Play Well With Others There’s an old joke in the construction industry about an electrician running out to his truck to grab a part, returning seconds later to find the plumber laying pipe through the hole he just finished drilling. It’s apocryphal, but there’s a lot of truth in it; trades (the good ones, at least) are very good at keeping the other trades in mind when completing their work.
This is a difficult skill to quantify, and a lot of it boils down to experience. For example, an experienced framer might revise the floor-framing plans to make for easier installation of a waste line into the bathroom.
Whereas trades tend to work in the same sequence job after job after job and are therefore familiar with the needs of the trade coming in immediately after them, remodelers tend to overlook things that can make life difficult for the trades. Gregory Henry, owner of framing contractor Stephen Davis Construction, in Falls Church, Va., says he often works for contractors who are used to doing things in phases. “That works fine for them,” Henry says, “but subs don’t want to do it that way.” Indeed, wiring the north side of the house and the returning later to wire the south side will cause undue hardship to your electrician, who would rather do the whole thing at once to avoid return trips and scheduling bottlenecks. “All of your subs will be happier if you eliminate as many phases as possible,” Henry says.
It’s also not enough to schedule your trade contractors in a logical sequence; you need to make sure that the site is properly prepared for the next sub to come in. Framers, for instance, need to have the foundation set and the site graded before they can do their work. By putting yourself in their shoes — asking yourself, “If I had to frame this house, would I be able to?” — you’ll save them some time and headaches, and your projects will run a lot more smoothly.