If you’re looking to turn a house into a home, you’re likely feeling excited, and slightly overwhelmed at the same time. Any home renovation project is tough, especially if you’re opting to take the work on yourself.
A much more popular option is to hire a home addition/renovation company, and have them handle the work for you. Professional renovation firms do the kind of work you’re looking for every single week. If done correctly, it can not only improve the look and feel of your property, but it can also increase the value as well.
Home renovation is not easy. Many of the tasks involved go way beyond a little DIY. This is why hiring professionals for the job is so important. The main issue here is finding a reliable firm.
With so much competition out there, you’ll have plenty of options when finding a worker. The only downside is not all of these options will be reliable. The last thing you want is to hire so-called ‘charlatan’ firms who aren’t up to the job.
Here are several tips on how to choose a reliable home renovation firm.
Decide What You Want
First and foremost, when it comes to any kind of renovation project, it’s important to have a clear vision of what your end goals are going to be.
Whether you’re installing a new kitchen and washroom, or simply hanging new doors, you must have a clear vision of what you want the end results to be. Once you have, this will make it much easier for you when hiring a home addition firm.
By knowing what your end goals are, you can explain what you want to the home renovation firm you’re in contact with, to help them understand exactly what the work is going to entail. This will make it much easier for them in terms of materials, pricing, and labor.
Meet the Contractors in Person
Home renovation projects can be costly, and also disruptive. You’re letting strangers into your home and, are trusting them to make it better. Needless to say, it’s important to know who you’re letting into your house.
Once you come across a firm you like the sound of, arrange to meet them in person.
Meeting them in person will help them to get an idea of where they’ll be working and what they’ll be doing, and it means you can get a feel for them.
Meet them in person, ask them the necessary questions, and see how you feel about them. If something in your gut tells you not to go with them for whatever reason, it’s worth following your gut instinct. This could save you a lot of unnecessary stress and aggravation later down the line.
Get Plenty of Estimates
Like seemingly everything in the world at the moment, home renovation is not cheap, and materials just seem to be getting more and more expensive. Sadly, some less-reputable firms are exploiting this and are overcharging their clients.
Before you commit to hiring a home addition firm, make sure you speak to several companies, explain exactly what work you require of them, and get as many estimates as possible. You can thencompare these estimates to figure out whether or not a firm may be trying to exploit you.
At the moment, good prices for materials are items such as a wood framed wall structure at $300.00 per square foot, along with a concrete wall structure for $400.00 per square foot. These are good prices yet if one company is asking for more than double that amount for those materials, alarm bells should be sounding.
Read Reviews
The great thing about hiring a firm in this day and age, is the fact that you’ll almost certainly be able to find reviews left for them by previous clients. Once you’ve narrowed down your search and have found a firm you like the look and sound of, go ahead and see what previous customers of theirs had to say.
If you can see that the renovation firm largely has positive reviews, that’s of course a very good sign. Make sure you read the reviews as well, rather than just looking at a star rating, or marks out of 10. Try to see what customers were particularly pleased with, and see if that applies to the work you’re asking of them.
Make sure you read negative feedback as well, and try to determine whether or not it’s justified. One or two negative reviews compared with hundreds, even thousands of positive reviews is fine, but be wary of firms with a lot of poor reviews and feedback.
Don’t Base Your Search Primarily on Price
Nobody wants to spend more than they have to, but with home renovation, if you try to cut corners, it could come back to bite you severely weeks, months, even years down the line.
As mentioned, a wood framed wall structure at $300.00 per square foot is a competitive price, as is a concrete wall structure at $400.00 per square foot. If a firm is offering these for several hundred dollars less per square foot, you have to ask yourself why that is?
Cutting corners with home renovation can not only be costly if things go wrong, it could also be dangerous. Put simply, don’t just go with the cheapest firm in an attempt to save money. Go with the firm you trust to do the best possible job, for the best possible price.
Check Their Experience and Credentials
Finally, when finding the ideal home addition firm to handle a home renovation project, make sure you check their experience and credentials.
Seek out firms that have the necessary licenses and insurance put in place. Find out what credentials they have, and check whether they’re bonded. This will offer you additional peace of mind that the work will be done on time, to a professional standard. This is especially true as contractors may only be bonded if they possess an impressive project history.