How to find a reputable person for your home project
Finding a great builder
Finding the right person for your kitchen, living room, hallway, spare room, loft conversion, you name it, is a daunting task. Unless you are able to call on a rolodex of builders that you have, finding the correct people for your home project can be a daunting task. Not only do you need to scour the internet, look at reviews, past work, and ratings - you also need to make a shortlist and then get quotes for each task in your project. This can be very time consuming, especially if your project involves a gantt chart the size of an A3 page with font size 8 listing all the work packages.
Step 1 - Make a project plan
Begin by defining the scope of your renovation. Which areas of the kitchen, bathrooms, and living rooms are you planning to remodel? Are you updating the decor, knocking down walls for more space, or maybe redoing the plumbing and electrical systems? Establish clear goals for each room so you can outline specific tasks. For instance, the kitchen might involve installing new countertops and cabinets, while the bathrooms may require new tiles and fixtures, and the living rooms new flooring and lighting.
Every renovation project hinges on the budget. Itemise the costs associated with each phase of your project, including materials, tools, and any professional services you'll need to enlist (e.g., an electrician or plumber). Don't forget to include a contingency fund, typically 10-20% of your total budget, to handle unexpected issues or costs that arise during renovation.
Step 2 - Design
Collect design ideas and inspirations for each room. Use platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, or home improvement websites to visualise your plan. Consider the functionality of each space, the colour scheme, lighting, and layout. If structural changes are part of the plan, sketch out the new floor plans for a clearer vision. This phase might also involve choosing fixtures, tiles, paint colors, and other design elements. Websites such as Houzz, Instagram, and Pinterest to traditional magazines such as Beautiful Home and Architectural Digest may help inspire you and lead you to what you ultimately want to see realised.
Step 3 - Timeline and work package itemisation
Develop a timeline for your project. Renovations can be disruptive, so it's essential to know the sequence of tasks. Create a schedule that begins with tasks that impact all rooms, like new flooring or painting, to avoid repetition. Plan your work in stages, room by room, to minimize disruption. Remember to be flexible, as DIY projects often encounter unexpected challenges that can affect your timeline.
Work package itemisation means you sit there at your computer or desk and work out every task that needs to be done and then breakdown those tasks. For example, a task might be Kitchen renovation. Inside of that task will be tasks such as flooring, worktops, cabinets, walls, etc. Inside each of those tasks will be a further breakdown. Going down to the lowest and most itemised level you can will enable your planning to be more accurate. Do walls need to be painted before the cabinets can be put in? Yes. Do the gas pipes and water mains need to be plumbed in and sunk into the walls? Yes. Does that need to happen before a worktop counter is installed? Yes and so on.
Step 4 - Bringing it all together
At this point you will have 10s or maybe hundreds of tasks, neatly ordered in a Gannt chart (typical for a complex project) and with estimated costs for each work package and maybe even at task level based on labour hours and hardware involved. Only at this stage are you now ready to start looking for reputable people. Why wait until you have a plan before executing? Because you will reach superior outcomes when thought goes into action. For example, you may not know that you should not put a double-door American fridge-freezer next to a wall because you cannot open one of the doors as it needs more than the 90 degree angle, however, you will have a plan on paper and when a professional sees it, he or she, will instantly tell you that the fridge-freezer should be moved. Hence, you have a plan that will be iterated and improved upon by those with experience and the skills to execute the plans.
Step 5 - Finding the right people
This is why you came to this webpage to begin with! How to find the correct people helps if you have done the steps above. Your planning lets you know what skills sets are required to execute your project, the approximate timeilne needed for each skill and in what order you need the skills, hence that translates to your being able to answer the questions, "who do you need, when do you need him or her, and have you met all the prerequisites" so when the person turns up he or she can start executing.
Step 6 - Search online
Searching NextDoor, Houzz, Checkatrade, MyBuilder, and directory listings of RIBA, and other local and professional organisation websites. This will help you get a list of contractors or firms that purport to have the skills set you are looking for to execute your project. However, in some cases, it may be very difficult to determine who is better. You can call up the handful of people you need, get quotes from them, and check their availability and then slot them into yout project gantt chart.
Step 7 - Differentiating among the crowd of suppliers
In the same way you choose Silestone Calcutta Gold quartz worktop over laminate, you have to see the work and you have to be willing to pay the price charged. By getting at least three quotes for every tradesperson you need, you will be able to determine a ballpark comparative cost for the services you require. However, there is no substitute for checking their prior work and speaking to satisfied customers. Trustpilot can only tell you so much and quite frequently, because of the incentives behind ratings submissions and that fact that most people unless they receive stellar quality or very poor quality experiences don't bother leaving a rating, the ratings can be skewed.
Why can't I get the same quality contractors that work at Berkeley Homes or Barratt?
That's a common question and we should answer it by pointing out the economics. You as a homeowner are a relatively unimportant customer. You will not provide the best tradespeople with the quantity of work they need to make a living for the year. Your margin in absolute terms will not be great enough even if on an hourly basis you feel as if you are being price gouged. Sure, these contractors get paid less per hour when working at the big firms, but they are guaranteed work and they don't need to fight in the moshpit for inbound leads to perform work that may only last a few days. So, like in most professions, the best move to working at the corporate level on big deals and projects, and the rest are spread along the curve of opportunities right down to the bottom of the pile where you have unregistered tradespeople, perhaps, with only a first name, advertising services on Gumtree.
Using Bluebadge to find your skills need
As a firm we focus on hiring people and working with contractors with PROVEN work history and ratings feedback. The work history is proven because the tradespeople build history on their profiles while they work for us. Whilst we don't attempt to work on entire projects nor do we have project managers in-house, we do have a large range of skillset available and the skillset can be scheduled online on a calendar when needed.
Once you have made your plans in Steps 1 to 4, you will then be in a position to request a video quote and find out how much it would cost to have one of our quality people at your property executing your home project. Our people can be scheduled when you want them to be, via the online calendar, and our estimates are done by video so the tradesperson will have seen what you want done before getting to your house, avoiding the sit-in quotes that other contractor's may use. Ever wondered why some don't give quotations until they get to your house? What is the chance that you give in and say yes to any quote when the person is there. Avoid that situation by using Bluebadge!