Dealing with a contracor BEFORE the job starts.

Before I explain what the status of the house project is I would like to relay an experience that I had with choosing a contractor. Even with 11 years of experience you can still learn something new.

When I bid the job I spoke with no less than 7 HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) contractors all recommended from various sources. The mechanical portion of the job is by far the most expensive part of this project. We are doing two separate central A/C systems with a furnace for back-up heat. The systems are split to provide maximum comfort during the summer with the most efficient use of a ducted system. For heat there is a separate radiant system for heating the entire house. This has multiple zones to adjust the heat in all the part of the house, vs just a central thermostat. Lets just say that I have put a lot of thought into the mechanical systems of my house.

I settled on a contractor, Dave, (won't use his full name here) who came "highly recommended" and whose price was about $15K or so less than everyone else. I thought the whole thing was to good to be true. I met with him a second time to review his quote and make sure he was not missing anything. Dave admitted he missed one thing, but it was not a major item and his price was still really good. I even went to see a customer who could not stop raving about Dave, but in the back of my mind there was still something not right. I firmly believe that you have to trust your gut, especially when dealing with people who you are paying for work. Side note here, there was another contractor whom I have worked with for several years, Bob Grubbs. Bob is as honest as can be, knows his stuff AND will admit if he doesn't know something (i love this quality in a person) Bob was the guy I wanted to give the job to. Bob and I have such a good relationship that he admitted he was so busy he could not give this job the attention it deserved and suggested I hire an alternate contractor. Now that is an a good contractor.

So Dave and I got everything settled, drew up a contract and I gave the him a $3K deposit. Now this is not what I normally do (nor do I recommend doing this) but at the time there was a State of IL rebate that I was hoping to get so I paid him the deposit so we could get the ball rolling on the paper work. Well everything seemed to be good until we began to move forward with the actual permit process. Dave said he did "plenty of work in the City of Chicago", only when asked where and with whom he seemed to get a little shaky. When it came time to go for the permit he could not seem to produce any of the required documents, even though he had said on multiple occasions he had done plenty of permitted work in the City.

About 2 weeks after I signed the contract with Dave guy, and I started to feel a bit nervous about working with this guy. By pure coincidence Bob calls and says "hey did you ever give the job away, 'cause I can do it if you still want". Well I told him of the situation and he said for me to call him if things changed or just wanted an opinion on the work.

Well after about 1 week of going back and forth with Dave and loosing a lot of sleep I came to a realization. You would not go to a heart surgeon that you were not totally comfortable with to do your surgery, well in this case I was spending almost the same amount. I called up Dave and told him this was not going to work. He is a good guy and truly understood my concerns. We did come to am amicable solution. Rather than take back the deposit Dave agreed to do a small job for me at one of my properties. Hopefully it will go smoothly and I will end up with another contractor to use in the future. I could not bring myself to just take back the deposit it felt better to at least have him earn the money instead, and I needed the work done anyway.

The moral of the story is just because a guy is cheap and comes "highly recommended" doesn't mean you should hire him. Do your homework but most importantly trust your instinct. You are paying this person hard earned money, make sure it counts. The other thing, get the kinks out before the job starts. If not it will only cost you more later.

Oh, the final situation is that I am working with Bob, he of course had all the right paper work and I am really excited to be working with him. I think this is going to be a great job for both of us.