Update: ID Topic Revisited

Related Posts
1 How to Choose ID
2 Protect Yourself Against Unscrupulous Contractors
3 Engaging an ID
4 Our Renovation Cost & ID
5 ID Contact
6 ID Update
7 Renovation headaches
8 ID Topic Revisited

Following came from a forum post on Renotalk and my response. Thought it would be useful to share it with other readers.

Note: I have edited poster's portions (shown striked-out) for clarity and also amplified my response where needed.

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QUOTE (GrandReno @ Mar 6 2011, 10:59 PM) *
Thanks BlueFly for the writeup on choosing an ID.

Definitely, choosing an ID is more than reading other home owners' recommendations. I agree. But my point is, it's very

difficult to know you've gotten a good one. No one can guarantee that. I've been to several IDs whom I feel are good. But when I read the reviews on Renotalk, I realized they were complaints against them.

You can ask many questions to sift out good IDs from bad ones. But the end result could be different from what you initially expected. Which is why many owners felt cheated. That's the scary part for me.

In short, you don't know who you can trust. You think you have a good ID. He or she makes many promises to you. Makes you feel good. You sign up. Then after that, problems happen. Which is what the poster of this thread is experiencing. And if you read other threads, there are many similar accounts too.

Even the reviews recommendations by forumers - I'm not sure how many are real, how many bogus impersonated ones.

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Hi GrandReno,

Nice user ID!!

Actually my point was: it is not solely the ID who is responsible for quality or good workmanship, as explained in my blog article. Asking forumers to recommend their IDs and following the advice is not doing due diligence nor the proper way to choose an ID. Other considerations in your final selection of ID need to be taken into account if you desire quality workmanship and outcome.

Good workmanship is produced by the team of subcons used by the ID. This was apparent when my ID ((i.e. short- listed but before I had accepted his quotation, sneaky huh? tongue.gif ) showed me some projects he handled - both reno-in-progress and completed ones. As you know, most IDs handle several projects concurrently, using different subcon teams for each project. Therefore, I insisted the ID use the same subcon team that had impressed me when I viewed one of the ID's reno-in-progress.

Second, lack of supervision. IDs like any one else, is not a superman. I saw my ID was burnt out handling too many

projects. So knowing mine may suffer from inadequate supervision, I often took time out to check on the work-in-progress myself (my ID usually was not around!). If I saw something was not right, I stopped work and called the ID immediately. He wld get it from me if he hung up or didn't respond within xxx min!!! He usually called back if he was too busy and after we talked, he would then speak on the phone to the subcon head and tell him what was wrong or what I wanted done or changed. That took care of matters. 80-90% of issues were resolved that way, on-the-spot. Lesson is: you've got to preempt, do the checks yourself, don't wait for mistakes to happen, and don't depend entirely on the ID. If you expect good workmanship to happen, dream on. It ain't gonna work.

My ID was a nice guy (although lazy), I liked him, and I cut him some slack. He also saw I was reasonable, he reciprocated with freebies. So we got along fine. My verdict and opinion of him is on my blog, if you wish to know.

Renosian: Thanks for yr pm. To read my article, click on the link below my user ID, ie. my signature below. The article name is underlined and hyperlinked for easy access. Simply click on the one you're interested in and it will bring you to the article, ok? Let me know if you need help further.

Cheers

Bluefly aka Greencoal

Related Posts
1 How to Choose ID
2 Protect Yourself Against Unscrupulous Contractors
3 Engaging an ID
4 Our Renovation Cost & ID
5 ID Contact
6 ID Update
7 Renovation headaches
8 ID Topic Revisited