Tired of your worn old kitchen cabinets and paneled lighting? Wondering where to go to update your kitchen? When it comes to who to hire for a kitchen remodel, you might have run into a wall, no pun intended! You decide to turn to an online review place, social media, or quote service, but then you’ve heard the horror stories and are just not sure what to do or say once you contact these companies? Will they even answer? Will they call you back or are they really any good? How will you know or trust them?
How to Search for a Trustworthy Company
The answer is really not as complicated as it may seem at first. But in our humble opinion, the best way to find a good company to do your kitchen remodel is usually by personal referral. Let’s say you’ve been invited to a neighbor’s house, and lo and behold they have the same house model as you do, but their kitchen is off the charts beautiful! You ask them, “Hey, by the way, who did your kitchen?” And they might say “Well, it was ABC Company, but we really didn’t like them because this and that” or they might say “Yeah absolutely, these guys were awesome in every way. Highly recommend. They were responsive, efficient, clean, respectful, did great work, cared about our vision and listened to our needs.”
There is nothing like a personal recommendation as you can see. People will generally not lie to your face or say that someone who messed up with them is a wonderful contractor. People will tell you honestly the good, bad and ugly. However, even this is not always foolproof. Believe it or not, people still have poor experiences even with referrals. So, referrals aren’t always the answer either! See below for vetting and meeting advice!
But You Don’t Know Anyone
HOWEVER, if you don’t have this kind of social interaction, are fairly new to your area and home, or don’t generally like the work you’ve seen around, this route isn’t going to work for you. You will have to cast your net wider and go to internet sources, the yellow pages or answer advertisements. In these cases, you will encounter dozens upon dozens of remodeling and construction companies.
Sometimes you will be part of a neighborhood group on social media sites, and you can even ask for recommendations and ask for specific examples. This can work but also can be a 50-50 chance that the companies you reach out to will respond, or work for you the same way. I have asked for recommendations several times for cleaning people and have been burned more than once! This is after hearing high praise on social media. I also had two hairdresser recommendations that both nearly ruined my hair! So, this isn’t always the best route either, though every route requires vetting.
Sometimes you can go on a site like Thumbtack, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Porch, Yelp, etc and request quotes. This route is perfectly fine. I’ve had very good luck finding plumbers, electricians, HVAC help and more this way. This is because I’ve become very good at vetting the contractors.
How to Vet a Contractor
When you meet a contractor, it may be the contractor, business owner, or salesperson that meets with you.
Are they a good listener?
Generally, because you’re meeting them in person, you can get a good sense of the person right away. You should start by making some small talk, just to get a sense of the person. Do they seem honest in the way they respond? Are they respectful and considerate in how they respond to you?
These are very telling traits. If they talk over you, act like a bull in a China shop, say yes to everything without hearing you out, or instead of answering the question you ask, they answer other questions, you can see these things as red flags that they aren’t listening. And that can be a big problem when you’re doing remodeling work, because when it comes to your house, it’s not a haircut. That hair isn’t growing back, and it’s a lot more money. Those changes are fairly permanent and will be very costly to change. You want to get it right the first time. For more information you can contact us.
They should not pretend to know what they don’t know
Then, you’ll want to lead the contractor to your areas you want to upgrade. You’ll explain what you want to do and ask any questions. Pay attention to how they answer. They should be comfortable with the questions since this is their expertise. But if they don’t know the answer, you want to make sure they don’t say things like “Well probably this and probably that.” It is important that they say they will look into it and get back to you. Not knowing something and pretending to know is a good recipe for disaster!
Know and research budgets and cost
A savvy homeowner will have done their due diligence, and researched cost and budget. It saves everyone’s time to say around the budget you’re thinking or comfortable with, but most likely a contractor has to do some work putting together numbers before they get back to you. This is very important, because if you do a search on google for cost of remodeling a kitchen, the range is very wide because they are including every place in the world and every type of remodel. You might think it’s so straightforward, but there are so many costs involved, time, and certain considerations that may increase labor or call for different materials. And material cost is always changing.
Do not accept your lowest bid just because it’s low
A low bid may be exciting, like “Yay, I can get a new kitchen and still go on that vacation!” – but heed this warning, you do get what you pay for in most situations. In your job, do you go to your boss and say, “Please give me the lowest salary in the industry for my job, that will be perfect!” Of course not, because you value yourself and your work. You know what you’re worth! Same with a contractor.
Though a good contractor will always try to understand the budgetary limitations some people may have, they can’t just cut all their costs. They have their labor cost, which doesn’t change. Imagine telling their workers that today they’re worth $80, not $200. Also they can’t tell Home Depot that the lumber should be $100, not $1000. Just as they can’t go to the gas station and fill up the tank and not pay the rising gas price.
Also, a contractor who has a team of people has overhead. If you hire one guy who does everything himself (and for big jobs, no one can because building materials are very heavy and often jobs require multiple people to help), he may be able to work a cheap price, but is that guy insured? Bonded? Are you protected if he messes up, or something happens to him in the middle of your project? Are the guys he’s working with good guys?
You don’t want a contractor who just picks up guys on the corner who may be criminals for all you know. When it comes to big costs like remodeling, you don’t want to get burned. You’re taking a gamble at a low cost. The best thing to do is to look for a reasonable cost that is in range of industry standard costs for your area. You can go on Google or Bing and type your project in city, so for instance “Kitchen Remodeling in Mission Viejo, CA” – and in the results page, if you scroll down there should be a place on the page that displays the average number…
Are they responsive, answer your questions and communicate effectively?
You will be comfortable handing a big check over to someone who actually gets back to you, talks to you and communicates well. Otherwise, it can make you very nervous dealing with contractors who never call back, text back or email back. Generally, you can trust someone who actually gets back to you or answers their phone. Of course, some contractors may be up on a ladder or operating a loud drill during the day, but within 24 hours is a reasonable expectation of response time.
Trust is the key
The key to whom you should hire for your kitchen remodel, is to hire someone you feel you can trust. Their experience, years in business, character, responsiveness, and communication should all be considered to build that sense of trust.
