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Comment by vrosas | Hacker News Reader

I’m guessing you’ve never hired a general contractor, or any other kind of home contractor for that matter? I’ve hired over a dozen at this point in the 1.5 years of owning my home, and I’d say, of those, about 2 have been any good. The construction and contracting landscape is a trash heap - a straight race to the bottom filled with lies, shoddy workmanship, and illegal labor. I’m suing 2 of mine for bad workmanship/abandoned projects. I do 100% of my own home renovations now, regardless of the cost of time, tools or materials.

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Finding people is easy. Finding good ones is hard. You basically have to interview them. Even then you can end up with a slick salesman and garbage crew.

Needed a moving company. One guy shows up sits in my driveway gives me a quote. The next guy walked thru the house and gave me a quote. The third guy shows up opens every closet every cabinet and has a fairly spot on estimate. The first two were off by nearly 30% on weight/cost.

Needed someone to paint the entire interior of a house. One guy pulls a no show on the walkthru and then 3 months latter says I didnt show on time that day (it was already a done job at that point). Second guy goes 'hmm duno maybe X price'. Next guy measures everything has a itemized estimate. I hired the one with the good estimate.

My sister needed some simple electrical work done. 2 guys just handed her a number and an open ended contract. The 3rd guy had an itemized estimate that was lower than the first two because he did the prework.

Had some AC work done. Again with the 3. 1 just random didnt even come out, 1 driveway guy, and 1 who actually looked around and figured it out correctly. Even then I walk out there and the outside unit is installed backwards. I tell them, they puff out on me. I grab the foreman and walk him over with a 'uh there is a small issue here' didnt tell him what. They had to redo 3 hours of work once the foreman saw it backwards. All because the guys he had were willing to do backwards work. The foreman is usually the key. If they give a crap it will be done right.

Trying to have a covered porch added to my current house. So far 2 no shows and totally ghosted.

I wish this was atypical. But it isn't. I have many more.

I always go back to our real estate agent to find contractors. We've never had any issues with the ones she's recommended.

And how did you get your real estate agent???

The real answer behind the scenes: commercial pays better for the same work.

Any competent tradesperson is doing majority commercial.

Ergo, if you’re looking for residential, you get…

I'll second that finding a good contractor (or even just a "handy man") as a home owner is very hard. When i moved into my house we had two bathrooms and the kitchen renovated. Not a single piece of plumbing the original contractors touched has made it past 3 years, it's all been replaced. About the only thing that was done correctly was bathroom tile. On the other hand, on my street my neighbors and I have a good hvac guy. They are treated like royalty in my neighborhood because they show up, know what they're doing, and fair.

my father in law who has passed away ran a little independent hvac shop. Just him and another guy, they had more work than they could ever handle and he could have grown to at least a 10-15 person shop but chose to work by himself. In southern US climates HVAC is def. a career option, however it's hard physical work that will slowly destroy your body. heh Not unlike how SWE is hard mental work that can slowly destroy your mind.

edit: i miss my father-in-law very much, he could do anything. he replaced the floor in a pier and beam house while living in it. Just think about that for a moment, how do you replace a floor? that's what holds up the walls and the walls hold up the roof...

If 2 have been good why not stick with them?

Because my stone mason, as good as he is, doesn’t do plumbing.

His recommendations weren’t good? Often good tradespeople know other good tradespeople.

Like the parent, I haven't found that's true at all. Most people doing residential work on houses work either on their own or in very small teams. They spend their time working on houses, not networking with other tradespeople. They might have a few people they work with regularly, but it's not a deep network.

Much better is local whatsapp groups where people who've hired good people can make recommendations. Those are a trove of good information.

You could ask what plumber that stone mason uses. "Good people like working with good people" etc.

I have tried exactly this, and it does not work. Nobody who did direct work ever had recommendations for peer workers. They just don't care. Most subs work directly with generals and not each other that much.

The general contractors know which subs are (currently) good and bad, so their recs are good, but you have to be friendly with them for them to share (instead of taking the project on themselves).

Ah, that's a shame :/

Worked for me, bathroom guy recommended a carpenter that turned out great. Was hoping it was a general thing one could do.

Professionals trade favors for each other. Someone who has done good work for a peer won't necessarily do good work if hired by some rando.

The original guy’s rep is on the line for making the referral, so if there is already a relationship, he will want to rec someone who will do good work.

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