Orange County Home Remodeling

Why Won’t Contractors Call Me Back?

I get calls from Orange County home remodeling clients all the time that are trying to put a room addition together, asking me, why contractors don’t seem to call them back.  Or a contractor says he will show up to look at the project but never comes.

This can be very frustrating.

So, I get the question.  Is it that they don’t want to work or what?

That’s not the case.  What happens is contractors are not designers. They are builders.  They like to build.  That’s their job.   The part of the job they don’t like, because it can take a lot of time and effort, is trying to figure out what it is that you want.  If you are having trouble getting contractors to give you accurate bids, it may be because they don’t want to do the legwork involved to put all the numbers together as they just want to build.

That’s where a set of preliminary drawings can help you out dramatically!

Having drawings from customers that know exactly what they want, makes contractors happy and drives them to you.

If you can, get someone like myself, a designer, to verify with your local city everything that is required like; setback requirements, height regulations and lot coverage.  That way you know that you’re designing something that will be legal and you will be able to get the city to approve for permits.

If you do this ahead of time — get a set of plans done – this gives the contractor all he wants and he sees you’re organized, interested, and going to go through with your room addition.  Then he’s going to set aside time to bid out accurately for your job.  Also, if you do get preliminary plans done first, he knows that it is not just him that is going to be bidding on the project and that will start off a kind of bidding war.  That way you end up getting nicer prices.

One of the main benefits of having the preliminary plans done is that it makes it easier on your potential contractor.

Contractors, once they have a set of plans, can verify the square footage.  They can verify how many windows.  They can see how the roof ties in to the existing structure.  This makes it so much easier on the contractor and is how you will get them calling you back.

So if you call up a handful of guys and say, “I have a set of preliminary plans here that I need you to bid off of.” they will jump at it that much quicker.

If you have any questions about Orange County home remodeling and how to get the most out of your project, or are ready to have your plans drawn up, feel free to give me a call!