Before getting fully involved with a flooring company, check out these 4 vital factors that every contractor should be able to provide you. For more information, read below! For now, let's watch:
Here's what each flooring expert should provide to every customer:
1) Communicate - Timely and Openly
Any flooring company will have other projects on their hands, so we appreciate your flexibility when we need an hour or two to respond or get to your home due to delays. However, it's important to recognize a pattern in tardy responses and even flat out neglect or ghosting.
Remember: you are the customer! Your home is your sacred place, so if you're experiencing red flags in first communication, take that as a sign to seek out another contractor ASAP.
2) Answer all of your questions
Your flooring providers should have years of experience. If they don't....
From that experience comes knowledge and expertise. They have probably experienced things that they wished they hadn't, like errors, but it all adds up to more information that they can offer you down the road.
We recommend that you do a bit of research and test your contractor by asking some basic technical questions. If they cannot answer quickly and with confidence, then you're working with someone who does not yet have the knowledge they need to work on your floor.
3) Provide you with a full cost breakdown
Perhaps the most important way to exhibit open communication and an ability to answer questions is through your quote.
The estimate your contractor gives you for the job cannot be one all-encompassing number! This leaves your contractor with too much wiggle-room to be dishonest about extra costs later on in the project.
The way a professional contractor presents an estimate, to avoid future confusion, is in the form of a budget breakdown. Everything you're going to be paying for should be detailed and individually priced so that you are going into the project with eyes wide open.
Having a floor installed is not a cheap project, so you deserve to know what you're paying for.
4) Have a step-by-step plan, and explain it to you
Just as experience brings expertise, it also brings professionalism and a system for each project.
Your flooring expert will know what they are going to expect and physically do for each job.
But, they need to let you in on their plan, and be able to explain it so you fully understand and know what you're getting into.
A few questions you can ask:
What's the prep? How long does it take? What happens after you tear out my old floor? Do I need to do anything?
By focusing on this as a full blog post and a quick video, we hope to enlighten you with ways to pick a contractor that's reliable, open, honest, and truly helpful.
If your contractor fails 1 or more of these items, seek out another flooring company.
There are plenty of companies out there who need your business, but there's only 1 of your home.