Some General Contractors do a wide variety of work from remodeling to home building and many types of projects in between. The General Contracting license covers pretty much everything except plumbing, electrical and heating and cooling (HVAC). You need a general contracting license to be a home builder and some GC’s sub everything out and some have there own crews to do some of the work. Some GC’s have never pounded a nail. You will find a lot of the smaller ones are guys who do a lot of work themselves or with a small crew.
A general contractor would usually be a contractor that works in a commercial or large-scale residential environment. GC’s won’t always have licensing restrictions on what they can build. A home builder would stick with houses and residential projects and can often have restrictions on size and value of what they can build.
a general contractor is an over all contractor .they are usually capable of residential and some of them also commercial projects . as a general contractor you handle the entire project from lining up sub contractors and overseeing the entire project from start to finish . as a general contractor i am also a home builder … a home building contractor as a rule just build homes and possibly additions .
A general contractor is a category defined by the state licensing board as a person/company who is licensed to contract building work. A general contractor can choose to specialize (or not) on small or large jobs, jobs that are carpentry work only or involve dozens of subcontractors, remodeling work or new construction, commercial, industrial or residential work etc. He/she can choose any mixture of the above categories, such as only residential decks, or large commercial remodels, or small industrial installations (computer clean rooms, for example).
A home builder is a company that specializes in building homes, one of the subset categories as described above.
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They can be one in the same, the determining factor is the level of licensing max $ for a class B is $125,000 per year for a single project. This is governed by the state DPOR most home builders are Class A general contractors
A GC handles all aspects of construction including permitting and sub contracting. A home builder usually handles building homes New construction.
In my opinion, the difference between a contractor & home builder is:
•A home builder specializes in building homes for a developer or building a specific home for a client. This client may have purchased the land with a home that doesn’t suit them or just have land they want to build on. This is one way to describe a home builder.
•A contractor can be your go to guy that brings his team in to remodel your kitchen, bathroom, basement, attic, deck, windows & doors just to name a few. A contractor has any subcontractor as part of his team to bring in to do anything you would like to update your home, such as, HVAC, flooring, interior & exterior painting, roofing & siding etc. The list is endless, what a good contractor can provide to a potential client.
General contractor is a license classification of someone who can preform at least 3 trades in a construction project.
A home builder is someone that has a general contractor license (hopefully) and he build houses, since there’s more then 3 trades involve in building a house.
Not all General contractors are home builders, some of them are remodelers or restoration or any other service that contains 3 services or more.
All home builders are General contractors (should be)
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These definitions vary from state to state because of licensing requirements. General contractors generally no not do new builds, but renovations and remodeling. Building contractors do new home builds and commercial builds.