EP #4: How to Hire the Right Contractor for Your Window and Door Project
Oct 21, 2023
Jeff
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of hiring a contractor for your window door project? Fear not! Your hosts, Jeff Trapanese and Jeremy Wolf are about to simplify the process for you. We go beyond the surface, revealing how to make sense of the ocean of information available on the internet, the real implications of advertising, and the crucial role of word of mouth when vetting potential contractors. We also shine a spotlight on the importance of the Better Business Bureau in the contractor selection process.
We then take a deeper dive, exploring the essential questions that you need to ask potential contractors. From their years in business to their licensing status and insurance coverage - we cover it all. Beware of the red flags we point out, like contractors encouraging homeowners to pull their own permits or those offering to work without permits. Not to forget, we discuss the key role of the Department of Business and Public Professional Regulations in overseeing contractors. This episode is a comprehensive guide to ensure that you make the right choice for your window and door installation needs. Listen in for a stress-free and effective contractor selection experience.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of hiring a contractor for your window door project? Fear not! Your hosts, Jeff Trapanese and Jeremy Wolf are about to simplify the process for you. We go beyond the surface, revealing how to make sense of the ocean of information available on the internet, the real implications of advertising, and the crucial role of word of mouth when vetting potential contractors. We also shine a spotlight on the importance of the Better Business Bureau in the contractor selection process.
We then take a deeper dive, exploring the essential questions that you need to ask potential contractors. From their years in business to their licensing status and insurance coverage - we cover it all. Beware of the red flags we point out, like contractors encouraging homeowners to pull their own permits or those offering to work without permits. Not to forget, we discuss the key role of the Department of Business and Public Professional Regulations in overseeing contractors. This episode is a comprehensive guide to ensure that you make the right choice for your window and door installation needs. Listen in for a stress-free and effective contractor selection experience.
Welcome to the JTM Windows podcast. Designed to impress, engineered to endure. Here's your host, jeff Trappanyese.
Speaker 2:
Hello everyone and welcome to episode number four of the JTM Windows podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeremy Wolf. I'm here with your host, Jeff Trappanyese. Jeff, how's it going, brother?
Speaker 3:
It's going very, very good. Welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, thanks everyone for joining. We've been talking a little bit about customer prep. When considering window door projects, we went over some of the budgeting considerations before you even contact the contractor. Then you talked a little bit about style and product considerations. Now why don't you share a little bit about contractor selection? When it comes time to actually hire someone to help you with this, what are some things to consider?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, again, we've done our homework. We know how much we have to spend, we know what styles and products we like. Now we've got to figure out, well, who's going to put it in. For me that's a daunting, daunting challenge. How do we find that contractor? One of the first things that probably people are going to do we're going to go to Google or Home Advisors or Angie or Yelp or any of those different things. One of the big situations with that while they all work very well is number one. They're very informal. You're kind of like throwing a dart at a dartboard and hoping you hit a good contractor at that point. What also a lot of customers aren't aware of is when you're dealing with Home Advisors and Angie's list and Yelp and things like that is you're dealing with, on the contractor side, kind of a pay per lead situation where contractors are paying a certain amount per customer that's generated to them and that same lead is getting given to three contractors of that group. So, in essence, you call Angie's list hey, I'm looking to install some windows. You have a contractor who can recommend to me. I sure do. I'll get your information over to them. They'll contact you shortly to set up an appointment and then that lead then goes to three different contractors in their group and there you go, goes on from there. Again, that's to me that's not necessarily giving you the best quality of person or contractor that you have available to you. Again, that's a great advertising opportunity for many contractors and there's a lot of quality contractors that use that absolutely, but to me it's not the most important.
Speaker 3:
The second, the second thing that you look at is advertising. We look at magazines, we look at billboards. We look at you know trucks that drive by with you know wraps on their trucks and things of that nature, which are, again, are all great. A lot of those pictures that sometimes you see are not, you know, of actual homes or just generated homes. So we have to take that with a gear and assault as well. The next next two are the of to me the most value when really kind of making sure I'm finding the right person. The next one is, of course, watermouth.
Speaker 3:
If you've seen a friend, relative, neighbor, it's had work done, go and ask them hey, who'd you use, how did you like, how did they take care of your home? And again, now you have a real-world example to see the work that's being done. How's the caulking look? How's the cleanup look? Is there a bunch of debris around the house? Those types of things where you can actually see the results of what's going on there. And then the third, the fourth option is, again, you can always go to the better business bureau Once you start to dial in about a particular contracting group. Look at the better business bureau. How are they rated? Are there any complaints? Those types of things. So now we've kind of let's say we've we whittled it down to maybe two or three contractors that we're interested in talking to. Now how are we going to vet the quality of those three to make sure they're the right person and right fit for you?
Speaker 3:
One of the first kind of questions I ask is how long have you been in business? Is it something that you just started or you've been around for a number of years? What's your level of experience before you started your business? Are they licensed? Major, major question to ask Do you have a license? It?
Speaker 2:
seems rather important.
Speaker 3:
People seem to think, oh well, they'll be cheaper if they don't have a license. Not necessarily at all. Again, you're getting with a license, you're getting experience, you're getting competency, you're getting people that are doing the right process to make sure that their business is running correctly. To me, you also tend to find more legitimate businesses that way, versus kind of fly-by-night guys.
Speaker 3:
Contractors in Florida, especially southeast Florida, have gotten a very, very bad rap. There was something on the news a day or two ago about a homestead contractor taking 112,000 dollars from a family in the Keys and then ghosting them, never talking to them again. That makes me majorly concerned about how people are choosing the contractor. If that's the case, they really do need to be licensed. If they're asking you to pull your own permit, that's usually a red flag. They need to be able to pull their own permit.
Speaker 3:
If they're saying, oh, we can do this without a permit, again that's a red flag For cost. The building departments are there to protect you as a consumer. They're there to make sure that the work that that contractor is doing is up to standards and up to code and it's being done correctly. So don't look at it as a nuisance or an extra cost. It's actually there to make sure things are being done to what you need your standards to be Because, again, the code books are very, very, very thick and it's yeah, you have to have a Egyptian hieroglyphics degree sometimes to understand them all but again.
Speaker 3:
that's why the building departments are there. They're not there to be a nuisance. They're not there to bust your chops. They're there to protect you as a consumer.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for saying that, because sometimes as a homeowner it doesn't feel like that right. It feels like it's just bureaucracy and it's just there for red tape and problems. But fundamentally what it is for is to protect the homeowners and make sure the work is done properly. I think people People forget that sometimes.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, it's definitely a good point to have. There's also it's called the Department of Business and Public Professional Regulations that is there to oversee contractors. You can go onto that website at any time and see if there's any complaint against the contractor. Unlicensed activity, did they not do what they were supposed to do? Yada, yada, yada. It's important to maybe look at that option to see again if there's any negative complaints against them. If they're in stun, then that's usually a pretty good contractor. Are they insured? Do they have general liability? Do they have workman's comp? Again, this is another big topic where homeowners don't understand. If you bring somebody onto your property and they don't have general liability or workman's comp and they get hurt, that goes against your property insurance. So it's important to ask. There's no harm in asking for a certificate to be sent over. A lot of HOAs also require it to be sent over as well. If you live in an HOA, there's also they should have a corporation or an LLC open as well.
Speaker 3:
There's a website called sunbizorg. That's the Division of Corporations for the State of Florida. You can go in and put their company name in there under research and it'll tell you if they're an active status or an inactive status. Be careful if they're an inactive status, that means that the business is not currently running. You can also take the principal's name, the president of the company, and type that name into the sunbiz and see how many businesses they've opened. A lot of times what you'll find is, once a business has gotten into trouble, they'll just close that business down and go and open a new one. Same bad habits follow them to that new one. So it can't hurt to do a little research and look into that.
Speaker 3:
Do they work with contracts? Are they having you sign contract, go over the scope of work, what the terms of payment are, the timeline, things like that? Or are they just saying, oh, we can do it in this timeframe, just give me this check Again? Contracts make contractors legitimate. That's the whole point, purpose of being a contractor. Be also wary of contractors that want to pay or are asking you to pay in all cash. That's also a major red flag. A check should be fine. A check is a record of a payment that you made to that contractor. You cannot do that with cash. I don't care what invoice they give you, that's paid. You have no proof that you made that payment to them.
Speaker 3:
And then, lastly, how is that project going to be managed? In my particular case, I'm an owner operator, so not only am I the owner of the company, but I'm in the field, working side by side with my guys. A lot of times, with some bigger companies, they can't do that. So is there going to be a project manager? Who's the main contact person that you're going to be in contact with once that project does start? You don't want to just have a crew show up that you can't communicate with, or if there's a problem that starts to arise, you need to know who that main contact person is to get anything resolved right then and there.
Speaker 3:
Again, those are just some topics. Again, I don't want to make this sound like, oh, it's a very, very scary situation. No, I think if we follow these topics, it lets you really funnel down to what are the right type of people that you want to have come working in your home. If they hit these tick marks, then I think it's a very simple yes answer to that question. But if they start to don't, then you need to think about it a little bit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah for sure. I mean this is really great stuff because when it comes to making decisions in life not just for this type of project, but for anything any important decision it's so important to have a cohesive framework in place and, like you said, if you could just tick off all these boxes and it makes sense to move forward, you don't have to dwell upon whether or not you made a good or bad decision. You just you know everything lines up and you move forward with it and more often than not it works out favorably.
Speaker 3:
Yep, yep. All right, that's all I got for this topic, but I think it's. I think again, we've had a lot of great information here that customers may not be privy to, whether it be again a window and door project or any contractor at all. I think it's majorly important to take that to heart and understand. Preparation is the key to everything.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, jeff. Always a pleasure Everyone. Thank you for tuning in and we will catch you on the next episode. Everyone, have a great day, take care Bye.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the JTM Windows podcast. For more information, contact 954-667-3JTM that's 954-667-3586. Or email us at jeff at JTMwindowsAndDoorscom.