MI General Contractor common mistakes
MI General Contractor · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering code questions from memory of a job site or an older code cycle instead of from the current Michigan Residential Code provisions, e.g., defaulting to a remembered stair riser height or guard height without checking the adopted edition.
Experienced builders often rely on habits and past inspections; Michigan adopts model codes with amendments on its own schedule, so remembered numbers drift from the enforced edition, and candidates underestimate how many items were amended locally.
What to do instead
Build a one-page reference sheet of the numeric limits most tested (riser height, tread depth, handrail and guard heights, stairway width, headroom, egress opening sizes, ceiling heights) drawn from the current Michigan Residential Code, and drill it until each number is recalled with its condition attached (measured where, allowed tolerance, exception).
Treating Michigan licensing law as general business knowledge and guessing on questions about license classifications, qualifying officer responsibilities, and what work a residential builder license does or does not cover.
Candidates study construction technique heavily and skim the legal portion, assuming common sense applies; the statutes use defined terms (residential builder, maintenance and alteration, qualifying officer) whose legal meaning differs from everyday usage.
What to do instead
Study the licensing statute as a vocabulary list: define each license type, who must hold it, what the qualifying officer must do, and the penalties for unlicensed contracting; then practice applying each definition to short scenarios about who may legally contract for a given job.
Confusing contract formation and consumer protection requirements, such as when a written contract is required, what must be in it, and the notice or cancellation rights that attach to home improvement agreements.
Candidates conflate good business practice with legal requirement and answer what a careful contractor would do rather than what the law mandates; the required contents and timing rules are easy to blur together.
What to do instead
Make a checklist of legally required contract elements and required notices, then for each item write one sentence on when it is triggered and what happens if it is missing; test yourself by deciding, for a described job, exactly which documents must exist before work starts.
Reading plan questions by jumping to the answer choices and matching a plausible dimension, rather than locating the information on the described drawing set and converting scale or units first.
Time pressure encourages pattern matching; candidates also mix up plan, elevation, and section views, or forget that a stated scale means measured distance times the scale factor, and unit conversions introduce silent errors.
What to do instead
Practice a fixed routine: identify which view contains the information, note the stated scale and units, compute the dimension explicitly, then compare to choices; do timed sets of scale and unit-conversion problems until the routine is automatic.
Building a schedule by listing tasks in sequence without identifying the critical path or accounting for inspection and cure times, then answering scheduling questions as if any delay extends the project equally.
Field experience emphasizes doing tasks in order, not network logic; candidates miss that float on non-critical activities absorbs delays, and they forget concrete cure, inspection scheduling, and material lead times as real durations.
What to do instead
Learn to draw a simple precedence diagram and compute early and late dates by hand; practice identifying which activity has zero float and predicting the effect of a stated delay on completion date depending on whether the delayed task is on the critical path.
Answering foundation and concrete questions using rules of thumb without matching them to soil, drainage, and frost conditions, e.g., assuming a footing depth or a slab detail that ignores Michigan frost depth and site drainage.
Local practice embeds assumptions that vary by region and soil; candidates memorize a single detail and apply it everywhere, and they underestimate how much of the code addresses water management rather than structural strength.
What to do instead
Study footing, frost-protection, and drainage requirements as conditional rules: for each, state the condition that triggers it and the minimum it imposes; practice scenario questions where the soil type, water table, or slope changes which requirement governs.
Mixing up framing details such as notch and hole limits in sawn lumber, bearing and fastener requirements, and when connectors or blocking are required, and applying prescriptive tables without checking the span and loading conditions they assume.
Candidates remember that tables exist but not their preconditions; field shortcuts like notching a joist for a pipe become normalized, and the distinction between prescriptive compliance and engineered design is blurred.
What to do instead
For each framing member, memorize the allowed notch and hole limits, bearing minimums, and fastening schedule, and write down the assumptions behind any span table you use; practice questions that present a modification and ask whether it remains prescriptive or requires an engineered design.
Treating roofing, insulation, and weatherproofing as separate topics, so answers miss the interaction between vapor control, air sealing, ventilation, and flashing that the code actually regulates as a system.
Trade training often covers each material in isolation; candidates pick the detail that looks right for the roof or the wall without checking whether it creates a vapor trap or blocks required ventilation.
What to do instead
Study assemblies rather than products: for a roof, wall, and crawlspace assembly, map where water, air, and vapor control layers sit and what ventilation each requires; answer questions by checking the whole assembly for conflicts before choosing.
Answering safety questions from general awareness rather than the specific trigger thresholds, such as when fall protection, guardrails, or a written hazard program is required, and skipping lead and asbestos rules for renovation and demolition.
Safety knowledge is often absorbed informally and feels obvious; candidates underestimate how precise the thresholds are and do not realize that pre-renovation lead-safe practices and asbestos handling have their own defined triggers and notification duties.
What to do instead
Memorize the numeric thresholds and their conditions (height, distance, exposure level, building age) and pair each with the required control; separately learn the renovation, repair, and painting rule triggers and asbestos notification steps, then drill scenario questions that hinge on a single threshold.
Failing to distinguish permitting and inspection obligations from construction obligations, e.g., not knowing when a permit is required, what inspections must be requested, and who is responsible for scheduling and for work done without a permit.
Candidates focus on how to build and treat administrative steps as paperwork; the code and licensing rules place specific duties on the permit holder and contractor, and questions test those duties directly.
What to do instead
Create a permit lifecycle timeline from application through final inspection, listing at each stage who is responsible and what triggers the next step; practice questions that ask who bears the consequence when a required inspection was skipped or work proceeded without approval.