What Is The Difference?

CaptainConcrete

What is the difference between a "builder" and a "general contractor"?

SLSTech

In some cases - not a thing

In other cases - hands on vs paper only or residential home builder vs commercial builder - the terms do vary based on your area

On this site - alot of grief if your question is something they feel you need to hire \ sub out & they are having a bad day

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CookeCarpentry

I always thought of a General Contractor as a paper-only guy, sub or hire out everything. When I think of a builder, I think of a guy who works in the field or who has a staff of carpenters doing everything but the licensed trades. Just my 2 cents.

NormW

eeek! Better switch my tag to builder.... Thanks cookie.

jeffatsquan

A builder loves to build things

A general contractor loves to make money off other people building things

SLSTech

D@mn I guess I got to change my title as I only subbed out about 5% of the work Nah, not happening

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ARI001

As SLS said in many cases they may be the same. I have subbed for builders and GC's that rarely leave the office much less put on bags. I have also subbed for both who are bags on types. Very few of either do everything from the ground up and either one will sub-out work that is not cost effective to do in house. There is also a percentage of "builders" that are really developers and have nothing to do with any trade work what so ever.

bwalley

In Florida there are 3 divison 1 licenses, they are all considered to be "General Contractors".

General Contractor, unlimited in height of buildings they can do structural work on, can do residential and commercial work.

Building Contractor, limited to 3 stories or 50' in height for structural work, can do residential and commercial work.

Residential Contractor, limited to 1 or 2 single family residential work only, cannot do any commercial work, condos, apartments, triplexes, quadplexes, etc. would be considered commercial.

Some people who do only builidng such as tract homes, call themselves builders, but are GC's.

bwalley

I call them paper contractors, I wish I was more of a paper contractor than a hands on, but I don't know how to do that.

ARI001

I took your question as to the meaning in laymens terms in my first post but after reading bwalleys post realized you may be looking for the technical differences.

The term "builder" is really more of a business tag. I.E. ABC Builders LLC. If they are being compensated to construct or improve real property they must have a contractors license of the appropriate Class and classification for the work they are performing. A developer will contract with a "Building contractor" to perform the work for them. The building contractor may or may not sub work out to other contractors specialty or otherwise. A general contractor here is classified as a building contractor (this is a classification) by the state. There are also highway/heavy, electrical, plubming, hvac as well as 28 other specialty licenses most of which can be performed by a general building contractor as well. The class of license determines the monetary limits of the contracts and yearly amounts they may perform with C being the lowest and A being the highest.