How to Vet a Contractor

The thing people actually fear

Ask homeowners what went wrong on their last project and the answer is rarely craftsmanship, and it is rarely price. It is being left. A deposit taken and then nobody answering. Five weeks past the finish date with no communication. Warranty work promised and then never done.

It is common enough that people now check court records before they make a phone call. That is a reasonable thing to do and we would rather you did it.

Checks worth doing

None of these take more than a few minutes:

• Confirm they are registered and insured, and ask for the certificate rather than taking the claim. In Pennsylvania, anyone doing more than five thousand dollars of home improvement work a year has to register with the Attorney General, and the number has to appear in their advertising.
• Search county court records for the business name and the owner's name. Judgments and repeated disputes are public.
• Ask for two references from work finished more than a year ago. Recent references tell you the job looked good on the last day. Older ones tell you whether it held up, and whether they came back.
• Read reviews for detail rather than count. Ten reviews that describe a specific job tell you far more than four hundred that just say 'great work.'

Real warning signs

• A large deposit demanded up front. Some deposit is normal, since materials have to be bought. An amount that covers most of the job is not.
• Pressure to decide today, or a discount that expires.
• No written scope, or a scope that is one line and a number.
• A quote given without ever visiting the property, on work that is below ground.
• Refusal to put change order terms in writing.
• No paperwork at all. The payment method by itself is not the red flag, since plenty of good small contractors prefer a check. The missing contract is.

What a good written scope contains

• What is included and, just as importantly, what is not.
• Materials specified by type, not described as quality.
• A payment schedule tied to milestones rather than dates.
• What triggers a change order and how it gets priced.
• A start window and an estimated duration, with a note on what could move it.
• Warranty terms. What is covered, for how long, and how to make a claim.

If you have all of that in writing, most of the ways this goes wrong are already closed off.

Ask what happens when it goes wrong

Every project hits something. Rock where there should be soil, water damage under a floor, a material that is suddenly six weeks out.

The question worth asking is not whether problems happen. It is how you will hear about them. The right answer is that you get told the day it is found, with the cost implication, before the work continues.