Posted by Pops1532 on April 15, 2014 at 06:45:15 from (98.227.133.60):
In Reply to: Contractor no-show posted by MarkB_MI on April 15, 2014 at 03:33:35:
Mark,
I'm a contractor and I hate hearing stories like yours. Unfortunately there are plenty of bad contractors in my industry. Some of those actually do very good work, but they have poor business practices. Others are just clueless.
There was a red flag you missed. When you indicated that you would order the material the contractor should have balked. Except in rare instances it's usually the fly by night operators that get into deals where the customer buys the materials. A good contractor will generally walk away from a potential job when the owner wants to furnish the material for a number of reasons....
It's likely the material won't be suitable for the project.
It's likely the customer won't have the correct quantities of material.
It's likely the customer won't have the material onsite when it needs to be onsite.
And the contractor can't mark up the cost of the material. The mark up on the material is often the difference between turning a profit on a job or just making wages.
You did the right thing by asking the former manager to refer someone. I suspect he gave the reference based on the quality of work, but perhaps didn't consider the quality of service.
It doesn't necessarily sound like it was the case here, but we all like to spend the least we can for something. Home owners often get too focused on searching for the lowest price when they should be searching for the best value. Rarely will lowest price equate to the best value. The lowest priced guys are often the fly by night operators. The contractors that have built a good reputation and have been in business the longest are often among the highest priced. That doesn't mean they are over priced. They just know what they have to charge to be profitable so they can stay in business to provide good service to their customers in the future. The low priced guys are usually only in business for a few years.
To address some of the replies...
There is no (good) reason for a contractor or any other business to not return a call within 24 hours.
Not all contractors are liars.
While they don't cost much, performance bonds do add to the cost of a project. Many if not most home owners don't want to pay the addition cost the contractor would have to charge.
Subcontractors not showing up when they are supposed to can be real a problem. One which is best remedied by the general hiring new subs for future projects.
HenryO brought up a good point about hiring licensed contractors. Hiring a contractor that is licensed is no guarantee they'll do quality work, or show up when they are supposed to, but it does give the customer some recourse. In my area we have to be licensed and bonded. After nearly 20 years of having those requirements there are still many unlicensed, unbonded and uninsured contractors in this area because so many home owners are laser focused on the lowest price.
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