The most important thing in hiring a general contractor to build your house is also the most difficult thing to test them on. You'll want to do as much as you can to see that your general is detail oriented and has good follow through.
My bad general contractor (BGC) will sit with me all day making promises to do things such as revise estimates, get requested info and so on. But in the end he wasn't even listening to himself say these things and I'd have to remind him later and have the whole conversation over again.
The best test I can think of to help you find the right general contractor is to look for a few basic clues:
- Do they write things down and take notes when you are meeting? No one has that good of a memory, and if they do they are not doing construction work.
- Are they sending you follow up meeting notes via email after each meeting? These notes should state what was discussed and what the next steps are along with who is responsible for each of these next steps.
- Ask his references how it went for them. Try and find some references that he didn't provide you with.
- Look in his truck. Is he a total slob? Is that how you want your project to be run?
- Do they continue to just make open promises, stating things like "yeah we can do that"? If they do, run for the hills. If they tell you "no" a few times, then he might be thinking about things realistically.
I hope that helps. My BGC went against each of these rules and I'm paying dearly for it now.
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