When you are paying good money to get your home worked on, you need to make sure that you are getting good value. The best way to ensure you are getting good value is to inspect the quality of the contractor’s work. Your home is a very personal thing, and you want to make sure that the contractor who works on it is known for doing high-quality, professional work.
The best way to ensure that the contractor you hire is someone whose work you can rely on is to see their previous work first-hand. You should never soley rely on pictures alone to judge the quality of a contractor’s work. Pictures can only tell you so much, and they can also be very misleading. It is better to see the contractor’s previous work with your own eyes. Take a look at the following things when you inspect the contractor’s quality.
1. Paint
The easiest way to judge the quality of a paint job is to physically touch it. Close your eyes and feel the painted wall. If the paint job feels completely smooth to the touch, then it is a high-quality paint job. Bumps and other blemishes mark an inferior paint job. There should also be clean lines at the ceiling and approaching the trim. The paint finish should appear even throughout the walls.
2. Trim
While you are inspecting the paint, you should also take the time to inspect the trim. Good trim work is installed straight with a seamless appearance. Any crooked trim is an instant sign to run away. You should also not be able to see any nail holes in the trim.
3. Tile
Just like trim, the mark of a good tile job is a neat, straight appearance. The tile should be perfectly square throughout the kitchen and bathrooms. Tile should also be perfectly level. The grout should be level as well. The grout should also be skinny and evenly applied.
4. Cabinets and Doors
Again, cabinets should be installed perfectly straight. They should have doors that open and close seamlessly with no noise. Good cabinet doors are built to last. That goes for all doors throughout the house. Doors should always be easy to close. Hard-to-close doors could be a sign of poor door construction or poor foundation work.
5. Lighting
All the lighting in the house should be hanging well with no signs of flickering. Check to see that all dimmer switches are functioning properly. Look to see if the lighting seems adequate for the rooms. Good contractors install lighting with a plan to make it as functional as possible for the occupants. Check to see if it looks like the contractor gave careful thought to lighting placement.
If you check all of these key attributes of a contractor’s work, it should give you a good idea of the quality of their work. While it is not an absolute requirement to see a contractor’s work to hire him, it is a good idea to do so unless you get a recommendation from someone whose opinion you trust absolutely. If possible, try to see an example of the contractor’s work that is as old as possible to be able to judge how the work he does holds up over time.