Lesson #9 in Home Remodeling: Hire a contractor you trust. And then just trust him.
I'll be the first to admit: I micromanage. I like things the way I like them. Which is a large reason why I insisted on doing my own tile, painting my own rooms. I can nitpick myself all I want without ticking anyone off (except for maybe Travis). Travis is the same.
The desirable qualities in a contractor are: quality of work, promptness, and price. As far as we can tell, you can only get two out of three to work out in your favor. I know I can't sacrifice quality of work. It's my home that they're working on. So I need a contractor I'll trust to do a great job. The only way to know if they'll do a great job though is after the fact. So I think the only way to hire a contractor is to ask around for recommendations, from people who've actually used them, who have your standards, and preferably who know a thing or two about construction so they can fairly evaluate the work.
And once you've hired someone who meets all those criteria, you have to stop micromanaging.
- Exhibit A: When we were doing the rough-in on the house, our contractor had to lay a new sub-floor. The rooms were framed but we noticed some sub-floor boards were wobbly and not yet nailed in. So we bugged him about it and he explained he likes to leave those open until he finishes the plumbing for easy access to our crawl space since much of the work is underneath the house.
- Exhibit B: We asked our contractor to replace the pipes in the garage for our laundry and utility sink. Some of the pipes underneath the house and all the pipes in the walls are still galvanized*. So we wanted to replace the garage pipes with copper before we hooked up my (sexy) new washer/dryer. He initially stripped just the pipes in the wall out and Travis started stressing about whether he would replace a section underneath the house. If he didn't and we ever wanted to pull copper supply lines, we would be forced to open up the wall again. Of course, later that evening, he went underneath the house to replace a section of the supply line with copper.
- Exhibit C: We started installing fixtures in the bathroom. I pulled out the shower pipe, took one look at the wall and realized that we had a male pipe fitting sticking out of the wall and the shower pipe had two male ends. This was not going to work. Travis and I decided to go to Home Depot and pick up a section of female/female pipe connector. After all the times that our contractor had done things right, I somewhat doubted he had messed this up. And a little part of me wondered if he had left the male spout on purpose for us to tile around but intended for us to back it out before we installed the shower. I ignored that thought. When we came back with the pipe connector and tightened, the pipe fitting in the wall came loose of the grout and started turning too. After we hooked up the shower head, Travis came to conclude the same idea I had earlier. Sure enough, we backed the fitting out easily and found everything had been prepped perfectly for us.
So, once you've found a good contractor, thank your supreme-being of choice, and then just trust him to do his job.
* Galvanized pipes rust...eventually. You want copper pipes. With every remodel (and we plan on hitting every room with a water supply) we have ripping out the plumbing and replacing it with copper. But don't hook copper directly to galvanized if you're replacing only sections at a time. Basically, copper reacts with galvanized and you'll basically cause rust just about as soon as you've hooked them up. And if you need further clarification, read that as: Your pipes will burst, period.
