Welcome to Lyon Construction - Why Hire a Professional General Contractor?

A residential general contractor is a home remodeling professional who organizes and executes larger remodeling projects. A home remodeling professional deals with longer projects that incorporate specific design and architectural ideas to provide a homeowner with a better living experience, either by adding space or making better use of an established space. An advantage of using a licensed Professional General Contractor is that he will be able to call upon a number of subcontractors to obtain competitive bids for these tasks. He will also be better able to get them to perform in a timely fashion, which is no small task in the building trades. The reason he can command a fair price and a timely response from his subcontractors is that they depend on the work he provides them. Another significant advantage to using an experienced Professional General Contractor is that he is likely to know which subcontractors to avoid because they have a history of poor workmanship, unreliability, and unethical pricing tendencies, such as taking advantage of Customers with "bait-and-switching" and "low balling" tactics. A General Contractor also is likely to have the necessary insurance to protect against something going wrong, such as someone getting seriously hurt on the job. This is important, since it limits your liability. Why shouldn't YOU be the General Contractor? People who have assumed the role of General Contractor and took responsibility for all of the General Contractors' tasks: they obtained competitive quotes from different subcontractors, scheduled all of the subcontractors' work, and inspected the quality of the subcontractors' work. The reason they did this was because they knew that a General Contractor usually adds 10 - 15% to the cost of the subcontractors bill as a fee for his efforts. These Customers believed that if they did the general contracting themselves, they would save the 10 - 15%. Although we recognize that it is anyone's prerogative to do this, we believe that few individuals realize just how difficult, time consuming, and stressful it is to carry out this responsibility well. The General Contractor definitely earns his money. Not surprisingly, most of the problems that occur when the Customer serves as the General Contractor have to do with the fact that the Customer has little or no previous experience with contracting in the building trades. The inexperience causes him to forget to contract for a number of tasks that need to get done and to be unaware of a number of tasks that require the cooperation and coordination of different subcontractors and to get suckered in on subcontractors who feel they have no real checks and balances. Consequently, the Customer unintentionally fails to plan for these interrelated tasks, which results in the subcontractors coming in the wrong sequence and at the wrong time. Since this costs the subcontractors additional time and money, they pass the cost overrun on to the Customer. To summarize: when considering whether to serve as General Contractor consider the following difficulties: * Finding the time to supervise the project * Lots of paperwork. * Lots of on-site meetings to begin and end the day. * Lots of trips for materials. * Dozens and dozens of phone calls. * Scheduling subcontractors and materials to arrive at the right times and in the right order. Knowing the sequence of events is one thing, executing is another. * Trade knowledge *Evaluating when work has been done according to accepted industry standards. * Making good decisions, sometimes with no time to research or reflect. If you do not handle these difficulties well, you can ruin your budget. Forgotten paperwork, missed meetings, delayed material deliveries, unreturned phone calls, subcontractor last minute cancellations, wrong decisions--these things can lead to the dreaded "Cost Overruns". When to Hire Many people do not realize that the average kitchen remodel takes 5-6 weeks to complete. Not to mention that to complete the remodel you are likely to need an electrician, a plumber, a countertop contractor, a cabinet contractor, a flooring pro, a painter, and someone to install the appliances. That's a lot of people. The brilliance of a residential general contractor is that he can not only coordinate all of these other professionals and schedule them so that one person is not in another's way, but he also knows what a good price is on their labor charge and how to do some of the work himself, whereas the average homeowner will not. Rules to Follow We have often found that many people hire a residential general contractor when they don't really need one, and on the flipside of that, there are people who don't hire them when they should. Here are some quick rules of thumb: * If the job is going to take more than a week, hire a professional general contractor. * If the job requires several different pros to complete, hire a professional general contractor. * If the job requires a few permits, hire a professional general contractor.

You will find Lyon Construction a leader in creating timeless waterfront residences, commercial properties, and kitchen and bath renovations. We are passionate about the difference we make in the community, and our client's lives.