Cheap isn’t always cheap

The American home improvement industry is a $600 billion market. That’s billion with a B. Bigger than the airline industry. Bigger than the music, movie and video game industries combined.

It is also one of the most complained-about industries in the country. Year after year, home improvement and construction trade places with the auto industry for the No. 1 spot on the Consumer Federation of America’s list of top complaints, right up there with questionable used car dealers.

Why? Because contractors disappear. They underbid a job, then change-order the homeowner into the poorhouse. They show up late, leave early or don’t show up at all. They do work so poorly that another contractor has to come fix it, if another contractor will even take the job.
That is the industry you are hiring from when you get three bids and pick the cheapest one.

Every year at my company, we get calls to come rescue someone else’s job. Work that was never finished. Tile that came loose six months after installation. Sometimes we did not come in as the lowest bid on that same job. The homeowner went with the cheapest option, got overwhelmed with change orders and either lost contact with the contractor or had to remove them from the job. There is a difference between cheap and affordable. Cheap does not mean value. Sometimes cheap means you pay twice.

That stings, and we do not like that for anyone.

Most of the time, we have to turn those rescue jobs down. They are too far gone. You cannot always fix a bad situation after the fact.

Have jobs gone sideways for us? Yes. Anyone who says otherwise is either not being honest or has not been in business long enough to know better. But we have always worked to get back on track. We have never walked off a job. We have never left a client without support. We have finished the work every time we were allowed to do so, sometimes paying out of our own pocket to make it right. That is the difference between a contractor and a company.

So the next time you have a project, find the right contractor and get it done correctly the first time. Do not just look at the number at the bottom of the page. Look at who is providing it. Have they been in business more than five years? Do you know someone who has used them? Do they have a real address, a team and a track record you can verify?

The lowest bid is rarely the cheapest price. It is usually just the first payment.

Hire local. Hire proven. Get it done right the first time.

Ryan Chowansky is the owner of Bluffton Builders, LLC, www.bluffton.builders.