The Expert Podcast

So how do you find a good contractor to work on your house and now this video is not about finding one that's available because that's at this day and age half the battle it's how to determine if they're a quality contractor we'll do other videos and we've done some in the past about how to get one even to call you back but assuming you have a contractor lined up that's willing to work for you how do you make sure they're any good how do you judge them how do you vet them here's a couple tips that'll help you find a good contractor and make sure that who you're dealing with is on the up and up put your comments below too and let us know what you think about all this and if you have experience with good contractors or bad contractors we want to hear it.

First thing is you want to make sure they're licensed contractors in almost every state require a very specific license to do business as a general contractor subcontractor electrician make sure they're licensed in your state make sure your their license is valid has not expired most state licensing divisions also have a section where you can find complaints has their license ever been suspended revoked you want to look at that and the reason why.

Next you want to make sure they have insurance normally as part of a license you have to have liability insurance a bond and sometimes work comp insurance you want to make sure your contractor has that because if they don't and something goes wrong with your job somebody gets hurt you get hurt they cause damage you don't have any recourse and that can cost you a lot of money the licensing division normally holds records for the insurance of a general contractor in fact in most states if the insurance is cancelled or not renewed the insurance company is required to notify the licensing bureau and the license gets pulled automatically so check that part out too same with work comp because you don't want somebody working on your job without insurance if somebody falls off the roof they could sue you even though you are not the business you're just a homeowner.

Next and this one might take a little work you want to look at some prior jobs that has been done by that contractor pull some permits from the county records showing what work they've done in the past what jobs they performed in the past how did that work go how long did it take if you see a job that's similar to yours let's say for putting a deck on a house and they're telling you 30 days but the last one took four months well now you know that maybe their estimate isn't that big a deal you also want to look to see if there's any problems with those permits were the inspections completed the first time did they have to get three or four tries at an inspection approval did they file the right paperwork you'll see that in the permit record for that job.

As you look at those jobs write down the information about that property maybe drive by these properties to see how the work looks is the deck look any good does the fence look good is the siding level and even if you really want to take it a step further you can contact those prior clients now we don't recommend going to knock on the door or you know call them up out of the blue but if you send them a note in the mail asking them look i'm i'm possibly doing business with a contractor that you might have some experience with if you're interested to give me some feedback let me know you don't want to be stalking somebody or or being creepy but you can get some good information from prior clients.

At the same time you can ask the contractor what jobs are working on right now have any open jobs and go take a look at those you can get a lot of good information about looking at a job site are the materials organized and stacked neatly any excess or scrap or waste you know things that are cut off of lumber that you know trim out different framing trim out different moldings where is that kept is it just scattered over the job site or is it thrown in a dumpster is the site graded where there's not loose materials where people can trip over trip hazards are one of the largest injury factors on a job site also look to see if it looks safe are there ladder scaffolding and you can get a good idea of how a company runs its operation by how organized a job site looks especially a building site because that's not something you have a lot of time to create over many years an office you look at an office and they have a lot of time over the years to make that look good but a job site gets put together for a few months and then get gets deconstructed so look how their job site is staged are the vehicles parked neatly are they just scattered everywhere is there trash everywhere even look at something like beer bottles we've seen you know beer bottles on a job site it's not a good look for a contractor so take a look at the current job site to see how they're running their show.

Unless take a look at their equipment and vehicles are they in good repair are they cleaned are there leaks do they look old not the vehicle that the sales person comes to pitch the job and give you a quote but the vehicles that are used on the job site maybe look at their staging yard off hours drive by their operation on the weekend to see how their equipment is parked in the yard what does it look like are the hydraulics leaking all over the place is it covered is there junk everywhere.

Remember the relationship you have with a contractor is going to exist beyond just the time they're there certainly for that three or four months they're working on your property you're going to deal with them you have to deal with them drinking playing loud music swearing on the job site so you want to make sure that that is handled but even if you can say i can deal with that for three or four months you're gonna have to deal with the workmanship of that remodel addition new construction for years maybe decades so make sure you know what you're getting into and that you're going to have a good final product.

Also look to see that they have a youtube channel a lot of high quality builders now document and track some of their jobs and you can get an idea of how their construction is done how it's performed there's a lot of great youtube channels for builders and even if you're not looking at one that you're going to hire maybe there's one in another part of the country you can watch the videos to see how a good contractor runs their job site and compared to what you're seeing with your own two eyes.