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We made separate times for each of the three to come to our house, asses the basement project and give us a timeline and a price. We did not take any more time in learning what the project entailed.
The first contractor was a big man with an accent who came with an even bigger man who had an even thicker accent. They immediately made me uncomfortable. My first thought was, "Do I really want these two guys in my house for a month?" Since my wife and I know next to nothing about construction or basement finishing (and didn’t bother to learn in advance) we asked these two fellows a number of questions. Half our questions were met with laughter, like we were two idiots. I imagine if I had taken the time to learn more about basement finishing we would have avoided looking ignorant. And I guess in the world of contractors, we were rather dumb. They came back with a price that was painfully high and not itemized. They said it would take about three weeks to finish. Strike one.
I suspect that since we asked questions that clearly revealed our ignorance, they felt comfortable charging us the highest price possible.
The second contractor showed up and told us right off the bat that he had a full time job and just did contracting on the side. He said it would take at least a month and maybe even two months. He seemed nice but never got back to us with a price quote. Strike two.
The third contractor seemed particularly affable. He talked about what he would do, how he would do it and was very personable, asking question about our house and how long we lived there for and why we wanted the basement finished. We liked him immediately. He said if we wanted the floor of the basement done, it would take him two weeks, if not then it would take only one week. We thought we had found our guy.
He came back with a price that was just about the exact same as the first two guys and it was not itemized either. Although the price seemed high, what did we know? And it seemed to match the price for basement-finishing systems that we saw advertised on TV.
Then our water heater broke and I ended up hiring my cousin who is a professional plumber. While fixing it I showed him the contract for the basement finishing project that the third contractor had sent us. My plumber cousin is an expert in dealing with contractors; he owns several houses and properties and hires them all the time.
He laughed and proceeded to tell me all about how one needs to be very careful with contractors. First, he said we were almost definitely being price-gouged. He asked why the pricing wasn't itemized. He asked why the contract didn't have a project end date specified. He asked why the contract made no mention of sub-contractors, when more often than not there are sub-contractors involved. He asked what kind of materials were going to be used and why they weren't specified better in the contract. He asked why there were no contingency plans in place in case the contractor encountered a problem. He went on and on. The more he talked, the more foolish I felt.
So I called our chosen contractor up and asked him all the questions my cousin had just asked me. He basically refused to give any more details. He didn't want to give a project end date in the contract "in case things came up". My plumber cousin had warned me that often contractors will get towards the end of the job and land another job somewhere else which they have to start. If this happens, then they can drag out the last 10% of your project because they're splitting there time between two jobs. But this contractor refused to give an end date.
He also refused to itemize the services (which made me believe he padded the entire thing), and he refused to guarantee that if something came up that he didn't foresee, he wouldn't charge us extra. In other words, even if we never asked him to do anything else after we signed the contract and he was in the middle if the project, he could at any time say that he ran into a snag and could charge us more than what we originally agreed.
So we ended up not hiring him. There are obviously differences between various contractors, but keep this story in mind when you are about to hire any vendor for anything. Do your homework, be sure to have a grasp of what the project will entail, speak to people who have been through it before, know your top price that is reasonable within the industry and demand a definite project completion date. The more you know in advance, the more likely your project will end in success.
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