Besides the quality of work, what separates great contractors from so-so contractors is attitude. The difference between like and love is referrals.

Surrounded by contractors – who will I refer?

Paint contractor – I told him I wanted the entire house painted except for the ceilings. He gave me a flat-rate quote, including paint. He didn’t have a checklist and he didn’t ask me any questions, except for how many colors I wanted. I told him he had two weeks to get the job done because I had bathroom contractors lined up for the following week and hardwood floor installation after that.

Results:

• He took a week to prep.
• He gets to the job site every day around 2:00 p.m. and paints until around 6:00 p.m.
• He rinses painting equipment in my kitchen sink and leaves paint all over the sink and counter. He also rinses equipment on the ground cover in my front yard, leaving paint everywhere.
• In the middle of the job, he left to go work on another house for three days.
• When I saw that he hadn’t sprayed the closets, I asked about it. His response? “You never said anything about painting closets.” Frustrated, I replied, “I told you I wanted the entire house painted.” This is why checklists are a good thing. Communication stunk.
• He’s taken over three weeks and the job is still not done. Now he and the bathroom contractors are bumping into each other. The walls are sprayed, but the touch-up work is not finished.
• He accidentally over-sprayed onto the ceilings in every room.
• He painted over the over-sprayed spots with white satin (my ceiling finish is flat) and the whites don’t match at all. So now, we’re looking at having to paint entire ceilings.
• He asked for an additional $300 because according to him, “At this rate, I’m only making $17 per hour,” and I said, “If you didn’t over-spray and you worked faster, you’d be making $40 per hour.”

Will I refer him? No. No. No. 

General contractor – I gave him a checklist of about twenty items I wanted fixed, changed, taken down or added.

• I wanted three posts that housed outdoor lighting removed and electrical cut. He took the posts out and killed the electrical, but left long electrical cords sticking out of the ground. I felt it was sloppy work because he didn’t cut the wires to ground level.
• He keeps telling me that he’s going to make a cover for my fuse box. But he’s already been paid through escrow for this little job and hasn’t fixed the problem yet. It’s been over a month.
• He charged $25 per light fixture to hang exterior lights (on existing boxes) on both sides of my driveway. Since I plan on changing all of my light fixtures inside and out, as well as adding fans, I learned how to do it myself.

Will I refer him? Yes, because he is available for lots of little odd jobs, but I’ll tell my friend that sometimes he doesn’t complete work and that you have to stay on him. I suppose that for the most part, he was a decent contractor.

Bathroom contractors – they asked detailed questions about every aspect of the job and advised me on different solutions. They gave me a flat rate and wrote down all the work that would be done for that rate.

• They show up early in the morning and work hard until 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. every day.
• They call every afternoon to give me updates and their plans for the next day.
• They used their own backer board because they had extra in their trailer at no extra charge.
• They used their own cement at no charge.
• When they tore out the tub, there was a big hole in the sub floor and a missing or damaged joist. They used their own plywood that they had in a shed to fix the sub floor and then fixed the joist for free. One of the contractors had to lie in the crawl space in mud (from the dripping tub when they moved the pipes) and work on his back and they didn’t charge me for labor or materials.
• One of the contractors is an electrical contractor whose advice was badly needed one day. I was disconnecting a light fixture (from a soffit in the family room addition) in order to attach my new fixture. Upon pulling the fixture from the wall, I noticed that the wire looked like an extension cord instead of electrical wires. He said he’d climb through the attic, check it out and fix the wiring if he could get to it. The next day, when I walked into the house, the new light was attached, again at no charge.
• They went shopping with me to help with the vanity dimensions and tile ideas.

The bathroom is still under construction. All that’s left is the tile grout and shower door installation. I took them to lunch yesterday and told them how much I appreciated their hard work and thanked them for the “no charge” work. Their response? “It all comes back full circle.”

Will I refer them? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. No question about it.

Are you getting enough referrals?