Only a sucker will bite that. If the architect assure's you the wall isn't supporting or transferring weight of anything above,use cheapest per hour trade and have insurance in place in case the place fall's on them. If wall is load bearing,absolutly the one installing beams and post shall remove wall.

If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't be overseeing the work.

Insured GC with a good reputation and skilled crew

@Klem1 - The first GC I met quoted me 35,000$ for the demo. I needed to gut 3 x 60 sqf Bathroom and a kitchen barely bigger, 2000 sqft of carpet and 6 partitions wall. He must have thought I was really rich or really stupid. I did what you suggested. Hired 2 handy man, paid them 40$ an hour each, rented 2 dumpster and they gutted the place in less than 10 days. Architect oversaw the job to be sure they were taking down non load bearing walls only. I think every work deserves to be fairly compensated but the quote from the GC was outrageous. I want to rewire the house from the panel, I can’t even imagine what the quote would have been for that!

Now I have to widen openings in two load bearing walls. This needs skills and a permit.

@skil367 - I see what you are saying. But why couldn’t I trust the professional I hire? And the inspector is supposed to validate their work isn’t he? After that, I have to hire an electrician, plumber, AC and the handyman I hired can do all finishes (drywall, paint, tile, refinishing the floors,...) I thought I could get away with it honestly.

@mattman - so I could hire a GC just for this project? The second GC I met kept telling me how tight my overall budget was but spend the next 45 min trying to talk me into changing the furnace and install a brand new super modern dual all electric bla bla bla thing... sigh. Given my tight budget, changing a furnace that works fine for now is not my priority. I am not even sure he would be interested in doing just the structural wall. He is looking to do more profit worthy job I guess.

Thanks for your answers.

Note: English is not my first language so I apologize if my grammar is not always correct.

@drdeb1234 - you don’t sound harsh, you sound very reasonable.
Until now it was easy. I need an electrician for electrical, a plumber for plumber etc... my architect comes from an area 45 min from where the house is. I just thought I would hire a more local company to do the job. I just don’t know what to look for exactly. I guess a structural engineer that would draw the plan and do the job. But I am already paying my architect do draw the plan...

I wrote my post quickly so I didn’t get into details. We went over the structure with the architect and the problem is that location of the load bearing walls in the first floor doesn’t match the location of the load bearing wall in the basement. There is a 2 feet offset. We are going to make large openings in the load bearing walls on the first floor to create an open concept. Since I don’t have the budget for one long steel beam, the architect is going to calculate the distance between two posts and the beam required to support the load. Then we are going to put post in the basement underneath each post on the first floor so the load is supported from underneath as well. Basically, I need someone to:

Build temporary walls. Insert the recommended beam on to the ceiling and install supporting posts per the architect recommendation. Dig into the basement, pour concrete and install the posts where the architects said.

I am all for taking control of your own project, but I wanted to chime in and say that I would NOT rely on an architect to determine the structural requirements of what you are trying to achieve. Get a professional engineer involved at the planning stage. They won’t be be one to do the labor, but they should be the one specifying the column, beam, and connection requirements!

@charpell - Good to know about the architect. I still don’t know who to hire to do the job though....

@charpell - Thank you for taking the time to answer!

Once you have a structural engineer's plan a regular framing carpenter or two can do the work. It's no different than the rough carpentry used to build a house. Your architect should know if he's qualified to draw the plan. If he is go with his plan. You can pull any permits. It's your house.

You suppose you legally ameliorated the lead based paint and asbestos with your undocumented, uninsured, and unskilled laborers? And pulled the permits?

the problem is that location of the load bearing walls in the first floor doesn’t match the location of the load bearing wall in the basement. There is a 2 feet offset. [...] Then we are going to put post in the basement underneath each post on the first floor so the load is supported from underneath as well.

There are some things written here that lead me to believe the architect might be out of his depth. While I certainly wouldn't guarantee that, it does give me pause.

A load bearing wall transfers load to the footer. I find it very unusual that the most economical way to deal with your problem (if it is a problem) is to move one of the two existing load bearing walls two feet.

Since a load bearing wall requires a footer under it, moving the posts in the basement will require jackhammering up the basement floor, digging out and pouring new footers then moving the posts, and finishing the pad again. Not to mention the concerns with moisture that are present when the best solution involves a hole in a basement floor.

On the first floor (floor above the basement) I find it hard to believe that any carpenter either didn't use the load bearing wall as a break point for their joists or created a lap that was more than 2 feet. So it seems very likely that moving that wall 2' will require new longer joists above. It is possible that you have an overlap greater than 2', but that would certainly be unusual.

Finally, there is nothing wrong with offsetting a load bearing wall from the load bearing wall below it. It happens all the time and requires a bit of extra engineering (really just a bit more wood) but loads are transferred laterally all over your house, in fact, every floor joist in your house does nothing other than transfer a load laterally. A two foot offset in a load bearing wall isn't an engineering feet or anything and has been done for a few hundred years now (probably more than that). The entire idea of a jetty on a house is offsetting the upper load bearing wall from the lower load bearing wall, and that is on an exterior wall.

It just seems likely that shoring up the offset will be cheaper than moving load bearing walls. As for who you should hire to do it. Well start with someone who is amazed that you can economically move it.

@dan1880 - Thank you so much for your comment. My architect is qualified as a structural engineer, he has 30 + years of experience.

You will need to hire a framing contractor and a concrete company. The problem is on a project that small it will be hard to find companies willing to take it on. One reason is the small amount of profit and the large amount of liability involved in that kind of work. A GC has umbrella coverage and acts as a pre inspector to make sure, first the s oil under the house is ok to support the new post second to make sure the concrete guy sets everything up for the framer properly and third to make sure everyone is following the plan.
You should hire a GC for this section of the project at least. It will probably cost an extra 10,000 to have him there but if something goes wrong you will be happier in the end.
And you house won't collapse.

Dear @ Sophie,
You lost me at « undocumented ». I am not sure what you imply there but handymen are not necessarily unskilled, illegal immigrants... I don’t think 40$ an hour was cheap. They were in fact American born but that is not what made them skilled. I am going to bite here even if clearly I won’t win because you seem to know it all but there was no asbestos, construction debris were put into a specific dumpster and we went to the townhall and no permit is required to remove tiles, carpet, cabinet and non load bearing walls. A demo plan signed off by the architect who is also a structural engineer showing which non load bearing walls were taken down, was validated by the town.

If the home is pre 1978, you DID perform the required testing to have it on file? Where’s your picture of the results? That is Federal level. Not state.

$40 billout for construction work is beyond low pay unskilled. You did verify eligibility to work as is required, correct? You have that on file as well? Do you have the proper insurances as required to be contracting this yourself?

You cannot just hire any Tim, Dick, and Jesus off the street to work on construction. You have taken on roles here that you don’t know what you are doing. If you can’t document your RRP results, or have the I9’s on file, then that’s an issue. A BIG issue.

@bry911 - We are not moving the load bearing wall on the first floor. By opening it, we are going to focus the load on 2 / 3 posts and since there is no wall underneath in the basement, the architect wants to add additional support on the basement. It will reinforce the overall structure. Later on, we might even build an entire wall in the basement that align with the load bearing wall in the first and second floor. The joist doesn’t even stop where the load bearing wall is in the basement. They go all the way where the load bearing wall is upstairs... It doesn’t make any sense. My architect talked to me about the possibility to do a lateral beam to spread the load onto the load bearing wall in the basement but he thought the other solution would be better.

have the I9’s on file, then that’s an issue. A BIG issue.

You don't need I9's to hire some people to do some demolition. They meet the exception for Individuals employed for casual domestic work in a private home on a sporadic, irregular or intermittent basis.

@blisstile - Thank you. I think you are spot on In terms of profit/responsibility. I will try to find a GC that is reasonable. I have 100,000 $ to rework the floor plan, do structural, rewire the house and plumbing on a 3000 sqft house. Hopefully, I can make it...

My architect talked to me about the possibility to do a lateral beam to spread the load onto the load bearing wall in the basement but he thought the other solution would be better.

Are you talking about putting in a new load bearing wall or just a wall to add support? Many people use the term "load bearing wall" incorrectly. A load bearing wall means a wall that transfers weight directly to a footer. There are many walls in a house that are not load bearing but you still can't remove because they add structural rigidity or support.

When you talk about adding a load bearing wall to the basement, that means jackhammering up an entire pit under the wall, pouring a footer and then building the wall.

Have you asked your architect for recommendations on whom to hire? The architect I hired had worked with a number of contractors - not all of them were a good match for me though, but it was a place to start.

@bry911 - yes, I mean rebuilding an entire load bearing wall. The offset between the two load bearing walls brushes me the wrong way for some reason. I am not a structural engineer, but it doesn’t make sense to me. The architect and every GC that came by were scratching their head also. The house was built in 1880. They build an additional floor on top of the first floor in 1950’s. This is a lot of load on the joists between the basement and the first floor with nothing underneath. The house is standing but still... I would rather overdo it than looking away. Maybe we won’t have the budget to redo the basement as soon as we wanted but I have 3000 sqft of space upstairs already so the man cave can wait ;)

" I did what you suggested. Hired 2 handy man, paid them 40$ an hour each, rented 2 dumpster and they gutted the place in less than 10 days. Architect oversaw the job to be sure they were taking down non load bearing walls only."

This scheme is completely illegal in Florida. Unless he's a licensed contractor, your architect cannot pull the permits for this work. You can pull your own permit, but you have to do the work. Handymen cannot pull permits, they are not licensed contractors.

You need to hire a GC, and he will provide the subs to do all of that work. You will have a really hard time finding all of those different trades on your own. And there is no way I would hire a "Handyman" to do all the finish work. Does he own floor re-finish equip, or would he have to rent it? Does he have a tile saw? Do you pay for that, or does he? Does he have accounts with suppliers, or are you just going to buy everything off the shelf from Home Depot?

This scheme is completely illegal in Florida. Unless he's a licensed contractor, your architect cannot pull the permits for this work

------

Are you sure about this?

Architects can certainly pull permits in Florida and Florida carves out an exception to the GC requirement for architects supervising work that is incidental to their practice.

Clarification.

I am sorry but I don't think (16) supersedes (11)...

A registered architect or engineer acting within the scope of his or her practice or any person exempted by the law regulating architects and engineers, including persons doing design work as specified in s. 481.229(1)(b); provided, however, that an architect or engineer shall not act as a contractor unless properly licensed under this chapter.

The question becomes what is in the scope of an architect's practice vs. what is not. While G.C.ing is not allowed, supervising demolition for the purpose of furthering the design is allowed, and I can find cases for you if you want. This was actually tested in Florida courts a few years ago, laws and regulations are simply not the black and white things that people want them to be.

In other words, an architect in Florida may supervise any work incidental to the creation of plans. What is, and isn't, incidental to an architect's practice is a gray area, and you can't read the wording of the regulation to find the answer, you must go to the case law to find it.

Fair enough; avoid gray and hire a licensed contractor to build what your architect drew.