Last month I discussed some common questions builders receive regarding whether R-Value Homes allows homeowner clients to specify or choose some of the subcontractors (we call them Trade Partners) to work on their home.
I started by looking at some of the reasons you might want to use your friend to help build your home, and this month I intend to consider the reasons to work with our team of professionals; concluding with a clear answer to the questions: “Can I ask you to use my friend in the trades to help on my house? Do you allow me to use some of my preferred subcontractors on my custom home build?" Here are a few items you'll want to consider:
- Specialization
- Cost stability
- Controlled schedule
- Higher quality/Fewer mistakes
- Better warranty experience
- No hard feelings
- Teamwork makes the dreamwork
- Unique requirements of Net Zero Homes and ICF Homes
Specialization
Custom Home Builders spend a lot of time curating a team of Trade Professionals. Similar to professional sports teams; builders are constantly evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and cost of their team members, regularly training them, always with an eye toward expanding the team by adding expert members with particular strengths. In other words, the subcontractors your builder partners with on Net Zero homes is not haphazard, it is very intentional.
As you know, different builders have different strengths. One might be great at the lowest cost per square foot, another is renowned for their speed of construction, one is known for ICF homes, another has the style you love, and still another builds weird homes. Well, the same is true for HVAC guys, roofers, electricians, etc. Each one of those builders will have assembled a network of Trade Partners who have similar goals and abilities; designed to deliver on the reason that builder is attractive to you.
Furthermore, in Greater Grand Rapids we are blessed with a lot of great professionals in the Trades. Custom Home Builders across West Michigan typically have multiple contractors they could choose for any one part of your home. This means they can select the member of another team that best fits your home and the particular goals you have for it.
Cost Stability
Everyone has a budget, and no matter whether it is $500,000 or $5,000,000; predictability is critical. You want to know exactly what the home will cost so you can plan.
When a team works together on home after home, they have a deeper understanding of what is expected of them, what the site will look like when they arrive, and that the plumber is considerate of the duct locations, etc. This leads to predictability. Rarely do we hear from our seasoned Trade Partners “I wasn’t expecting it to be like this”, or “so and so had their stuff in my way when I arrived”; translation: “My proposal didn’t include that, I am going to have to bill you for it”.
On a cost-plus project, you bear the burden of these issues; but on fixed-price, your builder does. Builders don’t like unpredictability any more than you do, which pressures them to add contingencies into their cost for unknown subcontractor problems. This is how a team that knows one another brings stability to the pricing.
Schedule Stability
The point here is very similar to above. Your builder will not know how long to plan for a particular Trade Partner, or that he needs to include an extra day for cleanup, etc. A couple days lost in the schedule on a single item has a domino effect on everything else in the critical path. In other words, it balloons!
Scheduling and communication of it are a large part of project management on custom home projects. There will always be difficulty predicting schedules for custom work on exclusive blueprints built on a unique property in unpredictable weather. A team of professionals with common goals who know each other will not create extra schedule days.
High Quality, Sustainable Michigan Homes
You are likely reading this blog because you are curious about how Net Zero homes and ICF homes are sustainable. Our preferred method is typically a concrete home using ICF walls with airtight construction, which requires unique skill sets, tools, knowledge, and experience. Quality control is also a major part of project management, but when the home is passive solar and airtight, quality control is even more critical. The skills and knowledge to do it well are rare, and even the sequencing of steps is unforgiving (back to the importance of scheduling)!
Quality is higher and errors are fewer when everyone on the team is trained and experienced in the unique aspects of a high-performance home. When Trades coordinate with one another onsite to prevent problems because they know one another well; quality is the result.
Better Warranty Experience
Besides the benefits of higher quality; finger-pointing is greatly reduced when working with your builder's team. Nobody can say “That was the new guy’s job”, or “I thought that this other company was taking care of that”. In other words, it strengthens clarity about who is responsible for each distinct portion of the project.
No Hard Feelings
If your friend helped on a portion of the home, and particularly if he felt compelled to offer discounted pricing; he will now be pretty unhappy to come to the table when there is a warranty item. His thought process will be along the lines of “Sheesh, I give a discount and now they put the screws to me!”
Or think of how bad you might feel to call us up when your friend’s work is inferior. You don’t want the friend to feel bad, so do you live with the problem or risk harming the relationship?
Teamwork
Back to the professional team sports analogy. You know how sometimes a team just clicks? One year things begin to go well and they are nearly unstoppable. This is generally not the result of one amazing player, but of the coach’s training efforts and the team manager’s selection of teammates. A similar thing happens to home building teams too.
Let’s face it: you don’t have the time or funds to build multiple homes using multiple Trade Partners to test them out, train them, and vet them; but an experienced custom home builder does! We are a team that is experienced, knowledgeable, and skilled with Net Zero homes and ICF homes.
Like a well oiled and finely tuned machine, the burrs have been smoothed out, and the weak links removed. A team that is accustomed to working together produces incredible results.
The Answer You've Been Waiting For
In our previous blog post, I showed that many of the reasons you might want to bring your own trades to the project don’t usually work out that way. This blog explains some reasons a team approach is superior. The conclusion of the matter is....drum roll please....no.
No, you can’t insist on using a particular subcontractor when you are hiring us to build your home. However, there are definitely times we will consider your recommendation. Particularly when we need to find a Trade Partner specializing in a new technology, or someone who covers the location of your project when our typical team does not. In fact, over the years we have found a couple great team members by way of client recommendations!
Your Michigan Net-Zero Homes Expert
R-Value Homes has been building Net-Zero homes in West Michigan since 2004. We take great care when vetting our Trade Partners because we know the pain of a wrong fit. If you're looking for big picture information on planning and building a Net Zero home in West Michigan, check out our free eBook: Building a Net-Zero Home.
Ready to build a high-efficiency custom home in West Michigan? We’re ready to help you make it real. Connect with us today.
