Managing jobs in different towns? Asking for trouble or managebale?

I think this all comes down to whether or not you have people you can trust to complete work when they are 3 hours away from the GC. There are people who are great at getting the job done with little to no supervision and there are other who can't manage for more then 10 minutes without direction.

good luck, your gonna need it.
maybe with a couple iPads(not pc tablets) you can constantly communicate and be updated at every single stage, but your gonna be doing a lot of miles at the end.
3 hrs. really isn't that far away and it will come down to you organising your schedule for the clients.

If you have an on site guy you can trust & has the authority to completely run the job then you might consider it.

That's a long ways to run a hose to put out a fire...:whistling

I rarely do it, but we do sometimes. I just built a metal building and poured a bunch of concrete almost 3 hours from here, had several remodels going up here.

Like griz said, you need a good lead onsite. I was on site down there by 7 or 730, head out at 11 or so and work until past dark here running these jobs.

Not sure i would do a remodel that far away. Is it an occupied remodel? Definitely wouldn't if that's the case.

It's blowing up in Pemberton Heights and Terrytown, as well as Lakeway and West Lake. Why trek to Houston?

griz said:

If you have an on site guy you can trust & has the authority to completely run the job then you might consider it.

That's a long ways to run a hose to put out a fire...:whistling

Click to expand...

Spoken like a man who has been there done that,:sad: And got his but kicked :blink:

Will your subs travel that far? If not then you need to find new guys to do the work. It all sounds like to much work for me.

150k wont seem like such a big job when it is that far away. Driving 6 hours every other day will eat up a lot of $$$$. We are about to start framing two houses that are 100 miles from our usual territory. Even as a sub, it adds a lot to our costs. I have other local jobs to keep running as well. I have done other jobs out of town before, but never when I still had a lot of work going on back home.

I do one job in Bellfountaine every year for a group of clients. Its about 2 hrs away from my house. I hate myself for it every year. Getting this years out of the way early, in January....

dv1041 said:

Hi all, I am a GC and have been wanting to try adding some jobs in different towns. I live in austin tx, and that is where my business resides. I was just approached to do a pretty good size remodel (150k) in Houston (3 hours away). What are ya'lls thoughts on extending your reach to different regions? Any success stories or nightmares?

Click to expand...

I only go at most an hour away to do jobs. The back and forth sucks b/c like others said, your subs will need to be managed to some degree. You should definitely have some sort of contingency plan just in case something goes awry.

Tried it in a town 1.5 hrs away. Wasn't worth the headache. Made money off of it but the wear and tear/gas money spent ate up alot of profit. And that was just me checking on the jobs.

Okiecontractor said:

Tried it in a town 1.5 hrs away. Wasn't worth the headache. Made money off of it but the wear and tear/gas money spent ate up alot of profit. And that was just me checking on the jobs.

Click to expand...

No video chat?

billgl said:

No video chat?

Click to expand...

Yeah but its not like the real thing