A Homeowner’s Guide to Soliciting Bids From Home Improvement Contractors

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Last month my wife and I finally got around to soliciting bids to have new seamless gutters installed on our home. With the weakening of the home improvement market, we expected a little competition among the area’s installers and we wanted to ensure that we got the best quality product at a fair price.

We were lucky when we negotiated a contract for the construction of our current home. We had little knowledge of building materials or techniques and only solicited one contractor with our home construction plans. Thankfully the contractor we approached was incredibly fair and we have since established a great relationship with him and his family.

Not willing to take such a leap of faith this time around, we took a more methodical approach to finding a quality contractor. Here are a few suggestions to help you through the process:

Can You Do the Work Yourself:
Many home improvement projects can easily be done by the homeowner with help from home improvement book or do it yourself Internet site like Do It Yourself. In the case of rain gutter installation, we knew that we wanted the durability of seamless gutters over the cheaper snap-together variety available at most home improvement stores due to the severity of the weather in our area (we live in Maine!).

Installing seamless gutters is not an ideal do it yourself projects due to the prohibitive costs of a seamless gutter machine and we knew we would need to sub this project out.

Understand the Scope of the Project:
Before soliciting bids, it is a good idea to understand what is involved with the project. Learn about the different choices in materials and installation techniques so that when you do begin comparing bids you can make an apple to apple comparison.

One of the contractors that we received a bid from didn’t identify what thickness (gauge) aluminum he would use for the rain gutters on our house. After calling him back he informed us that he used thinner (less durable) gauge aluminum even though his bid was very similar to the other bids we had received.

The larger the scope of your project, the more time you should devote to studying what is involved. Adding an addition to your home, or finishing off a basement for will require significantly more decisions about various plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and building products than a simple project like installing rain gutters!

Ask for References:
A good contractor will provide references from people in your area where he or she has worked in the past. Do not hesitate to contact some of the people on the list. Surprising, most clients are more than happy to make a positive (or negative) recommendation for a contractor that they have used in the past.

I am happy to answer prospective homeowners’ questions about the building contractor we used in building our home. For us, offering a positive recommendation for the builder is a way of thanking him for a job well done.

Get a Firm Price In Writing:
A quality contractor will offer you a written “bid” for the job. One of the bids that we received actually stated “this is not a bid”, instead it stated that the price quoted was guaranteed to be the price of the job unless we (the customer) wanted to have additional work done not covered under the initial estimate.

Getting a firm price in writing will help protect you from any “bait and switch” techniques resulting in you paying more money in the end.

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