Friday 19 August 2016

What Does a Builder Do?

What Does a Builder Do?

What Does a Builder Do? Is a common question for people about to build their own home and thinking to hire a builder.

What a Builder Does. A builder is more like a project manager than a trades person. They hire and oversea trades people and make sure that the construction project is completed according to the plans, budget and time.

What is a builder?

Many people think that a builder is a trades person that also hires other tradies to help with the build. This is only half true. Sometimes builders start off as tradies but often they just train to be a builder.

A builder’s roles and responsibilities?

Some of the responsibilities of a builder include:

Submitting plans to councils and obtaining the building permits.
Managing Workplace health and safety standards
Scheduling the building process.
Arranging for the preparation of the build site and its cleaning during and after construction process.
Making sure that the construction activities comply with noise-restriction regulations
Managing the purchase and delivery of building materials.
Contracting, coordinating and supervising the contractors and trades people.
Liaising with building inspectors and arranging inspections of building work.
Finding and correcting faults and defects in the building.
Budgeting.
Coordinating administrative tasks such as construction loan payments.
Liaising with the clients.

Hiring a Builder

Perhaps the most important consideration when hiring a builder for your construction project is to make sure that your builder is qualified. It is highly likely that you will run into a wide range of problems if you use an unlicensed builder. You finished building (if it gets that far) would likely be considered as illegal and may need to be knocked down.

The next most important consideration is the experience of the builder. Does your builder have experience in being the builder for projects that are similar in type, size and complexity to the one that you have. If you have a luxury mansion that needs building you probably don’t want a builder that is used to building budget ‘off the plan’ spec homes. Instead you will want a builder that has experience building luxury homes.

Before you hire a builder

  • Before you hire a builder you should do your due diligence on them. Differences between builders can be large in terms of both the quality of build and price of your build contract. The last thing that you want is to use a dodgy builder and have the headache that entails or end up significantly over paying.
  • Check the builders license and make sure that it is current.
  • Make sure they have the proper insurance.
  • Insist on receiving a thorough contract written in plain English.
  • Ask them for references. Their previous work is the best proof of their ability.
    Make sure that they belong to a reputable trade association such as the Master Builders Association.
    Ask for references. However, it is unlikely that a builder will provide a reference to a job that they messed up
  • Get a referral from family or friends that you trust. However, unless your family or friends are in the business of hiring builders they would have limited experience. What they consider as a good quality and reasonably priced builder is probably based on their experience with one builder. So at best they may be able to tell you a builder not to use rather than suggest the best builder for your job.
  • Use a builder broker such as Local builders. A builder broker will do all the hard work for you and will have the experience in using lots of builders and be able to get you a builder that is highly suitable for your project. They will also do all of the other checks on the builder (like making sure that they are currently licensed and suitably experienced).

Only when you are completely satisfied that you have fund the right builder should you sign the construction contract.

The post What Does a Builder Do? appeared first on Local Builders.



from Local Builders http://www.localbuilders.net.au/2016/08/20/what-does-a-builder-do/
See more on www.localbuliders.net.au

No comments:

Post a Comment