Working With Trades Saturday, Feb 28 2009
Uncategorized 4:33 pm
Are you thinking of doing a minor or major renovation? Are you doing some of the work yourself or hiring out with a general contractor? If you are hiring a general contractor then you can expect a much higher cost then organizing the job yourself. At the same time a good general contractor can save you time and a lot of grief.
If you are going to act as the general contractor then you will need to hire out any sub-trades for the jobs you are not capable of doing yourself. I have been an Edmonton plumber for many years now and find that most people can tackle a lot of the smaller jobs themselves, but it is in your best interest to hire professionals for the larger ones.
Before you start the process of hiring you need to put together a list of requirements that you expect to get from each of the trades you want to hire. As a very busy Edmonton plumber I find that some homeowners do end up wasting time. It is in your best interest to have everything laid out ahead of time. If you call a trade and do not have the plans ready you can expect some form of service charge, so if you want to save that money make sure you have a designer or have made a design yourself. Also get your plans in order with the city your town you live in prior to calling on the trades. This way if the city requires you to change something then the trades you have hired will not be charging you extras for the changes to the quotes you have received.
When hiring trades look for the following:
Licensed
Qualifications
References
Testimonials
And make sure they are going to pull permits for you. Any trade that feels they do not have to pull permits is possibly not in your best interest. They might not be able to pull permits for whatever reason, therefore they will try to convince you not to pull permits. These people are maybe fly by night contractors. For a list of potential contractors check out home and car repair.
Also know that when you hire a trade you will want some form of contract. Within that contract you will have what is expected from you and what you expect from them. Remember that if you add anything on you will be charged extra. It might be in your best interest to ask how much something will cost prior to letting your hired trade start doing that change to the project.
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