Can you do your own work on your house if you take responsibility as the general contractor of your home?

Can you do your own addition to your house if you take responsibility as the general contractor of your home and get all the permits? Can I hire a subcontractor? If I do does he have to be licensed? All my electricians and plumbers are licensed in Chicago but does my subcontractor have to be as well? Let me know for 10 POINTS! thanks

Yes, you can even do your own plumbing and electrical. You need prints and go down before the “board” and get an approval. You do not need any sort of license to do this either. They will final inspect, approve or disapprove and you can fix and they will reinspect and approve. A permit costs based on how many fixtures and so on. For these sorts of permits you dont need a licesnse or even insurance or Bond. I live north of Chicago in the burbs.

Yes, you can be your own General Contractor. You dont even need to know anyting about contracting either. Lots of Accountants are Gen. Contractors around here. And they cant even lift a Hammer Let alone use one.

Just go to your local Building Department and get an application. You will also need a Bond and Insurance. So those need to go in with the application. I got both my Bond and Insurance from State Farm Insurance at a cost of about $200 for both.

Then you MUST hire licensed Sub Contractors in the Areas required, such as Basement Concrete Construction, Electrical, Plumbing, and so on. Probably the first thing in this area is to get a Drive Way permit. You just cannot go anywhere and put in a drive, it has to be approved.

After each Subs work, there is an inspection process and the city issues an APPROVED Sticker. These Subs got to obey the rules or they lose their licenses so they dont do work that is sub par.

Never give a Sub money ahead of total completion and approval. NEVER AND ADVANCE. Remember this, as it is about the most important thing to stress.

I have built 2 homes this way, doing a lot of the work myself, that is not required to be Sub’ed. You will save a bunch of money and get a better house, HOWEVER it does take a lot of time to get things done and numerous trips downtown to the building department. One thing, the building department is really helpful to a homeowner doing his/her own General Contracting, they really help you a lot.

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