Years of Experience

I see leads all the time that asks for contractors with only 10 years of experience to submit quotes. I think that people believe that the more years you have been in the construction business the better you are. While that may be the case for some; it is definitely not the case for all. There are guys that have been doing it for 20 years but those 20 years were doing things wrong. When I say wrong I mean an industry standard being done incorrectly, not just my opinion of their work.

 I was recently reading a tile forum where a homeowner asked if the pictures of the tile that were installed were acceptable. The grout joints were all over the place, the guy seemed to have forgotten the pattern as he was tiling, and the amount of lippage was insane. This particular contractor apparently had 30 years of experience installing tile. I’m pretty sure I could take someone off the street, give them a day of practice and they would have done better.

Years of experience are not an accurate gauge of the quality of the contractors work. Judge the contractor by how you perceive them during the consultation. See pictures of their work, or even better see if you can go and see it personally. References are a big clue as well, be sure to check those. I may not have the years of experience that many others have but my quality of work speaks for itself.