What does a general contractor do?

Sequencing. A kitchen has demolition, framing, rough plumbing, rough electrical, HVAC, inspection, insulation, drywall, tile, cabinets, countertop template and install, appliances, trim, paint. Each trade wants the one before it finished and the one after it not yet started. The countertop cannot be templated until the cabinets are set and level, and the fabricator books ten days out from template. Getting that chain right, with each subcontractor's own calendar, is the actual work.

Permits and inspections. Filing the application, being the licence on the permit, and being on site when the inspector arrives. A permit pulled in the homeowner's name — an "owner-builder" permit — makes the homeowner the responsible party, and some contractors will ask you to do exactly that. It is a flag.

Insurance. General liability, usually $1M per occurrence, and workers' compensation for anyone on your property. If an uninsured worker falls off a ladder in your house, the claim lands on your homeowner's policy, and your insurer may decline it.

Buying and staging. Material takeoffs, lead times, and a place to put nine cabinets and a bathtub for two weeks. Cabinets ordered late are the most common reason a kitchen slips a month.

Absorbing the collisions. The plumber shows and the drywall is not done. The tile is short two boxes and the dye lot is gone. There is a beam where the plan showed a wall. On a fixed-price contract most of that lands on the GC, and that is the thing you bought.

Payments, and the lien exposure they create. The GC pays the subs. If they take your money and do not pay them, the subs can lien your house even though you paid in full. This is the risk that the paperwork below exists to close.

A GC typically adds 10 to 20 percent on residential remodels, sometimes 25 on small or complicated jobs, and 8 to 12 on larger new construction where the volume carries them.

Where it goes: an estimator's time producing your bid, which is often twenty to forty unpaid hours and only wins one time in three; insurance premiums; a project manager on site; office and licensing; warranty callbacks after the job closes; and the margin that keeps the business solvent, which after all of the above is frequently in the 3 to 8 percent range. This is not a high-margin trade.

What you actually buy for it: subcontractor pricing you cannot get as a one-off customer, a phone number that answers when the tile is wrong, and the fact that a schedule slip costs them rather than you.

Two ways it is quoted, and the difference matters more than the percentage:

Fixed price. One number for a defined scope. The contractor carries the overrun risk and prices that risk in. Best for well-defined work. The failure mode is a thin scope document, where everything you assumed was included turns into a change order.

Cost plus. You pay actual cost plus a stated fee, with receipts. Fair and transparent, but you carry the overrun. Only sign it with a not-to-exceed cap, or you have signed a blank cheque with excellent bookkeeping.

A bid that comes in 30 percent under the others is not a bargain. It is either a scope that is missing something, a plan to make it up on change orders, or a contractor in trouble who needs your deposit to finish somebody else's job.

Single-trade work. A roof replacement is a roofer. A repipe is a plumber. A panel upgrade is an electrician. Hiring a GC to hire one sub adds a markup and a layer of telephone.

Small cosmetic work with no permit and no sequencing — paint, flooring, a vanity swap, a fence.

Work you are genuinely doing yourself with the time to be present. Acting as your own GC on a bathroom is realistic if you can take calls during the workday, you understand the sequence, and you can live with the schedule slipping. On a kitchen it is possible and hard. On an addition or anything structural, no — the coordination load is a second job and the permit exposure is yours.

Where you do want one: anything touching structure, anything with three or more trades, anything with a permit and inspections, and any job where you will be at work while the house is open.

Licence number, verified by you. Not a number on a truck — look it up on the state board's site. Check it is active, in the right classification, and see the complaint history. In Florida that is DBPR; every state has an equivalent.

Certificate of insurance naming you. Ask the contractor's insurance agent to send the certificate directly to you, listing general liability and workers' compensation, with you as a certificate holder. A PDF forwarded by the contractor can be and sometimes is edited. Check the dates cover your whole schedule.

A written contract with a scope you can argue from. Model numbers, tile allowances stated in dollars, who supplies what, who takes the debris, what hours the crew works, and what happens if a hidden condition is found. "Remodel master bath — $32,000" is not a contract.

A payment schedule tied to milestones, never to dates. Deposit no more than 10 percent or $1,000 in states that cap it, then payments at completed rough-in and passed inspection, at drywall complete, at cabinets set, and a final 10 percent retainage held until the punch list is signed off and the final inspection passes. A schedule that says "30% on the 1st, 30% on the 15th" pays for time rather than work, and you will end up ahead of the progress.

Lien waivers with every payment. Conditional waiver from the GC before you release each cheque, unconditional after it clears, and — this is the part people skip — waivers from each subcontractor and major material supplier as well. Without them, paying your GC in full does not stop the tile supplier from recording a lien.

The permit, in the contractor's name. If they ask you to pull it as owner-builder, ask why. The answer is almost always that they cannot.

Then call two references from jobs that finished a year or more ago, not last month. You want to know what happened when something failed after the money changed hands.

A general contractor holds the contract for the whole job and profits or loses on the difference between the bid and the cost. Their interest in bringing it in under budget is direct.

A construction manager is hired as your agent for a fee or a percentage, and the trade contracts are yours. More transparency, less risk transfer, and it suits large or long projects where you want visibility on every number.

An architect or designer produces the drawings and specifications and may administer the contract, checking that what is built matches what was drawn. On anything structural or anything where the layout changes, drawings pay for themselves — it is cheaper to move a wall on paper.

A handyman is the right answer for a day's worth of small unrelated tasks and is generally limited by state law to jobs under a dollar threshold, often $500 to $1,000, with no permitted or licensed trade work. Handymen doing electrical or plumbing work that requires a licence is the most common quiet violation in residential work, and it is your house holding the risk.

Pick one person to speak for the household and do not give the crew conflicting direction. Contradictory instructions from two owners is how a wall gets framed twice.

Put change orders in writing before the work happens, with the price and the schedule impact stated. Verbal changes are where relationships end. Expect some — 5 to 10 percent of the contract in change orders is normal on an older house, and it is why you keep a contingency of 10 to 20 percent that you do not mention.

Walk the job weekly with the GC, not daily with the crew. Keep a running punch list rather than saving up complaints for the end.

Pay on time. A contractor who is being slow-paid moves your job behind the customer who is not, and they are right to.

At the end: final inspection signed off, unconditional lien waivers from everyone, manuals and warranties handed over, and only then the retainage. Get the paint colour codes and any leftover tile from the same dye lot before the crew clears the garage.