How to find a contractor to repair a home after it has been on fire

Tam

Or rather, how to get a fair estimate. A house my parents own was struck by lightning and caught fire. An independent adjustor went in and assessed the damage at the behest of our insurance company. The company said it will take care of finding a company to repair the water damage from putting out the fire, but that we need to find a contractor (preferably local to San Antonio) to go in and give us a repair estimate (at least. I'm assuming we would also then employ the same contractor's services.). How do I go about assessing whether a contractor fits our needs? I'm on Home Advisor now, looking through ratings/reviews, but seeing as I've never dealt with home repair, I thought I'd get some advice from other consumers.

DisruptedCapitalist

I briefly had a membership with Angie's List, but I wouldn't recommend it. Their whole business model is to shake down businesses for money to improve their ratings, so even if you find a contractor listed there (and there are many who aren't) it's not clear if they're any good for your specific project. The other thing I found annoying were the "discounts" offered, which were apparently part of the Angie's list racket. How could a massive construction job give you a $100 discount when one contractor is bidding at $37,500 and another at $26,500?

I suppose a $100 discount might be useful for a product with a set and publicly known price, like televisions or something, but the whole model for discounting services was just wrong to me.

I still don't know how to get a fair estimate though. I've been trying off and on to get a contractor to rebuild my roof according to an engineer's plan I have, and I still have only gotten two written bids that are wildly apart. (One is at 37,500 the other is at $26,500 as I mentioned above.) Obviously, I should get a third so I can get an idea which of the other two bids is out of the norm, but it's been a painful process especially since it is not an easy job.

DevoutlyApathetic

The secret of quoting: You don't just get one.

Ask people you know if they know anybody and worse case go through the yellow pages/google equivalent. Then get quotes from multiple places and judge the quote and how they treat you in the process. If they're disinterested and unresponsive when you're asking if they'd like you to give them money I wouldn't expect it to get better after they have your money.

Gilbert0

While not specifically for a building contractor, I second @DevoutlyApathetic 's advice. You get more than one quote.

The wife and I bought a house last year and we're making it our own. The biggest thing we replaced was converting from oil heat to natural gas (new construction to the gas line, new furnace, new hot water heater, new gas lines in the house). Not exactly something we can do on our own. We asked friends/relatives for anyone they had dealt with, looked up a couple places online/yellowpages and a couple places that our gas company had on their "recommended" list.

For 6 companies, 2 places had problems calling my wife back. They're instantly off the list. What would happen if a real issue came up? Another 1 was REALLY slow with a quote and then we had 3 other quotes. They were all in the same ballpark and we chose the middle one, not just based on price, but because the guy took his time, explained what was needed with clarity, had a professional itemized quote and presented himself well. He did everything we asked, had no hidden "extras" when we were done and we recommended his to one of my parents friends who he then did the exact great job.

Treat it like a interview. You should feel comfortable with who you give your money to.

Darkewolfe

Just seconding that Angie's list is not any use.

zepherin

Bluebook is pretty good at getting you numbers. Look at disaster mitigation companies they generally have experience with xactimate and can send quotes to your insurance company in that format so the process is faster.

Maguano

Ask people you know local to the area if they've done any renovations/know any contractors and call them to see if they'll come out to give you an estimate? (its what i did after 2 trees fell on my house after Sandy). Word of mouth sometimes is the best endorsement. Be wary of people who ask for a payment for an estimate, and/or say that they'll only give you an estimate if you can guarantee that you will use their services.

DoctorArch

Speaking from experience, but be cautious about getting an estimate, getting the work done, and finding out that the insurance company won't pay the full amount because they think you "improved" your situation.

Get everything documented, communicate with the insurance company via e-mail if you can, and if you're on the phone write down everything you remember about your conversation with the insurance representative.

DoctorArch

Also, it might not be a bad idea to look into your own independent adjuster for estimation purposes. While the one hired by the insurance company is, ostensibly, an independent adjuster not employed by the insurance company, they are acting as an agent for the insurance company because they are there at the insurance company's request. Additionally, this means it is possible that the independent adjuster could be low-balling figures, which is why the insurance company hires them in the first place.

zepherin

DoctorArch wrote: »

Also, it might not be a bad idea to look into your own independent adjuster for estimation purposes. While the one hired by the insurance company is, ostensibly, an independent adjuster not employed by the insurance company, they are acting as an agent for the insurance company because they are there at the insurance company's request. Additionally, this means it is possible that the independent adjuster could be low-balling figures, which is why the insurance company hires them in the first place.

As I said previously make sure whatever company you get an estimate from, or whatever adjuster you have is competent in Xactimate. It is literally the only software insurance companies use to establish loss value for disaster claims. And often times discrepancies between your GC and insurance companies come from the way an estimated is formatted. Having it formatted in the way that insurance companies have their adjuster estimate formatted saves a great deal of time.

For more information read this.

http://www.uphelp.org/pubs/xactimate-demystified

Tam

Thanks very much to everyone who responded. It was a big help, I got 5 estimates and determined 3 of the companies to be reliable. However that's all moot now because the insurance person we were dealing with got fired and a new person called us saying that they'd really rather handle it, and they'd call us in for an inspection once everything was done. My dad preferred them managing it so he took that option as the homeowner.

But I learned about the process so thanks everyone.

Zepherin, yeah, xactimate is what they use