Introduction

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Your home may be your most valuable financial asset.  That’s why it’s important to be cautious when you hire someone to work on it.  When hiring a general contractor you need to be prepared.  Major remodeling requires planning, sometimes as much as a year in advance.  The first step in planning involves defining your priorities, establishing your projects goals then researching your options. 

To help you in this effort, we have prepared this manual to provide you with an overview for hiring a contractor.  This manual is broken down into two parts.  Part one is an alphabetical summary of some common terms and activities associated with hiring a contractor.  Part two is designed to familiarize you with the different types of specialty contractors, what they do and how they charge for jobs.

Plenty of unanticipated problems can arise during the course of your renovations and since hindsight is 20 20, the goal of this manual is to forearm you with information and some forewarning that could save you thousands of dollars and many sleepless nights.