One of our frequent visitors
It goes without saying that we must trust our builders, and they must trust us. We heard a story of a homeowner who hired a crew from Vancouver (a forty-minute ferry ride away), partly because, if I recall the story accurately, he believed the builders on the Sunshine Coast prey on Vancouverites, because they “ all have lots of money from selling their multi-million dollar homes.” We have heard a couple other opinions along this line since. This homeowner had many practical skills himself, and took to sitting at the site all day, hovering over the builders and correcting their methods, until they just up and quit, leaving the homeowner to stew in the mess of the half-completed shell. This was all too stressful for the owner, and he abandoned his project, selling it to the first buyer he could find and moving back to Vancouver.
The thing is, an owner-builder does not need to be catered to by the trades, especially once they’re hired. If they have a mind to, they could rip us off royally. They know they don’t have to build a relationship with us because we won’t be likely to hire them again (unlike a general contractor working in the area – he needs to maintain good long-term relationships.)
The builders could be padding their hours and we would never know. But, we have to trust them to be honest. It helps no one to be suspicious. We also have to trust them to translate our greenest wishes into a real house. (This last item does not come naturally to them, because they have not been required to consciously build green before. It’s our responsibility to initiate these discussions.) We can only hope that they will be careful with our money, as if they were building their own home.
In their turn, our builders/subs have to trust us – to pay them on time, to let them do their work, to take an interest in their progress, to communicate honestly with them.
As far as I can tell, our builder thinks ahead, planning every step, deciding whether this layer should overlap that layer, whether the forms or joists need to be augmented because of the unplanned addition of a crawl space, what needs to be done with the perimeter drain tile to ensure there won’t be water build-up against the 14’ foundation wall. (He built a whole second gravel trench to keep water away from the official drain tile.) I like that the builder is building our home with what I interpret as he same care he might build his own home.
