Ask Lemmy

Every single time

The secret is to do a lot of research, read reviews from multiple sources, and shop around

Sure, yes. And even more often impressed with the work we got done 'under the table' so to speak - jobs we asked for done by people who did work on the side, we have an electrician who works commercial jobs but does side gigs, he put hurricane proof lights and fans on our back porch, it turned out exactly as I wanted and did survive a hurricane. We have a plumber friend who does side work on weekends.

Also the permitted and legally sanctioned work has been good. Happy with the guys who did the roof, and with our windows, happy with the work we got done when we moved in (moving walls and plumbing around).

I love to negotiate, in general, but absolutely do not when contracting for house renovations. I pay what they ask for. Might ask if there is a more affordable solution or do some of the work to help some if time permits, and do get multiple quotes on some of it, but with a couple of exceptions we have been so happy with the work done to our house. I have a clear vision and am able to communicate it, and I guess it has all been possible to do.

Yes. The trick is not to be a cheap ass, but also not to get hustled. So I guess you have to know something about the work being done?

Edit:

Also, I keep the extra materials. I paid for them. They are mine.

We have an incredible contractor. A friend who used them to remodel two homes referred us, they modernized an apartment then remodeled a home to fit their several kids better. He’s super nice, super professional, can do almost anything or knows a guy who can. His two sons work for him and they’re also just so nice and pleasant. Everything they do is perfect or they make it perfect for free after the fact. I love our contractor and if anyone lives in the PNW who’s looking for an incredible contractor…. He’s not cheap but you get what you pay for and what he builds is built to last.

I just accept that nothing ever looks perfect and do as much as possible myself. Especially since covid and the labour shortages contractors are paid in gold bars.

Basicly the only thing I still really get professionals for when liability is a factor. Structural work, gas fed system, or more complex electrical work. Basicly anything that when it's not done correctly it could hurt or kill people, i still don't wanna risk cowboying myself.

Yep. Bought a home that needed work done. Found a great contractor through the guy we bought the new kitchen from. The contractor added an extension to the house, installed new floors with heated flooring system, AC, new ceilings with built in lighting, rewired the house and did all the prep for the new kitchen. He was fantastic.

Now, the guys who did our new bathroom on the other hand.... The people who did the work were great. The ones who sold it to us and were responsible for planning and materials were awful. Wrong materials and bad planning meant several weeks of delay before we could move in.

Due to a hail storm last week, I'm getting ready to put the 4th roof on my house in the 20 years I've lived here. The first time I had a storm chaser do the work and honestly they did a great job. The next was done by a local contractor because my wife wanted to change some colors and I wanted to upgrade some of the materials. The local contractor did a great job, the only real difference than the storm chaser was they took a lot longer. In the end though the job they did was really good.

Three years ago we had the basement finished by a local contractor. Very happy with the work and the few minor issues that were revealed during the final inspection were quickly fixed. The only complaint was with the plumber. They spec'd the cheapest crap for the bathroom and I missed it on the bid. I've had to replace the toilet and am getting ready to replace the sink faucet already.

I have found the secret to picking contractors for working on a house is asking people involved in the industry. The realtor we bought the house through is the wife of MY wife's coworkers. She had decades of experience in the housing market in our area. So we asked her and she gave us several contractors she trusted. We then asked those contractors who they liked working with and so on and so forth. So now 20 years later I have a full list of contractors to do just about any type of work on the house.

It's been great as the house ages. When the hot water heater failed, the plumber was out here with a new unit, installed it and was out the door within 8 hours. We didn't even miss a shower. Just a note, this is not the same plumber that did the installation during the basement finishing. I would not go back to them.

At a former residence, I had some good roofers, and I've heard since that - 20 years later - a descendant of the same company and one of the original roofers made a return visit to repair some storm damage.

Here, I've not really had need for long term work. The worst was a gas leak and that was seen to in short order by a couple of very capable engineers. Frankly, I was probably a worse customer than they were as contractors. (House is a mess. I had unexpected payment problems.)

On the flip side, I've had guys nearly come through a ceiling and have heard of a contractor straight up ghosting a relative after the contractor made a mistake they didn't want to (or couldn't) rectify. Also, the less said about some dodgy landscapers, the better.

No, not really. They are apparently 99% predatory scumbags or incompetent junkies who will fuck you over as soon as possible. They fill me with such rage that I have given up on using those lying assholes for almost everything except for roofing, some electrical, and some plumbing.

If you have to subject yourself to their bullshit: Always get at least 3 quotes from licensed bonded professionals. If they aren't licensed and bonded, tell them to go jump into a wood chipper because it is 100% not worth the risk.

Generally no. I feel like I'm always getting screwed. High price, rushed job because they don't care/have to get to the next job.

One house emergency I'm dealing with right now (I have several) is that the contractor who installed a toilet and tile (paid by previous owner) half assed it and didn't seat the toilet properly and didn't install the tiles properly. So water leaked from underneath the toilet, traveled through hollow tiles, and reached my drywall. I got a mold problem now.

This is why I generally try to do things myself. I don't trust people.

Soo… the answer is yes BUT

1. I have hired dozens of contractors over the years (maybe as high as a 100) for everything from tree removals to bathroom remodels to driveway replacements. Hell I hired one rebuild a 100 foot bulkhead with a 75 foot pier.
2. I can count on one hand the number of times where that has not been a fucking pain in the ass at some point during the process. That has not always been the contractors fault directly, materials don’t show up, the permit was delayed.. etc etc. many times it was because the contractor was fucking up.
3. The most frustrating ones have always been the kitchen and bathroom remodels as my family and I had to live in it 24x7.

Yes. We bought cabinets and a new floor for our kitchen and the guy who installed them was an independent contractor old guy who worked with his son. I always stay away from the bigger companies. This was a case where he made money, we paid money, and we both walked away happy.

Guy did my tiling throughout the house 20 years ago and it looks like it was done yesterday.

But after 2020, contractors got addicted to price gouging and it's been one scam artist after another.

Rarely. Usually I have to tell them how to do their jobs. Ive had 1 good one.

Dont ever have them do work when you aren't home and can watch. They want to get in get paid and get out. If they accidentally cave in your block wall foundation a little bit, "it was already like that, it's an old house".

I HATE contractors. Big reason I try to do everything myself I I can.

Another reason I can't stand them, they have awful communication skills. Never returning calls etc.

I'm paranoid enough about it (and also stingy enough) that I mostly do my own work. I hired somebody to fix my HVAC once or twice because I know very little about troubleshooting it and they satisfactorily replaced the compressor capacitor, but later when the blower motor quit working (and I was able to figure out the problem on my own) I replaced that myself. Everything else, including plumbing, electrical, drywall, etc. that's been done to my house in the last decade and a half, I've done myself.

I need to replace my roof soon, which (being critical to finish quickly once you start) is not a job I feel comfortable DIYing, but I can't bring myself to try to hire anybody either. It's a dilemma.

Yup. Everything from the guy who built an Ikea wardrobe for me when my back was out to the guys who built our extension. Personal recommendations and not going with the cheapest quote seem to work for me.

I get genuine gratitude for my work from my customers every single week. I have gotten gift baskets too and people have even offered to pay more than I was charging. One of my customers recently moved to a different city and is now paying me extra for the travel time just so that they can get me to work on their home because they know I have high standards for quality.

Not all contractors are the same. Some just do it for the money - for me it's a passion. It's easy to stand out when the bar is so low.

Yup. I've never been unhappy with the work a contractor did for me. Heck, when the balcony door broke the other day the receptionist of the guy who wasn't in called around to find someone who was available. Half an hour later I was able to close the door again.

My plumber is good. We were among his first customers, and we paid him on time. Since then, we get top notch service every time.

Like when he came in on Christmas morning to fix our kitchen tap.

Just had one set of subcontractors throw away material for other fixes… Lead group days that the ones involved are no longer a part of the project, so we’re on the hook for even more.

Surely that's not how that works. Somebody owes you the money for that material, although you might have to sue to get it.

Following my wife's leg amputation in February, we had to have a BUNCH of work done before the hospital would let me bring her home.

Bonus, I had to arrange for ALL of this between getting a cancer diagnosis and having surgery.

1. Wheelchair ramp. Approved the bid on a Friday, ramp was installed the next Monday. All told, stellar work. Post install, needed one modification to keep from being fenced out of part of the property, they took care of that too.

Problem was their BILLING department. I paid 1/2 up front to get the job started, 1/2 on completion, but they failed to track the down and kept insisting I owed $5,900 that I did not. I kept the receipts and showed them, no, paid in full.

2. Bathroom. This was actually TWO contractors. #1 pulled the bathtub and converted it to a walk in shower. #2 widened the bathroom door for wheelchair access, shortened a wall that was blocking access, pulled the double sink and vanity to install a smaller single sink, and all that required pulling and replacing the floor.

Everything went as expected. The only problem was they said not to use the shower for 24 hours and when I went to use it, they had forgotten to turn the water back on. 😔 They did come back and fix it the next morning.

3. They wanted to saddle us with this 300 lb. behemoth wheelchair that we had no way of transporting. They said we couldn't use my existing wheelchair because it needed a "limb support" for the amputation and there was no way to mount it on my chair.

So step 1: Obtain limb support. Nobody locally had one. Special order only. So I bought one online for $500.

THEN I had to figure out how to attach it. Under the seat on mine there was an aluminum strut in exactly the right spot, so it was a matter of finding a local metal shop, having them weld an aluminum tube onto that strut, inserting the support into the tube and bolting it into place.

The guys at the metal shop were amazing, figured out the process, proof of concept worked for the hospital and my wife now has her own modified chair in purple and gold. LOL.

Both tubes have now been painted to match their respective chairs.

Sure, I've had both good and bad experiences. The contractors putting a new heating system into my house did quite a good job for example. They even took the time to explain to me how to do some troubleshooting myself if there are any issues.

On the other end of the spectrum are the people who were supposed to put solar panels on my roof, as they decided that they didn't like my roof when they were about a quarter of the way done (no panels installed) but still wanted me to pay like 3000€. Did not end up having to pay anything, but only after threatening with a lawyer.

Yes:

chimney guys

masonry guy

and technically a handyman and not a contractor, but the guy who replaced the pump for my boiler

Satisfied but not completely happy:

HVAC guy

roofing subcontractors

framer who redid the finished attic

plumber

Unsatisfied:

local do-it-all

HUD-approved contractor who did initial work

any and all carpenters

kitchen guy

electrician

I would like to shout-out to the window sash repair guy at the local hardware store who does do site visits but can fix vintage window sashes I remove and bring in, he's amazing

New roof 2 years ago, no complaints. The previous roof, 20 years before that, terrible experience. Took too long and too much rework.

I only go off recommendation, and it's for things I can't do or don't want to/have time to do.

I never got the service myself, but there is a landscaping contractor out here that handles, like, most of every landscaped property that isn't a city park and they are just awful at pretty much every aspect of landscaping. They don't know how to trim anything, they constsntly kill perfectly thriving plants, and the MOMENT anything with flowers bloom, they lop off all the flowers.

I've seen the high school's ornamental horticulture class do better work.

Mostly, no.

We hired someone to paint our house almost 30 years ago. That guy was fantastic. He was the only one we spoke to who would guarantee his work. He would test the moisture content if the surface he was painting before beginning, and he would only start when it was dry enough to ensure his adhesion.

We also found an HVAC company that we could trust to work on our boiler.

We've had at least 8 other companies do work so incompetently, I've just about given up.

One problem we have is that we have an older (>100 years) house, and people don't appear to know how to work on older homes anymore.

The other problem is just plain incompetence and lack of care.

I've never been one to balk at a high quote, but apart from the painter, it doesn't appear to matter. Paying more just gets you more expensive incompetence.

We had one contractor who was really good, but he's getting older and he's having his son take over, and his son isn't up to the challenge.

Edit: my mom has been satisfied with the work she's had done, but she hounds them mercilessly. If she doesn't like what they do, they have to redo it. We've had some satisfaction with that technique, but it wears you down. I've already got a full time job. I don't have any slack left to manage the people I hire to work on the house.

yes