How To Hire and Work With a Great Contractor

When people buy a house or car or even enter into a personal relationship, they tend to do a great deal of due diligence prior to committing. They communicate their wants and needs and if those requirements are not met or they get a bad feeling they don’t go through with the deal.

I think people tend not to do the same amount of research on contractors because there isn’t an easy way to do so. And communication with contractors is difficult because they don’t understand the details of the trade and/or they feel insecure.

Here are a few tips to help you hire and work with a contractor.

Do a Background Check

You wouldn’t hire a baby sitter or even a mechanic without SOME incite as to how good they are.

Thankfully there are services like www.TrueBlueContractors.com that make this part easy as pie by doing a full background check.

But you should still call references, talk to the contractor about their work, look at pictures they may have, see how long they have been doing this type of work, etc. If you don’t have a good feeling than move on!

Communicate

Once you are comfortable you have a good candidate, communication is the key to any good relationship. Most contractors are good people and just like you and I. They have families and houses and are just trying to make a living too. The main thing you want to do is align expectations.

Price is always the obvious thing you make sure you both agree on, but what about:

1. Length of time.
2. Materials.
3. Cleanliness.
4. Fit and finish.
5. How to handle unexpected surprises.

Unexpected Surprises

Understanding that unexpected things pop up during construction is probably one of the best things you can do to have a great relationship with your contractor.

• Homes are made of all different kinds of materials, building codes change over time, things wear out, houses literally move and get squeezed when the temperature and humidity changes. A contractor never knows what he is going to find when he pulls a cabinet or knocks a wall down. A surprise could cost you more than originally anticipated. Understanding that’s not always the contractors fault is key.

• Weather is unpredictable and can affect your project in countless ways.

1. Outside work can’t be done in bad weather.
2. Wood, metal, and other materials can swell or shrink.
3. Paint and drywall compounds can take much longer to dry in damp weather.
4. Trucks can tear up a wet lawn.
5. Etc.

• Based on construction work not necessarily being steady, contractors typically have multiple jobs going at the same time. Some times an emergency happens at another job and yours gets delayed. Or it could be you with the emergency and someone else getting delayed!

Lingo

Like any profession, construction has its own terms and lingo. While it’s impractical to learn all the lingo, it is up to you to stop and ask what something is if you don’t understand.