Tips For Hiring Home Remodeling Contractors

Tips For Hiring Home Remodeling Contractors

Home Remodeling Contractors: How To Avoid Hiring Bad Ones

 

Home remodeling contractors sometimes get a bad reputation for overcharging and underperforming. Hopefully, this article will help you to avoid the bad remodeling contractors local and hire only the best general contractors. There are also some easy home remodeling ideas included at the end, to help get you started off on the right foot.

Get Recommendations For Home Remodeling Contractors

 

Start the search with your friends and family and then double-check those recommendations with the National Association of the Remodeling Industry to get a list of reliable members in your local area. You want to speak with a building inspector, because he will know which contractors are the best at meeting code requirements. You can also head on over to your local lumberyard, which has contractors come in regularly and knows exactly which ones purchase the quality materials and pay their bills in a timely manner. In other words, consider going straight to the source to find out about contractors.

Conduct Phone Interviews With General Remodeling Contractors

 

Once you’ve gotten a list together, it’s easy to make a quick phone call to each of the prospects and just ask them some questions:

 

• Do they often take on projects of your size?
• Are they accustomed to providing financial references, from banks or suppliers?
• Can you get a list of previous clients from them?
• How many other projects would they have going on at the same time?
• For what period of time have they worked with their subcontractors?

 

How the general remodeling contractors answer these questions will tell a lot about the company’s reliability, availability, and the level of attention and concentration they’ll be able to give to your project and just how smoothly the whole operation will go.

 

Based on how the phone interviews go, schedule a meeting with three or four home remodeling contractors. Get estimates and have a further discussion with them. A contractor needs to be able to answer your questions in a satisfactory manner that puts your mind at ease. It’s important that you two communicative in an effective manner because this is the person who will be in your home for several hours at a time. If you two are having communication problems from the beginning, it can be a bad sign of things to come. However, you shouldn’t let personality fool you, either. Find out more information with your state’s consumer protection agency and the Better Business Bureau to make certain that contractors don’t have a pattern of problems with subcontractors or clients.

Check Out The Facts Behind Home Remodeling Contractors

 

Now that you’ve culled your list down, put your research to good use. Call up past clients to find out how their project went and to see how well the home remodeling contractors did the job. You shouldn’t rely on these results alone, though. Another thing you could do is visit an existing project site and see how the contractor is doing. Is the job site safe and neat? Are workers careful and courteous with the property of the homeowner?

 

Make Plans And Get Bids From Home Remodeling Contractors

 

You should now have a short list of contractors whose track records look clean and whose work ethic seems responsible. It’s about time that you stop looking back into the past and looking forward to your new project. A good contractor will want a set of blueprints and a great sense of what homeowners want out of a project and how much they are planning on spending. To compare bids, ask everyone to break down the expenses, profit margins, and the cost of labor and materials. Materials will usually cost about 40% of the total cost; the rest will cover the typical profit margin and overhead. 

 

Come Up With A Payment Schedule For Home Remodeling Contractors

 

Payment schedules are great for home remodeling contractors. Payment schedules can also speak volumes about a contractor’s work ethic and financial status. If they want half the money up front, they could have financial problems or be afraid that you won’t pay the rest of the money after you’ve seen the finished work.