The Start of Your Renovation Journey
So, you’re considering a renovation project for your home or business. Congratulations! When done properly, home renovations in Alberta can be a great experience and add value to your home. Unfortunately, we’ve all heard horror stories about projects that have gone bad. Problems with longer timelines, blown budgets and shoddy workmanship are sadly commonplace.
See: Are Renovations Worth An Investment?
A Sad State of Affairs
We were shocked and embarrassed to find out that home renovation contractors were Canada’s #1 most complained-about industry. A recent Fenestration Review survey found that many Canadians don’t trust contractors.
It makes sense, though.
Twenty years ago, when we started A.C.T. Construction and Renovations, we were flipping houses. Finding competent home renovation contractors and trades to work on our house was a constant battle.
We would phone ten contractors to do a certain job. None of them answered their phones. Three were out of business, so messages were left with seven of them. Three of those eventually returned our calls, and maybe one or two would show up to look at the project. We were lucky to get any numbers, let alone a professional estimate.
Once we got some “rough” numbers, the real pain began. Did they know what they were doing? Most home renovation contractors didn’t have reviews that we can check. Did the schedule mean anything to them? Did they communicate about the project timelines at all? Did the estimate stay the same or did it mysteriously double?
Experts and Frauds
We already knew the construction industry was unprofessional, but we could see a huge need to professionalize the industry in at least our little part of the world.
All those problems made sense once we understood how tradespeople work. Tradespeople can be divided into two categories: real experts and frauds.
- Experts Care About Their Trade. Exceptional Construction Tradesmen take five or ten years of concentrated learning and effort to reach the expert level. They have expert equipment and helpers to get the job done right. The best trades love what they do and love the work they can construct.
- Frauds Only Care About the Next Paycheque. They have burned so many customers with their lack of care, experience or proper equipment that they don’t have a good reputation or repeat customers. The end result? They must undercut their competitors to get any work. Because they can’t charge enough, they can’t afford to take the time to do good work or buy good materials or invest in better equipment.
The Solution
Identifying an expert home renovation contractor in Alberta from a fraud can be difficult because they usually look the same. A good general contractor has tested and vetted their trades over many decades. If not, bad trades will destroy the reputation of the contractor and, eventually, the business.
Almost anyone with a hammer and a pickup can become a contractor. Unfortunately, the lack of high-quality contractors and shoddy workmanship are major problems for uniformed property owners.
That’s why we’ve created this guide for you to use while doing your due diligence. It shows exactly what to expect from a reputable contractor regarding reputation, stability, professionalism and workmanship.
Any renovation contractor who can’t withstand the scrutiny of this industry should not be considered. Insist that a contractor complies with your standards so you get exactly what you want from your project.
Table of Contents
Stability
You need to make sure any contractor you deal with has a proven history of quality work and will be there if you need them in the future.
Don’t just ask if they are stable; look for tangible proof of financial stability by asking for the following items:
- Proof of Establishment: Believe it or not, many contractors use a pickup for an office and showroom. Ensure your contractor is substantial enough to have a real office and shop with all the normal business functions. If they don’t, that should tell you something. Don’t fall for the “we just use our trucks for offices” line.
- The A.C.T. Standard: Since we are the largest renovation contractor between Edmonton and Red Deer, performing over 200 projects per year, we have the office and infrastructure to ensure your project is designed, managed, and expertly installed by A.C.T. tradesmen.
Becoming a tradesman for A.C.T. is not easy. Only about one out of five trades in the area gets hired or retained long-term by A.C.T., so you can be assured they are the best around!
- Alberta Contractors Licence: The way Alberta decided to deal with contractors stealing customer’s deposits is to require them to get a Prepaid Contracting License if they want to collect deposits or progress payments. Unfortunately, most small and mid-size contractors never get this and if they do, they still might walk away with your money. But, the Government of Alberta has provided a forum for homeowners to submit an appeal should they experience unethical practices from a trade. This forum provides grounds for a customer to appeal to that department to get your money back.
Contractors aren’t obligated to have this, but you can do your own search here to confirm a contractor has this licence through the Service Alberta website.
- Insurance: Listen, we know things happen! The best people can get hurt, pipes break and sparks start fires. Without proper insurance, the homeowner can be left holding the bag by a tiny misstep.
The two main insurance coverages that ALL contactors need is WCB and Liability Insurance. WCB covers worker injuries and death. WCB Insurance is expensive, so lots of contractors try to sneak by without it. If they don’t have proper coverage and someone is injured at your project, the WCB will come after you.
- Liability Insurance: If a pipe burst or a small fire with a lot of smoke occurs, it can easily cause over 100,000 dollars in damage to your home or business. This insurance also covers major mistakes made by the contractor.
This insurance isn’t expensive, so there’s no reason not to have it, but most do not. Two million dollars of coverage is the minimum standard, but five million dollars of coverage is recommended by A.C.T., as this provides the customer with that safety net–just in case!
WCB and Liabilities
A.C.T. Construction and Renovations has been WCB claim-free for ten years and enjoys the maximum premium discount available. We are proud of our safety history and the diligence of our trades. The premiums are still significant, so that’s why many contractors won’t pay them. However, we have never had a liability claim in our 20 years in business. This is because our people are very well trained and if we do make a mistake (which can happen), we fix it ourselves without having to make a claim to keep our rates low for our five million dollar coverage.
Every town and city requires a business licence to operate. If a contractor does not have a business licence in a town, they can’t pull permits and can be fined. If permits were not pulled for certain work, the town can and will have that work removed and/or fined.
Unfortunately, working in many small towns requires many licences, so many contractors skip this. We annually pay for and carry licences in: Edmonton, Leduc, Camrose, Wetaskiwin, Ponoka, Lacombe, Red Deer and many others as needed.
Reputation
When home renovation businesses were found by word-of-mouth, their reputation was a hard dodge. Then, businesses could spend lots of money on a yellow-page ad and get lots of work regardless of how bad they were. Now, social proof has brought back the importance of a good reputation. Technology has helped this process become more organized and convenient, but it is still a lot of effort to do good work and keep customers happy.
Here’s what customers should consider when looking at a firm’s digital presence:
- Google Reviews: Honest Google reviews are hard to get. Most customers won’t bother unless they are really impressed. Contractors with more than a few reviews are doing something right. There are ways to rig the system, though. Customers can be led to a site that only allows 5-star reviews. Look for contractor websites that have a smaller number of reviews rather than contractors with thousands of reviews. Read them to see how the contractor dealt with the complaint and if this contractor is the right one for your home renovation projects.
- Facebook and Other Reviews: These are like Google reviews. The contractor may concentrate their reviews on one platform instead of spreading them out over many. This is what we’ve learned: people who belong to these groups want to be helpful to the group and will suggest anyone they can think of. Also, they often want to help a down-and-out friend or relative regardless if they can actually do the work. Most people named are not really in the business or they live far away.
- Testimonials: These are still nice to see but easy to fake unless you are prepared to call the author. Consumers now have outsourced that diligence to the internet.
- Referrals: Referrals are still a great way to find contractors. It’s not fool proof, but real estate agents, lumber yards and other contractors are happy to refer if they know someone good. They don’t want to risk their reputation recommending anyone who doesn’t meet their expectation, so if they do recommend someone it’s usually a safe bet. But, it’s still up to you to confirm they have everything else on this list.
Professionalism
Professionalism in contractors and trades is essential, as it reflects their reliability, communication, and commitment to quality work.
Here’s what customers should consider when hiring a contractor:
- Permits: Professionals understand the importance of proper permits. Yes, they are a pain, as they cost money and delay timelines. Some inspectors are a little zealous and hard to work with, however, too many homes have major issues that would’ve been avoided with permits and proper inspections. Some of the repairs we have done because the previous renovation did not have permits or inspections may have cost 100 times the original increase.
- Detailed Project Proposals and Price Integrity: Real quotes take a lot of time and work, that’s why most contractors don’t do them. Contractors toss out a rough estimate and call it a quote. That can work for small projects like painting a few rooms or replacing a few windows, but large projects have so many moving parts that “estimated quotes” are usually wildly inaccurate. Thorough design and pre-project planning solves this and produces exact numbers so you know exactly what you are getting and exactly what it will cost instead of waiting until the end to find out you are 50% over budget.
- “No Tricks, No Pressure” Sales Agreement: Knowing in advance what to expect from your salesperson/designer/project manager helps relieve a lot of stress when picking a contractor. Ask your contractor for their policies on smoking, punctuality, communication reschedules, dress, respect for your home and contents, respect for your yard and parking.
- Job Site Clean-up Plan: Ask them for their standard procedures for regular cleaning. Some contractors are better than others at ensuring their trades clean up after themselves. Some sites need to be cleaner than other sites. If you are living in the project, extra precautions need to be taken to mitigate dust and keep the site cleaner than if it is a new build or an exterior project.
- Worker Conduct: What are their policies on their workers with respect to alcohol, smoking, respecting your space, foul language, loud music, tools organized, materials organized, and appropriate licences and safety tickets? The best contractors have this all dialled in and have written policies. Most contractors struggle with this and constantly have frustrated customers because their trades have little respect for the customer or their space.
See: Is Renovating a House Stressful
Workmanship
The workmanship is crucial when hiring a contractor, as it directly impacts the quality, durability, and safety of the work. Skilled craftsmanship ensures that the project is completed correctly, reducing the risk of costly repairs or issues down the line.
Here’s what you need to know:
Having the Right People on the Job: Excellent contractors also know how to deal with strange issues that come up. They refuse to skip steps and insist that the previous trade did their part perfectly to ensure they can also give you perfection. They also refuse to use inferior/cheap products. Thanks to their experience, they know that certain products aren’t worth the risk of failure and the warranties and reputation damage that comes with it.
Warranties: Warranties aren’t worth anything if the contractor isn’t around in a year or if they don’t care about their reputation, or if they live far away and won’t come back to fix anything. Good contractors care about their reputation so much that they will take care of mistakes they make even after their official warranty. If they have the right trades listed above, warranty claims will be almost nonexistent. They will find the potential problems and fix them before completing the project.