Picking the right contractor could mean the difference between an easy and enjoyable experience and an endless sea of pain and suffering. Regardless of the size of the project, most people would narrow down the requirements of a good contractor to three general categories: cost, quality, ability to meet agreed upon time-frames. For businesses, the only additional requirement is communication. As it pains me to say, John Doe Construction failed to meet the basic expectations above, it also managed to cost us significant amount of money due to delays. The names of the guilty have been changed to protect the innocent. All of us, at one point or another, had to deal with a contractor, be it for plumbing, heater repair, kitchen remodeling or anything else you had to …show more content…
Yes, almost three months behind, twenty percent over budget and with a quality worse than that of the Chinese knockoffs of Chinese knockoffs. Some might say that my criteria might not be valid or that I cannot expect everything to be perfect, or that the quality, cost, and timing could be subjective, But please take into account that even by the lowest quality standards of the City of Denver laws and regulations, they have failed. Do take into account that we did accommodate them when the permits got delayed. We did give them a chance to fix the issues. John Doe construction is not bad because they failed to meet one of the four items I consider important, they are bad because they are the first contractor I have ever dealt with that managed to fail on all four. I have worked with contractors before that have delivered on three out of four categories, and I would recommend most of them. Not John Doe Construction. You are better off giving a hammer to a kindergartner as your results would not only be cheaper, they would also be faster and with a better quality as well as communicated to you in a cute
Contractor #2 is more expensive, however, problems have arisen in the past with contractors recommended by government officials
Open communication is critical when dealing with home improvement contractors. If you can find someone who’s willing to answer straightforward
For those who have no construction experience or handyman skills, a home renovation requires the work of a professional contractor. But how can you find a professional whose work you'll love at a price you can afford? One way to start is by getting referrals from friends and family member who have had similar work done.
How will you know that you are getting the right contractor? Here are some tips that can help you make this decision.
Paying for a contractor to take care of your home improvement projects is not something you should have to do. There are many basic home improvement projects that you can take care of on your own without anyone helping you. All you have to know is what those tasks are, what tools to use, and you are on your way. Now if you've already paid someone to take care of improving your home, don't fret. This just means that you'll be able to take care of those tasks all by yourself in the future. This will save you quite a bit of money in a number of areas.
The first project I worked on was a large retaining wall on the lake shore in Lewiston. I worked with Jon Foremen of truck 03. He has been working for Beau for the past 8 or 9 seasons, he was very knowledgeable in hardscaping and spoftscaping knowledge. He was also able to effectively communicate with the customer who tended to be difficult, because of changes. Even though it was sometimes difficult to execute the customers requests he did what he was able too.
The process of selecting the contractor for a project like Yad Vashem’s museum was another instance when timely communication became an imperative component of project’s success. Kornfield was worried that due to shortage of financial resources, quality of work will be compromised. At this instance, Kornfield suggested that selectors should adopt a new and different approach when selecting the contractor. The aim of Kornfield here was to select someone who was not very expensive yet the most suitable for this project. For this purpose, proposed a three-stage selection process for his clients. The selected contractor worked in such a way that not only the safety hazards were prevented but saved a great amount of money and endless
Research all potential contractors on the Better Business Bureau and your local Chamber of Commerce. Look for the overall business rating and keep in mind the general size of the company when checking for complaints.
In most of the cases, when it comes to implementing a business idea into reality then hiring a construction contractor becomes an essential need. However, we also cannot hire any commercial builder for the task because this is not an investment that we make every day since it involves a lot of money where we do not want to take any risk. In that case, hiring the best construction agency is very important so that we are going to get a quality and productive result in the end.
In construction projects, mostly the firms (in this case the firms become client) do not have the skills or develop skills inside the firms to undertake the projects due to amount of the projects should be conducted or the complexity of the projects (Reve and Levitt, 1984). Therefore, the economic decision to conduct the projects is to procure them to third parties. However, more commonly the client agonize the final quality of the projects will meet standard requirements. Thus, impacts to involvement of complex contracts of construction procurement.
First, the ethical dilemma itself will be outlined. In the construction industry, it is often necessary for an owner or a construction company to enlist the help of other smaller or more specialized companies in the completion of a project. This practice is known as contracting. When an owner or company, referred to as the contractor, wants to contract out for a job, they will list the job and interested companies will bid for the contract. When arriving at a bid amount, interested companies will estimate
6-15% of construction cost is found to be wasted due to rework of defective components detected late during construction and 5% of construction cost is wasted due to rework of defective components detected during maintenance.[i] Within the current drywall processes, we have found multiple operational issues which may be leading to increased quality problems and project costs. Some of the areas that need to be addressed are forecasting, process flow, and inventory management and supply chain problems.
Two weeks into the project when they were needed for the project, Ethan notified me he would not be able to bring his Plumber or Electrician to the project nor a custom cabinet maker. My local Plumber (Cozart) and Electrician (Mitchell) were able to work us in and Ethan said he would adjust the project estimate for their part as I paid Cozart and Mitchell directly. Ethan’s skills as a general contractor are questionable as well. His approach to the project was haphazard and without a plan as to what would get accomplished the days he did show up. It would take him all day to get to the job site, just to have to leave (sometimes more than once) to run somewhere for materials or tools. Ethan also blamed his being late to my project because he spends so much time running around getting materials and tools for his (highly skilled?) employees. I even had to lend him an extension cord for his drill. His worker, James, even talked at length with Ethan about getting a drywall person to come to this project to hang the drywall. Ethan brought Calvin to the project after that. He was a glass installer and it looked as if he had never hung drywall before.
A good independent contractor should have good networking skills. Most independent contractors use subcontractors to complete the job. By having good networking skills, independent contractors are able to hire subcontractors that are able to come in and help the project progress at a much faster pace and ultimately finish the job on time. Most would say reliability is the most important trait of all. When companies hire independent contractors they hope that the contractors is very reliable. Reliable in the sense that they are able to meet all the requirement and deadlines outlined in the contract. If companies have concerns about the reliability of an independent contractor, they should move on to another contractor because in the long haul the job will not get accomplished which will lead to headaches in the future. Competitive pricing is also important when selecting a contractor. Hiring a contractor because of price is not always the best practice. Deciding which price to go with can be a challenging task when it comes to hiring a contractor. According to Murphy (2009), “the sellers wants to make as much money as possible and the buyer wants to save as much as possible”. When companies receive quotes from contractors that are extremely low or high those could be red flags. Extremely low could mean that the
Proposed contractor selection process e.g. open tender invitation, negotiation with short-listed contractors, framework agreements etc. Methods of evaluation/guidelines to be used e.g. lowest price/ best value and approach to scoring.