{"id":126,"date":"2016-07-09T18:45:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-09T18:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/?p=126"},"modified":"2016-07-16T20:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T20:00:39","slug":"vetting-contractors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/2016\/07\/09\/vetting-contractors\/","title":{"rendered":"Vetting Contractors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The older I get the less tolerance I have for incompetence and the more I am willing to pay a premium for high quality services with good communication. Over the past few years I&#8217;ve done many upgrades to my home including a kitchen remodel, build a swimming pool with spa and patio, redesigned landscaping, planted several trees, and repainted the exterior siding. Since it can be a time consuming process getting a half dozen quotes and checking reviews, I have developed my our list of questions that helps me steer clear of the types of companies that I don&#8217;t want to do business with. Some of the questions I developed through personal bad experiences and others I found in online guides like <a href=\"http:\/\/centerforpoolstudy.org\/find-pool-builder\/\">words of caution when hiring a pool builder<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thisoldhouse.com\/toh\/photos\/0,,20539027,00.html\">How to Hire a Contractor (ThisOldHouse)<\/a>. Below are of few of my deal breakers, if the company can&#8217;t answer these questions promptly with a clear demeanor, then that&#8217;s a red flag.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Who are your parts and material suppliers?<\/li>\n<li>Have you ever done business under a different company name than your present one?<\/li>\n<li>Can you send me references of three happy customers you have serviced in the past 6 months?<\/li>\n<li>Will I be writing my checks to your business name or a personal name? (you want a business name)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The older I get the less tolerance I have for incompetence and the more I am willing to pay a premium for high quality services with good communication. Over the past few years I&#8217;ve done many upgrades to my home including a kitchen remodel, build a swimming pool with spa and patio, redesigned landscaping, planted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4488,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/webguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}