Sub Chunking

What it is

Sub chunking is grouping as many related jobs as safely possible under one contractor. Instead of a painter, a trim carpenter, a flooring installer, and a hardware guy as four separate subs, you give the whole package to one crew that handles all four.

Here’s how I explain it in the context of Costco bids: the more jobs you can give them, the better. If you have a contractor who does flooring, does the paint, does the drywall repairs, also puts in the cabinets and takes out the trash — great. Because that contractor’s thinking, “Oh, this is a great job for me. This is going to line me up with work for weeks to come. I’m going to be able to put food on my family for the next few weeks.” That is a nice safety net for them, and they will give you a discount to have that safety net. Instead of the opposite: you bring somebody in just to paint. Now they’re thinking, that’s a couple days job, what am I going to do after that? I need to be focused on finding the next job. Their pricing reflects that uncertainty.

“Safely” is the key word. You don’t chunk electrical with drywall. You don’t chunk HVAC with flooring. MEP trades stay licensed and separate. Everything else — paint, trim, hardware, flooring, landscaping, construction clean — can often ride with an all arounder.

Why it matters

The lazy PM model runs on this. Every contractor you add to a project adds a multiplier of management overhead. Two contractors isn’t twice the work, it’s more. You’re not just tracking two schedules — you’re tracking the handoff between them, which is where most delays actually live. The painter can’t finish because the trim guy isn’t done. The floor installer can’t start because the painter hasn’t finished. Every interface is a potential missed day.

Chunk the work down to fewer people and the handoffs disappear inside one crew’s head. The all-arounder decides when to switch from paint to trim to hardware. Nobody’s waiting on anybody else. You gain schedule, you gain pricing power because you’re offering volume, and you gain relationship depth because the same crew runs the same play on your next flip.

One contractor on a milestone-based pay schedule also means one invoice per milestone, one COI, one W-9, one relationship you’re investing in. That compounds over 10, 20, 50 flips into a depth chart that runs itself.

How it shows up

The strategy section of my 18 contractor rules is basically this concept: be lazy. Mitigate the decision points and the times you need to be at a job site. The more jobs I can contract to somebody in one single thing, and the longer the pay periods, the longer between the times I have to show up. Not trying to give myself a job here.

Two anti-patterns to avoid. First, don’t chunk so aggressively you end up with one contractor doing work they’re not actually skilled at. An all-arounder who paints well but tiles poorly will cost you more on the finished bathroom than you saved on the bundled bid. Vet skill by skill, not by personality.

Second, don’t confuse sub chunking with hiring a full general contractor. A GC marks up every sub by 15-40%. Sub chunking keeps you in the MIY seat while still reducing the number of people you manage. You capture the GC markup savings without taking on a GC’s coordination headache, because you’ve already trimmed the crew list yourself.

Standard skill bundles that work reliably: paint + trim + hardware. Flooring + baseboards. Landscaping + exterior paint + curb appeal. Once you’ve run those bundles three or four times with the same crews, your depth chart builds itself.

Related

lazy pm, costco bid, all arounder, jobs menu, pay schedule, general contractor, miy method