In my 65+ years on this planet, this is without a doubt the absolute worst contractor I have hired. I have owned and maintain rental units for over 40 years, and have hired dozens of contractors over the years. John will come across and interview with confidence and what you will think is knowledge. He will boast about years and years of experience. But once the job starts you will quickly find he is way over his head, and just not prepared. He will blame everyone and everything on the planet as to why the job is taking more time that expected. And i promise you the job will take longer than expected.
I hired John to redo two bathrooms in a new rental house that I had recently purchased. The idea was if the bathrooms went well I would use Prairie Dog Construction for future projects. What I quickly found out is John does very little work on projects. He mostly uses sub contractors to do the work. He also uses "friends" that he calls plumbers or electricians that are not actual journeyman plumbers and electricians. I am not sure where he finds these subcontractors but he does leave them alone to work inside the home. That was the first issue, was that I was unaware that John would leave these subcontractors unsupervised in the home without me venting them.
Another thing that came clear is John does not like to get permits for his projects. Permits usually mean some type of inspection on the job is required, and the work that was done would not pass any type of inspection. Very Poor workmanship on everything that was done.
I have learned thru the years the most important thing to do when hiring a contractor is to have a signed contract by both parties and most important, in the contract have a pay schedule. As said earlier, John will create delays, and because of the delays will demand more money up front. If you have a contract with a pay schedule that can not happen.
There are good contractors out there. But you need to do your homework to find the good ones. Start with the State L&I contractor website. Ask the contractor if he has any lawsuits or leans against the company. Ask for references. Ask the contractor if he has ever operated under a different business name, and if yes, why? When a contractor has changed their business name, its never for anything good.
I hope this helps. read more