Employ Builder on Hourly Rate?

We almost have the Construction Certificate and are ready to employ a builder for a small extension at the rear of our property. We have been getting a few quotes. The last builder to come was an older guy, with many years experience. He is going to provide a quote, but also suggested the possibility of employing him on an hourly rate. This hadn't crossed my mind, and could have benefits. I'm definitely hands on and will be getting involved wherever I can, so I can see that any time I put in, will be less time I have to pay him at his hourly rate - even if this is just cleaning/clearing up the site on a regular basis. Does anyone have experience in getting an extension built this way? What would be the drawbacks? I guess there is the possibility that he might take his time and draw the process out to become expensive on my part, but then I'm sure he has plenty of work (it's Sydney), and would just want to get the job done and move on to the next one.

Hi RydeReno Welcome to the forum
Seriously I wouldn't go down that path
Plan the project properly, work out how long it will take and get a fixed price for each element/trade
BTW Some photos would help
Cheers

Thanks StructuralBIMGuy,
What's your reasoning for not going down that path?
Are you saying I'm likely to come in cheaper if I get a fixed price for each trade? I'm not owner builder, and I do have a full time job, so my availability to run things would be limited - me helping out on site would mostly be weekends.

It's best to know what is a fair price and fix it
Work is often delayed during construction and you won't know that while you are at work
Also you don't want to be charged for times trades aren't there working,
I apologise for not being that trusting

Thanks StructuralBIMGuy.

Does anyone else have any experience working with builder on hourly rate? And how did it go/turn out in the end?

StructuralBIMGuy has the point.
You won't be able to properly control what they are doing and how quickly, therefore, hourly rate will be a problem for you.

Also, builders do not charge hourly rates, they charge margin on top of labour and materials provided by their labourers/tradies.

You would only know the true margin if you go on a cost plus contract arrangement (aka open book) with the builder.

A friend of mine did a fairly large renovation like this and the builder was open book about all the costs - it turned out well.
But he had a very good trusting relationship with the builder.

I can see the advantages, but personally I wouldn't do it unless I trusted the builder implicitly

Good point, The quicker the trades finish the quicker the builder gets his profit margin
Quick unskilled trades often take short cuts, leave things out, the work is non compliant and some builders don't seem to care.
Plan wisely as you will need to be on top of it, Forewarned is forearmed..hth

The inherent problem with employing the builder (or anyone else) on an hourly rate is that it is an open cheque and the issues of control and productivity. How are you going to monitor hours worked? How do you ensure acceptable productivity? If you can answer that then it may be a viable option for you.

You need to start with a 3D Sketch
Try 3D Sketchup or 3D BricsCAD Shape
please post up a model so I can help with data and planning
Knockdown and rebuild upgrade Costs
Cheers
Chris

Thanks brokenstick - that's more what I'm after, just past experience on how it went.
I understand the trust issues, possibilities of open cheque. But even with fixed contract, how fixed is 'fixed', and no matter which route, there is the possibility of builder employing labourers/unskilled tradies.
The guy I might be using is a carpenter/builder, so will be doing the framing himself, but being the builder and using his contacts for the other trades.
I already have other 'fixed' quotes to compare. So if I do the research and find out 'time for excavation', 'time for foundations', 'time for rough plumber/sparkie' etc - I should be able to work out whether his hourly rate is going to come in under or over 'fixed price - correct?
Plus this isn't as complicated as a full construct, as I'm only getting him to take it to 'Lock-up' stage.

RydeReno
No, Your build is not complicated it's "Click & Drop"
LOL, I saw complicated the other night at the Optus Stadium BIM Presentation
Where Engineers were 3D scanning onsite, designing and robots fabricating components in china..all at the same time
Planning,Data & Optimisation was the key