Do have something you’d like to improve in your home? It seems like many people always have some kind of running list of things they would like to get done at home. Some of them can really make a home feel much more livable, and even improve marketability to potential buyers.
When doing renovations, one can always take the DIY route, or pay someone to get the work done for you. Personally, I lean toward hiring a professional over DIY for some things that require more specialized knowledge or time. Why spend inordinate amounts of time and money unless you can do it right?
Anyway, if you do go the professional route for major home improvement projects, it’s good to be careful. For example, I know that a close family member picked out one person for a particular project, and it turned into a disaster where the guy wouldn’t show up and left work half-finished. To avoid situations such as that, it’s a good idea to do your due diligence when hiring someone to work on home improvement projects.
Here are tips for finding the right home improvement contractor:
- Have a clear vision of the project. Before talking to any potential candidates for the work, have a very good idea of exactly what you want done. This will save time and avoid any misunderstandings later. Plus, you don’t want to risk having the scope your project expanded later, and pay for things you never originally intended to get done.
- Ask family and friends for referrals. Sometimes, for many of us, it’s a big unknown as to whether or not the person we’re considering for work will be good or not. One could try Angie’s List (I haven’t, but would be interested to do so sometime), but family and friends are right there to answer questions – provided they live close enough to have used someone you could potentially hire.
- Get At Least Three Bids. This is important. Going with the first person you speak with might seem easy and expedient, but you often need to get different quotes. Personally, in my work experience when hiring vendors to do projects, I’ve generally sought out at least 3 vendors for bids. Granted, these were not home improvement, but marketing/finance related projects, but the concept holds. Make the project expectations clear with each, so you can compare each contractor on an apples to apples basis.
- Ask for References, and Call Them. Someone may talk a good game, provide a good quote, but have limited experience. Again, call them to verify the quality of work and capabilities of the contractor you are considering hiring.
- Be Careful With Payment Agreements. Make sure that you arrange for payments to be made in such a way that doesn’t give the contractor too much up front. Once money is in hand, there’s less incentive to hustle and get the job done as well. Arrange for payment to be made in installments as milestones are completed. This could have helped the family member to whom I referred earlier.
My Questions for You:
What do you think of this list? Is there anything you’d like to add to it?
What have your home improvement or contractor experiences been like?
Good morning!
I would add to make sure the contractor has insurance You also want to check into warranties of any kind–this could give one contractor a leg up over the others.
We are currently getting bids on our poor foundation. Ouch! We are in an exceptional drought here in Texas, and a lot of people’s foundations are wrecked.
Amanda – that’s a good addition, and you make a good point. Insurance and warranties can only help. Also, best of luck with the foundation work! I know it’s been severely dry in Texas over the last few months.
Molly – that’s a really good addition. Sometimes, people getting work done simply can’t remember everything you ask for, or all the exact details. In some cases, certain individuals might pretend to forget. Best to be detail oriented.
Getting the right contractor is key. Make sure that you ask a lot of questions and make sure they are comfortable with what you want them to do. A good general contractor may not be good at detailed carpentry work – is he going to sub out or try to do it himself. Will it look good. What will he do if you’re not happy, etc?
Robert – yes, I agree. Good idea to ask questions during the process. Also good points on their getting subcontractors for any work. You’ll want to know their skill level as well.
A good list. We had a roof replaced & got 10 estimates! My husband wants to get the best deal! The range of prices was huge! We ended up going with the cheapest one not only for the price, but the owner seemed know what he was talking about. They did a great job & cleaned up after themselves just the way they said they would. Such a pleasant experience.
Maggie – wow, 10 estimates! If you can fit in the time, that’s great. A roof is an expensive job, so it’s worth it to make sure you’re working with the right person and getting the right price. Glad it worked out for you guys.
Depending on your job, if you can pay a little less attention to it then many things you can do on your own, you don’t need to always hire an expert. But the points are excellent when it comes to hiring an expert home ‘improver’ or car mechanic or an expert of any kind.
SB – yeah true, it changes things a bit if you can do some work yourself. My own way of handling most bigger things is to not be a DIY type, but everyone has their own comfort level.
I save money by doing it myself. Haha, I hire myself out. Thankfully, I did construction for awhile during college and I don’t have to hire people for the most part.
Jon – if you’ve got the skills, know-how, and the time – why not? In my case, I have some skills, less know-how, and even less time. At least compared to the pros. This is why I hire out:)
Have you used Angie’s List before to look up contractors? I always hear commercials for Angie’s List… apparently it’s supposed to be like a Yelp for service professionals. But I have never used it before.
I’ve had good luck using Angie’s List. You have to pay to belong so I think it cuts way down on the abuse that seems to crop up on a lot of the review sites. You can usually get a pretty good sense of the company’s work if there are a lot of reviews. I also use it to get a feel for what a project might cost since that’s one of the info fields. So if you need to know how much a rubber roof would cost, for example, you can skim through a bunch of reviews to get an idea of costs.
We’re just starting to renovate — in fact, this weekend we’re putting up drywall. We’ll DIY the framing, but hire someone to put up the wall. Since this is a simple project that we can immediately supervise and should take 2-3 hours, we’ll just hire off Craigslist. I don’t know yet how we’ll hire for bigger projects, but I like the Angie’s List idea.
Paula – if you remember, it would be nice to hear after the fact about your experience hiring off craigslist for this work.