As a contractor it really depends on how much you’re paying. Yes even a cheap contractor is expensive as hell but you really do get what you pay for.

We are basically the most expensive local option available for our trade so reasonably we get customers that leave and go with cheaper contractors all the time. They almost always come back to us. We regularly get called out to fix the issues caused by other budget outfits. Just last year one of our customers had one of our competitors install 5 brand new rooftop airhandlers for their grocery store. The airhandlers never worked after being installed and that contractor sent people back out 5 times to try and fix them with no success. The customer then called us out at which point one of our techs immediately found that the other company never moved the built in smoke detectors in the airhandlers out of the shipping position. Within less than an hour the problem was resolved and all 5 airhandlers were running perfectly.

The trades are incredibly short on workers right now so the tradesmen who are good at their jobs tend to get snapped up by the highest paying companies who just so happen to also be the more expensive ones. That leaves the budget outfits with the workers who tend to be less experienced/adept.

Following my wife’s leg amputation in February, we had to have a BUNCH of work done before the hospital would let me bring her home.

Bonus, I had to arrange for ALL of this between getting a cancer diagnosis and having surgery.

1. Wheelchair ramp. Approved the bid on a Friday, ramp was installed the next Monday. All told, stellar work. Post install, needed one modification to keep from being fenced out of part of the property, they took care of that too.

Problem was their BILLING department. I paid 1/2 up front to get the job started, 1/2 on completion, but they failed to track the down and kept insisting I owed $5,900 that I did not. I kept the receipts and showed them, no, paid in full.

2. Bathroom. This was actually TWO contractors. #1 pulled the bathtub and converted it to a walk in shower. #2 widened the bathroom door for wheelchair access, shortened a wall that was blocking access, pulled the double sink and vanity to install a smaller single sink, and all that required pulling and replacing the floor.

Everything went as expected. The only problem was they said not to use the shower for 24 hours and when I went to use it, they had forgotten to turn the water back on. 😔 They did come back and fix it the next morning.

3. They wanted to saddle us with this 300 lb. behemoth wheelchair that we had no way of transporting. They said we couldn’t use my existing wheelchair because it needed a “limb support” for the amputation and there was no way to mount it on my chair.

So step 1: Obtain limb support. Nobody locally had one. Special order only. So I bought one online for $500.

THEN I had to figure out how to attach it. Under the seat on mine there was an aluminum strut in exactly the right spot, so it was a matter of finding a local metal shop, having them weld an aluminum tube onto that strut, inserting the support into the tube and bolting it into place.

The guys at the metal shop were amazing, figured out the process, proof of concept worked for the hospital and my wife now has her own modified chair in purple and gold. LOL.

Both tubes have now been painted to match their respective chairs.

Mostly, no.

We hired someone to paint our house almost 30 years ago. That guy was fantastic. He was the only one we spoke to who would guarantee his work. He would test the moisture content if the surface he was painting before beginning, and he would only start when it was dry enough to ensure his adhesion.

We also found an HVAC company that we could trust to work on our boiler.

We’ve had at least 8 other companies do work so incompetently, I’ve just about given up.

One problem we have is that we have an older (>100 years) house, and people don’t appear to know how to work on older homes anymore.

The other problem is just plain incompetence and lack of care.

I’ve never been one to balk at a high quote, but apart from the painter, it doesn’t appear to matter. Paying more just gets you more expensive incompetence.

We had one contractor who was really good, but he’s getting older and he’s having his son take over, and his son isn’t up to the challenge.

Edit: my mom has been satisfied with the work she’s had done, but she hounds them mercilessly. If she doesn’t like what they do, they have to redo it. We’ve had some satisfaction with that technique, but it wears you down. I’ve already got a full time job. I don’t have any slack left to manage the people I hire to work on the house.

Yep the one time I’ve needed a contractor it was good.

Bought my coop which was originally a rental in the 60s then became a coop in the 80s. The bathrooms and kitchen are fine, but the place had been painted so many times with the landlord special that the walls were looking weird and tired, and the doors didn’t even close properly from so many layers of paint!! Not to mention the old fake wood entry closet bifolds broke when I leaned on it a little. And the popcorn ceiling which has asbestos!

Carefully picked a contractor based on them knowing how to cover asbestos picke popcorn ceiling to be smooth and work with plaster to make “museum quality” walls. Strip all the extra paint layers, repaint, and get custom bifold closet doors that look nice.

We had regular check on calls throughout the process, and he knew how much I notice details so he’d go regularly with a light to show his team where they didn’t make it smooth enough.

They mostly cleaned up all the dust well, but when I noticed some spaces they sent someone to help with me the remaining dust cleanup so I could move back in.

No regrets. I paid a lot of money, and it is worth it to me. Now when I come home I feel like “is this really my place? It feels too nice.”

Two before and two after. Things have changed a lot more even since the after photos as I’ve been redecorating and refurnishing over the following years.

New roof 2 years ago, no complaints. The previous roof, 20 years before that, terrible experience. Took too long and too much rework.

I never got the service myself, but there is a landscaping contractor out here that handles, like, most of every landscaped property that isn’t a city park and they are just awful at pretty much every aspect of landscaping. They don’t know how to trim anything, they constsntly kill perfectly thriving plants, and the MOMENT anything with flowers bloom, they lop off all the flowers.

I’ve seen the high school’s ornamental horticulture class do better work.

Soo… the answer is yes BUT

1. I have hired dozens of contractors over the years (maybe as high as a 100) for everything from tree removals to bathroom remodels to driveway replacements. Hell I hired one rebuild a 100 foot bulkhead with a 75 foot pier.
2. I can count on one hand the number of times where that has not been a fucking pain in the ass at some point during the process. That has not always been the contractors fault directly, materials don’t show up, the permit was delayed… etc etc. many times it was because the contractor was fucking up.
3. The most frustrating ones have always been the kitchen and bathroom remodels as my family and I had to live in it 24x7.

I just accept that nothing ever looks perfect and do as much as possible myself. Especially since covid and the labour shortages contractors are paid in gold bars.

Basicly the only thing I still really get professionals for when liability is a factor. Structural work, gas fed system, or more complex electrical work. Basicly anything that when it’s not done correctly it could hurt or kill people, i still don’t wanna risk cowboying myself.

Yep. Bought a home that needed work done. Found a great contractor through the guy we bought the new kitchen from. The contractor added an extension to the house, installed new floors with heated flooring system, AC, new ceilings with built in lighting, rewired the house and did all the prep for the new kitchen. He was fantastic.

Now, the guys who did our new bathroom on the other hand… The people who did the work were great. The ones who sold it to us and were responsible for planning and materials were awful. Wrong materials and bad planning meant several weeks of delay before we could move in.

Yes. The trick is not to be a cheap ass, but also not to get hustled. So I guess you have to know something about the work being done?

Edit:

Also, I keep the extra materials. I paid for them. They are mine.

At a former residence, I had some good roofers, and I’ve heard since that - 20 years later - a descendant of the same company and one of the original roofers made a return visit to repair some storm damage.

Here, I’ve not really had need for long term work. The worst was a gas leak and that was seen to in short order by a couple of very capable engineers. Frankly, I was probably a worse customer than they were as contractors. (House is a mess. I had unexpected payment problems.)

On the flip side, I’ve had guys nearly come through a ceiling and have heard of a contractor straight up ghosting a relative after the contractor made a mistake they didn’t want to (or couldn’t) rectify. Also, the less said about some dodgy landscapers, the better.

Every single time

The secret is to do a lot of research, read reviews from multiple sources, and shop around

Sure, yes. And even more often impressed with the work we got done ‘under the table’ so to speak - jobs we asked for done by people who did work on the side, we have an electrician who works commercial jobs but does side gigs, he put hurricane proof lights and fans on our back porch, it turned out exactly as I wanted and did survive a hurricane. We have a plumber friend who does side work on weekends.

Also the permitted and legally sanctioned work has been good. Happy with the guys who did the roof, and with our windows, happy with the work we got done when we moved in (moving walls and plumbing around).

I love to negotiate, in general, but absolutely do not when contracting for house renovations. I pay what they ask for. Might ask if there is a more affordable solution or do some of the work to help some of time permits, and do get multiple quotes on some of it, but with a couple of exceptions we have been so happy with the work done to our house. I have a clear vision and am able to communicate it, and I guess it has all been possible to do.

Yes. Although they’ve gone to shit, I still encourage using contractor rating sites like Angie’s, Yelp, Google, or those mailers that come around once a year. Get three quotes from high rated companies. Make a point to listen to the perceived pain points from each of them, as each of them will point out different issues. Circle back with the first quotes to ensure they have a plan to address everything. Ask about insurance, ask about cleanup. Expect to pay more for good quality.

I should add, I do all the small & medium stuff myself. So the only contractors I deal with are here for ‘big’ jobs. That might be your issue - a small project isn’t going to fill a whole day, so the best contractors aren’t going to look at it.

Even this doesn’t guarantee great contractors FYI. I had some windows replaced, in my opinion they did a subpar job for the price. Will probably hold up for 10 years, but it will need to be redone at some point.

Not really big stuff cuz I don’t own a house, or a lawn.

But commissioning art over the years has never really resulted in bad experiences. Of the…10 or 12 times I have commissioned something, only twice I’ve had artists ghost. One did work and I wanted to commission more but then vanished. I assume because I was the only one asking and paying it wasn’t worth keeping the pages up. The second was a 3d modeler, who asked about the character and then never got back to me. This one I have no idea. Not really upset because I had not yet paid for these things and artists are free to decline work, but I wish they’d just said no and I’d have just made new requests to others.

I once commissioned a plush, and she (the crafter) was phenomenal through the whole process with updates and deadlines. I’m glad I can still link to her page on Deviantart, I assume she’s still in business. These have all been…at least a decade or more ago.

Lastly much more recently, I commissioned a piece from r/hungryartists for a discord pfp, a small thing I didnt want to just use AI for, and I’d say it went well too.

For every one of these interactions I’ve used PayPal, and never once had issues with the people getting their money (because PP issues or bank) or people running off with it.

I don’t need anything done, please don’t dm me with your carrd lol.