From a contractor’s perspective, we can not allow your friends to work with us for safety reasons. You can, on the other hand, have us complete certain stages in the project and others you can complete yourself to save money.
A contractor knows what the cost is for labor for each area of your project. Wanting to save money is understandable as long as you know for certain the friend actually knows what they are doing. Time and time again we have seen a customer’s project cost more than actually planned because a friend, uncle, neighbor, etc. over stated their skill set. On a project a contractor is ultimately responsible for the final product and he may not want to allow the friends work to fall under the scope of the contract between the two of you. If the contractor is willing to work with a friend and you are willing to take the risk, I would have this reflected in the written contract.
For PA Workers Compensation Issues… my guys complete my projects for my clients… if I hire your friend and he gets hurt, it’s my name, reputation, and insurance on the hook. I won’t do that to my livelihood, my family or my employees.
If you want to do a phase… however you mange to get it done… that’s up to you and I will omit it from my contract and state instead that Customer will complete XYZ in a timely and workmanship manner. Any work, not completed in a workmanship manner conducive to the successful outcome of the contract, will be corrected at Time and Materials billed at X/Hour and Material Cost+SalesTax+30% in addition to the stated contract price. Change orders for T&M work, will be invoiced immediately and due upon completion. A deposit for T&M change order work may be required.
Hi Leigh,
If you would like to have someone other than the contractor complete part of the job the first thing to do is to be up front about what you want. If you wait until the contractor is started with the project to tell him you have your own help, it will cause a lot of frustration for all parties concerned. Having said that most contractors will not allow other persons to work on the job site for liability, quality of work, and other reasons. From a contractors perspective you don’t want a project getting out of hand because unskilled persons were allowed to help out with the work.
If you would like to save money on your project consider other cost saving methods such as downscaling the project to fit your budget, getting several bids to ensure an accurate cost estimate, waiting until you have the funds available etc.
You can also have the contractor complete only the stages of the job you cannot do yourself. If for you or your friends have some skill and are prepared to take on part of a project, discuss it with your contractor and ask what they would advise. For example I have seen housing remodel projects where the home owner was able to paint the walls after the sheet rock was installed thus saving some money. I have also seen projects left uncompleted or projects that had to be redone by the contractor after the homeowner attempted to do it theselves. Consider your options carefully and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Sincerely,
Carlos Handyman Services
As a contractor I would not allow any outside help as there are liability issues by using non employees.
You should not employ a contractor that would allow this. If you wish to negotiate with a contractor this type of request will show inexperience to them and lack of value for their services. Have your friends do their part prior to the contractor beginning the work on your site.
As a Gen Con, I would not allow my customers to provide labor on any of our contracts. The liability, unintended consequences of their work in relation to the job itself, and or the hurt feelings should my team need to correct or alter the work or end schedules to reflect the efforts of the customers friend would not be worth any amount of “savings”
Not gonna happen. No licensed GC would do this.