Many homeowners spend thousands of dollars to get work done on their home every year. Taking the time to do your homework can pay off in the long run when choosing a contractor for anything.
I spend countless hours every year meeting homeowners and giving them free advice and estimates to paint or repair their homes. My goal is to help them find what they are looking for. Sometimes we are the right person for the job and sometimes we are not depending on the circumstances.
For many years I have encouraged people to go onto the internet and learn about who they are hiring. Did the contractor just get a license last week or do they even have a license? What are the risks involved if they are new to the business or operating illegally?
Most of our customers find Absolute Painting & Power Washing by looking on referral sites online or by asking friends for a referral. Most of our customers have done their homework. If they did not find us this way I always encourage them to go online and check out everyone that is giving them a bid. The Oregon Construction Contractors Board is a great place to start. You can call or go online and find out if the company has a license and how long they have been in business. It can also tell you if they are licensed to have employees and if they have a workers compensation policy on them. These are all measures that are in place to help protect the homeowner from illegal activity and should only take you about 5-10 minutes to learn all you need to know.
I highly recommend that you go onto review sites like Angie’s List and Yelp or Google Places for reviews. Not all reviews will be fair but you can get a pretty good idea of what you can expect by reading in most cases. If a company does not have an A rating on Angie’s List you should be concerned. Yelp is a free site that you can get reviews from that is becoming more and more popular every year.
Taking the time to do your homework should help you find a great contractor. If you do not have access to the internet you can always ask the contractor for the names of recent customers to contact or ask suppliers who they recommend. At Absolute Painting & Power Washing we work with suppliers such as Miller Paint, Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore to name a few. They will usually point you in a good direction as they know who has a good reputation and who does not.
The final suggestion would be that price should not be your deciding factor no matter how you found your contractor. Many times a price that seems too good to be true is too good to be true. Call Absolute Painting & Power Washing with any questions or if you need a contractor to help out with your home projects.
