General contractors are professional remodelling managers who hire, schedule, coordinate and supervise the activities of all the other professionals working on a remodelling project. General contractors can make a large, complicated job much easier for you since they’ll hire and schedule the subcontractors and serve as the liaison between you and the other workers.
However, this convenience comes at a price either a flat fee or a percentage of the budget. A reputable general contractor typically charges 10% to 20% of the total construction cost. Also, many general contractors will only take on projects with a total cost over £8,000 to £10,000; smaller projects don’t offer them enough profit. If your kitchen project falls below this range, perhaps you can hire a kitchen design firm to manage the project or you can manage it yourself.
Building & Installation Professionals
These tradespeople provide the actual hands-on labour needed to complete your kitchen remodel. If you manage the project yourself you’ll need to hire and supervise them directly. Carpenters handle many different building tasks, such as tearing down walls, adding beams and partitions, and framing new walls, windows and doors.
Many carpenters will do both the rough carpentry and the finish work, including installing cabinets, trim and some countertops and flooring. Plumbers plan and route the water supply and the drain, waste and vent pipes from the existing lines to the new fixtures. H-WCome areas, plumbers also make gas connections for a range, oven or cooktop, and they may hook up appliances, like dishwashers, food disposers and refrigerator icemakers. However, if you buy a large appliance, such as a dishwasher or refrigerator, the installation may be included in the delivery cost. Some hydroponically boiler contractors. H WC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) contractors route duct work for forced-air heating and air-conditioning systems and cooktop hoods, and they add new heating, bathroom cabinets and air conditioning registers. Boiler contractors are needed if you have an older home with a steam heating system or a hydronically (hot water) heated home. A boiler contractor will install new radiators and pipe runs if your project includes a heated room addition. Electricians install wiring, circuits, outlets and lighting fixtures. They add electric baseboard heaters and hard wired large appliances, such as electric ranges. They can also upgrade your old wiring and electrical circuits. Drywall installers hang, tape and finish drywall so it’s smooth and ready for paint or wallpaper.
Some homeowners choose to install the drywall themselves, then hire a professional to tape and finish it. Some drywall installers also texture walls and ceilings or do painting and wallpapcring. Painters and wallpaper hangers complete new wall surfaces. Some also stain and finish wood surfaces. Flooring inslallers remove existing bathroom cabinets, flooring and sub- floors, prepare underlayment, and install new flooring. Many installers specialize in only one type of flooring. Tile installers (or tile sellers) install tile of all types. Depending on the application, they may create a mortar base or install and prepare a backer board foundation for the tile, or they may lay the tile over existing drywall or other surface. Custom cabinet makers design and build tailor-made kitchen cabinets and install them. General labourers do unskilled manual labor, such as demolition, cleanup, delivering and moving building supplies. If you have teenage children, you may wish to enlist their help, or you can hire college students to help out. General laborers typically earn £8 to £16 per hour.
Do It Yourself?
You may want to hire professionals for every aspect of your remodeling project – or you may be thinking that you can save huge amounts of money by doing everything yourself.
Both approaches can work, but not very often. If you never put on work gloves, you may always wonder how much money you r might have saved. And if you attempt to shoulder the entire burden, you may be so shaken by the experience that you never attempt another remodeling project. The homeowners who end up happiest tend to be those who were willing to pitch in, but were wise enough to call in help when needed. Although theres no hard and fast rule about which jobs you should tackle yourself here are some points to consider:
Be Your Own Designer
lt’s often best to do the preliminary designing and planning work yourself-in fact, if you’ve followed the instructions in the earlier chapters of this book, you’ve done much of it already. Although a good designer may be able to do amazing things with your bathroom space, it will probably cost you at least £51,000 to have one design your kitchen. Another option is to find a designer who will work with you on an hourly basis and help fine-tune a design you have created. You can also consult a designer at a home center – often for free. If you’ve hired a general contractor or any subcontractors, remember that they, too, maybe very knowledgeable and helpful when it comes to planning and layout issues.
