VIDEO - How To: Qualifying a Contractor [Explained]

If you’ve followed our recent video blog updates, you’ve noticed Randy has been spending some time with Annie Williams covering everything you as the homeowner needs to know in order to qualify the perfect contractor.

Today’s segment, Randy goes over how you can avoid getting burned by the run-of-the-mill contractor. keep watching for more!

Hi! I’m Annie Williams here today with Randy Hann from Contract Exteriors.

Annie: They’re are a lot of horror stories out there, Randy about homeowners who’ve been burned by contractors. How do we avoid this scenario?

Randy: Thanks for having me first of all! I would say there’s probably four key elements that a homeowner needs to look for. First one - which touches base on our last segment a little bit - is that they need to hire a company; they don’t need to hire a contractor. There’s a big difference between those two names and most people intertwine those two names and words.

What they need to do -- the number one thing -- is they need to make sure that company has an office. They have an office stay and a location. They’re vested in the community. When a contractor works out of his truck, because I’m just too busy, I can easily shut down that business, tomorrow. A company has an office, they have insurance, they have employees they’re supporting; which in turn, supports the local economy. And it’s very hard to shut down that type of business. That’s the first thing. If a homeowner doesn’t have that when they’re meeting with a contractor, or a business owner more importantly, they that’s a first red flag, I would say.

The next one is they need to be designated at what they’re doing. They need to have the backing of what they’re doing, they need to be involved in what they’re doing. So if I’m going to a doctor, the doctor has all of the certifications, tests, and education that allows them to be a doctor. But, for some reason, homeowners don’t check the same credentials in a contractor. They just say, “oh, you’re a roofer! OK, I’ll trust you to put on the roof” but, they don’t verify that they’re backed by a manufacture, or they’re members of NRCA -- which is a roofing organization, or the National Home Builders Association, or other organizations in the industry.

They need to make sure that contractor is actually doing all of their stuff to make sure that they’re the most prepared to do the work properly for that homeowner.

The next one is they need to have proper insurance. What a lot of homeowners don’t realize is a lot of insurances are actually fake policies and actually don’t protect the consumer. A real policy will actually make sure the consumer’s protected while that contractor is on their house and that the end result is that homeowner feels that peace of mind that the work will be done properly.

Annie: Once again, extremely valuable information for our homeowners!  I’m Annie Williams with Randy Hann from Contract Exteriors and please stay tuned for our next segment where we’ll do part-two of,How to Qualify a Contractor.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of How to Qualify a Contractor coming up in our blog!