How To Find the Right Tradespeople for Your Home Improvement Project

ad | When it comes to renovations on your home, it’s so important to find the right people to do it. If you can do it yourself, great! Perhaps you have a family member who’s qualified in what you need doing and can do it for a discount. Also amazing. But if you need to hire outside help, then it’s important to ensure you’re hiring qualified professionals.

Photo by Sandie Clarke on Unsplash

As you probably know, if you follow my blog or my Instagram, my partner and I are moving house this year and there’s been a fair bit that needed doing. Nothing major, just niggly jobs that you can’t ignore.

Thankfully, my partner’s Dad used to be an electrician and he’s exceptionally knowledgeable in painting and decorating, having pretty much decorated and re-vamped every house they’ve ever lived in growing up.

We would have been lost in this whole decorating process without him!

I also had a garden office built in my parents home (which I’m sad to be leaving!) in 2020, which we did have to hire various tradespeople in for, including builders, electricians and painters!

So I’ve had both experiences and know the importance of hiring tradespeople who are reliable, efficient and professional.

How to find the right tradespeople for your home improvement project:

Ask friends or family for recommendations

A great place to start when looking for builders, electricians, painters or any type of tradespeople you need for your home improvement is by asking friends and family.

You know your friends and family aren’t going to recommend someone unreliable to you, so if you can get a recommendation this way, then great!

Use online resources to find local tradespeople

You can use a site like My Local Toolbox to find local tradespeople if you don’t have any recommendations from friend and family and need to find someone yourself.

You post your job and then receive quotes from local tradespeople near you. This gives you the option to research them all yourself and find one that’s most suitable before you hire one!

Do the necessary checks on anyone you hire

If you’re hiring someone who’s been recommended to you by a friend or family, then a good idea would be to go around to that person’s house to see the work this tradesperson has done.

Also chatting with your friend about what they’re like and how they work, to get a feel for if they’d be a good fit for you.

For anyone who you’re hiring from online, you’ll probably want to do more thorough checks to make sure you’re hiring someone professional and qualifies. These checks might include:

Google and online reviews
References from other people
Asking to see their previous projects

Some questions you might want to ask them as well are:

How long they’ve been in trading
If they can supply a building regulations compliance certificate
If they’re registered with a trade body
If they’re registered with the trading standards scheme

Get a quote in writing and agree a payment schedule and terms

Always get a written quote for any substantial work you’re getting done and a contract written up with terms and payment plans. This way, the tradespeople can’t go back on their word throughout the process and you both know where you stand, especially if it’s a larger sum of money.

Don’t use anyone who approaches you out of the blue

No reputable tradesperson will cold call, so you definitely don’t want to be accepting work from those who offer their services unsolicited. Many con artists work in this way and you don’t want to be caught out so always be extra cautious.

Don’t go by low quotes

It can be very easy to go with the lowest quote possible, especially when the work we need doing is going to cost a bit and we’re trying to save money. But low quotes can also result in low quality work and some tradespeople might go in with a low quote initially and then raise their quote later.