Id actually recommend GC'ing himself.
1) He is a smart enough dude to pull it off
2) He is picky enough that he probaly isnt going to e happy with any GC he hires in the end.
3) His attention to detail is 10x beyond the level of a typical residential contractor and I suspect there is a high % chance any GC he hires walks before the job is finished...
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I don't necessarily disagree, although I could see that being a lot more true with the level of detail on a high-end house than on a garage where almost all of the detail work is on the exterior. I think this all falls into the category of "things that you learn about yourself" when you actually undertake something like this. I'm actually very easygoing when I trust that someone actually cares about what they're doing.

That's actually why I've been talking to the GC with the high quote. I've seen their work and it's awesome. They've done a few houses and other projects for my architect in the past, so there is a working relationship there as well. I could walk away or go on vacation and not lose sleep about anything with those guys.

I'm really the same as anyone else though, I don't want to get crap quality, regardless of the price. Therefore I haven't been sniffing around for just any builder with no idea of their level of work.
 
awheelterd said:
I'm dying to know what an architect drawn 1200sqft shop looks like. I have a hard time imagining how complicated you could actually make a 30x40 building that it required an architect to sort out.
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Exterior details. Don't worry about it. Didn't want a bland box, and not very much money to make it happen.

We actually started down the attached route, because the house has an odd layout that wasn't designed with a garage in mind (I've never met the architect, but know who it is). Then we decided to do a detached, so it could be larger and not match the house, and not have to deal with moving utilities where the garage would be and the costs to add a small addition to bridge the house-garage gap. That's the backstory on why we have an architect.
 
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Fabrik8 said:
Exterior details. Don't worry about it. Didn't want a bland box, and not very much money to make it happen.
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Knowing that you don’t like cookie cutter I assumed you were making it match/ tie in to your house. Maybe multiple rooflines so u can see that driving the price. Also is it single level or are you making a “man cave” in attic area?

We just recently finished a stand-alone garage that was a little bigger than what you want but had a second story area with some big dormers and a step out on the garage main level. That I estimated near 200,000 now we ended up cheaper but we also did budget off a sketch they gave up and pictures of what they wanted it to look like.


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Loganwayne said:
Knowing that you don’t like cookie cutter I assumed you were making it match/ tie in to your house. Maybe multiple rooflines so u can see that driving the price. Also is it single level or are you making a “man cave” in attic area?

We just recently finished a stand-alone garage that was a little bigger than what you want but had a second story area with some big dormers and a step out on the garage main level. That I estimated near 200,000 now we ended up cheaper but we also did budget off a sketch they gave up and pictures of what they wanted it to look like.


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It looks like a MCM ranch house, kinda. One story, low slung from the front but with a asymmetric roofline that disguises the height on one side for the lift, small section of clerestory windows, small brick wall section along part of the front. Side loading, because I don't like to look at garage doors from the street, and harder to see into. It doesn't match the house at all, unless we totally change gears for cost reduction (take the attached design and make it detached and slightly larger, for example). We wanted something clean and modern, but with midcentury style that doesn't really exist in our area (or the house). It was a really a "we're going to build something from scratch, so let's make it interesting".

It's really not complicated at all, it just has a certain style instead of being a single pitch roof with a 2 little windows and a man door and some matching trim.
 
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Fabrik8 said:
It's a section of wall on one side, not very much. I honestly don't have any intuition about how much that brick detail adds though, so that's part of the problem with figuring out where the costs are hiding.
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Don’t quote me on it since I’m not in your area but I think brick ends up being around 4.00 a piece installed depending on brick


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Fabrik8 said:
It's a section of wall on one side, not very much. I honestly don't have any intuition about how much that brick detail adds though, so that's part of the problem with figuring out where the costs are hiding.
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Don’t quote me on it since I’m not in your area but I think brick ends up being around 4.00 a piece installed depending on brick


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Loganwayne said:
Don’t quote me on it since I’m not in your area but I think brick ends up being around 4.00 a piece installed depending on brick


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That's about right. Figure you're $25/sf, and about 6 bricks/SF if modulars. Normans are typically cheaper.
 
shawn said:
That's about right. Figure you're $25/sf, and about 6 bricks/SF if modulars. Normans are typically cheaper.
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Hmm. 6 ft tall, 30 ft long, so 180sqft, that comes in at $4500. I wouldn't mind that as much if the rest of the building was like $60k (because I'd have discretionary headroom). But at $120k, it's fat that is probably going to be trimmed.
 
braxton357 said:
What does your zoning say about accessory building facade or exterior walls? Here it's got to match the house.
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Can't remember, but I don't think it's an issue here unless it's changed fairly recently. I think they repealed some of the "community appearance standards" stuff, but I think that was more about making neighborhoods have a homogeneous appearance. My neighbor has a steel carport/garage thing that's probably about 10 years old.
Having some sections of matching siding and paint color is easy, and already planned, if that is all it would take to satisfy things like that.
 
I talked to the SIP people, and they're only up 4-5% for product cost since 2016 or 2017 or whenever I talked to them last. They don't sound remotely close for material cost increases compared to most everything else in the last few years.
 
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Finding a framer who knows wtf is going on with SIP will be a bit of a challenge. I think they're great but not common by any stretch yet. I'm sure there is a lot of "idk what kind of headache they will be" cost added into your quote
 
awheelterd said:
Finding a framer who knows wtf is going on with SIP will be a bit of a challenge. I think they're great but not common by any stretch yet. I'm sure there is a lot of "idk what kind of headache they will be" cost added into your quote
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The only guy I know that did a SIP structure said it was equivalent to existing building/renovation work in terms of time allocation.
 
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