If you’ve decided to build your dream home or remodel your existing home, you’ll be quite familiar with the words, general contractor. This is the person you will hire to run your project, coordinate the efforts of all the materials needed for the job, hire the subcontractors, and take care of the payroll for everyone involved. In other words, your general contractor will take full responsibility for making your remodel or new construction the best it can be.

You, as the homeowner, can, of course, be the general contractor for your own project if you wish. But if you take on this role, you’ll have to take on the tasks of hiring all of your own subcontractors and handling payroll, as well as ordering supplies and materials. Most homeowners simply don’t have the time to commit to being a general contractor or have the knowledge to make the endeavor somewhat less stressful.

If you’ve made the decision to hire a general contractor, you should plan to interview at least three or four contractors before selecting one. In fact, if you are getting a bank loan for your home or improvement project, you will probably be asked to get at least three offers in writing. Ultimately, who you hire will be your choice, as you will have to pay the bank the advance, but the bank will likely want you to sign up for the offer in the middle. Of course, your final decision on which general contractor to hire will be based on more than just a bid price. You need to hire someone you feel comfortable working with and someone who is professional.

You can judge how professional the person will be even before hiring by the effort they put into trying to get the job. Do they show up in time to meet with you and write an offer? Is the offer returned to you within a reasonable period of time? It’s not unreasonable to expect a remodel offer to take a week or more and a larger project, such as new construction, to take even longer. After all, before your general contractor can give you the end result, they must come up with the end result, which means they must check material prices and estimate the time and number of employees it will take to complete the job.

Finally, of course, you should take some basic precautions and check with your state contractors board to make sure your contractor has a current license in order and does not have any open claims on their record.

And of course, with a general contractor taking over the project, all you have to worry about is paying for it.