What Is a General Contractor?

The GC has to deliver the scope in the drawings and specifications, on the contract time, for the contract sum, using means and methods the GC chooses. That includes site logistics, temporary power and protection, coordination among trades, and quality control of the work in place. RFIs and submittals go out under the GC’s name even when a subcontractor wrote them. The owner and architect are entitled to one coordinated contractor, not a stack of trade letters.

Safety of the construction means is the GC’s duty. The architect’s site visit is not a safety inspection. Owners who direct means and methods, or who hire trades around the GC, blur the responsibility the prime contract was written to create.

Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, concrete, and finishes are typically subcontracted. The subcontract is between the GC and the trade. The owner is not a party to it. Flow-down clauses push relevant prime-contract obligations onto the sub. When a sub is late or its submittal is wrong, the owner’s remedy is still against the GC. The GC’s remedy is against the sub.

Self-performed work, where the GC’s own crews build a trade, is common for concrete or carpentry. It should be visible in the schedule of values. On a GMP, self-perform prices need the competitive check the contract requires, because the GC is both buyer and seller.

CM-at-risk holds the trade contracts and the construction risk, much like a GC, and is involved before the documents are finished. CM-as-agent advises the owner and the owner may hold the trade contracts directly, or the CM issues them as agent. The fee structures differ. Calling every owner’s advisor a GC misstates who pays the trades when something is late.

Design-build folds design into the builder’s contract. The design-builder may be a GC that hired the architect. In that case the GC role and the prime design-build role are the same firm, and the architect of record may not have a contract with the owner. Ask whose name is on the agreement before you route an instruction.

The GC maintains the submittal log, the RFI log, and the pay application. The superintendent runs the site. The project manager runs the cost and the documents. Those are different people on any job large enough to have both. Correspondence to "the GC" that never reaches the superintendent does not change tomorrow’s pour.

The GC does not seal drawings and does not decide design intent. When documents conflict, the GC asks, via RFI, and prices a change if the answer adds scope. Proceeding on an assumption and claiming later is a harder path than an RFI issued before the work is covered up.