Design Build vs General Contractor
In the old days, home construction involved working with several contractors, sub-contractors, and other entities to complete a task. Building a home is a complicated affair, and while it still involves working with various skilled professionals, it’s much easier nowadays.
The modern trend of “design-build” companies offers a much more comprehensive, “all-in-one” way to approach building and renovating. Without compromising quality or specialization, a design-builder, like Nutter Custom Construction, can handle all the design and construction elements. Given all that, let’s look at what it’s like to work with a comprehensive design builder versus a general contractor.
What Do Design Builders Do?
The design-build approach involves both a full-time designer along with a dedicated construction team to cover building new homes, renovating kitchens, adding swimming pools, and other tasks.
Here’s a rough sketch of how this might look for a home-building project:
- Meet with you for a project estimate, discuss goals, make site evaluations, and confirm budget expectations.
- Identify and purchase all required project materials and pull permits.
We assign a project manager to head a crew of carpenters and other builders to complete the project. - Then we build (or renovate) your home, obtain city inspections, make necessary adjustments and finishing touches, then perform final inspections with you (including reviewing warranty options).
Why is the design-build approach popular these days?
Well, it’s a terrific way to save money because we keep everything constrained to your budget. This is also the best way to ensure that a project doesn’t take an eternity to complete. The design-build strategy keeps everything focused, budget-disciplined, accountable, and transparent.
Even the stuff we don’t do in-house, you won’t have to worry about because our team has contact with several trade technicians, utility companies, and so forth. So, working with Nutter Custom Construction really is a “one-stop” solution for home building. We coordinate everything, from start to finish while keeping you posted on every stage and development.
What Do General Contractors Do?
On the other side, is the more traditional “general contractor” approach, where you hire both a designer and construction companies separately. This means you’ll be more responsible for coordinating everything and have to interview/hire a greater number of service professionals independently.
There’s nothing wrong with general contractors, per se, but they’re only going to do that specific task you hire them to complete. Plus, as you might expect, some construction crews are more cooperative with outside design teams than others.
So, as you can see, there’s a significant difference between the total package of design-build companies (like ours) and single-focus general contractors.
If you’d like to pursue a home project with a dedicated design and construction team, then contact Nutter Custom Construction. In Sarasota, we have the best reputation for premium home building, lavish upgrades, concierge service, and more. You can learn more by calling us anytime at 941-924-1868.
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