Ask Jon Eakes

Last Updated: Wednesday, June 1st, 2011, Created: Thursday, February 7th, 2002

The Business of Renovation -- Part 3 -- Seeking out the Contractor.

Unless you have a great personal reference to a contractor, you will probably have to use the Yellow Pages, or an association list and start calling. Here are the kinds of questions to ask during that first contact on the phone. The objective here is to narrow the field to two or three contractors that you will invite over to your house to discuss the project thoroughly and request competing bids from each of them.

You can get details on all of this in a booklet called "Projects Done Right" put out by the Canadian Home Builder's Association which you can locate at www.HiringAContractor.com.

HISTORY: What is the history of this renovation company? How many years have they been in business? How did they get started? You are looking for stability and reputation.

SPECIALTY: What services do they specialise in? Let them tell you. If you ask if they specialise in what you are looking for, most all of them will say yes. You want people to work on your job that have done this same kind of work before.

EXPERIENCE: Has this company done work that is similar to yours? This is just another tack on the first two questions. You will begin to see if they are consistent in their answers.

REFERENCES: Ask them if they will supply references for similar work to yours. They probably won't give the actual references until after a first meeting, but you need to see if they hedge on this one now.

PROTECTION: Do they carry liability insurance & worker's compensation. Will they provide proof of this at your first meeting? If they don't have it, you are "liable" for a lot more risk that you might imagine.

GUARANTEE: Will they provide you with a written warranty for both products installed and the workmanship?

CONTINUITY: Will the same worker(s) who start your job, finish your job? The best assurance of this one comes from checking those references.

INTEGRITY: Are they willing to quote a price over the phone? A price over the phone is not a good sign, although a ballpark range could be legitimate. If they haven't looked at your house, seen the level of quality you have in the rest of the house, spotted unique difficulties, discussed alternatives with you, how can they possibly give you a good price. Either they will shoot way high to give them room to move, or they will stick to their price and cut in the quality to meet your dollar expectations. Only knowing both you and the job can a contractor price what you really want done.

If you would like to read the other two parts of this series, click "here".

Keywords: Contractors, Hiring, History, House, Quality, Renovation, Warranty

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