Not every customer is a good fit for every contractor and vice versa. It is very important to take the time to get to know your contractor. As with anything in life not all personalities mesh. You need to be sure that you feel comfortable talking to the person you have entrusted with your home.
Throughout a project there are often questions, concerns , and/or changes that need to be made. If you do not feel comfortable having a conversation with your contract you run the risk of your project not being completed to your liking, desire or within your time frame. You also don’t want every conversation to be combative or argumentative. Your contractor should be willing to listen to what you want and have constructive ideas and solutions to reach your goals.
While your contractor needs to be accommodating and flexible in some things, you need to be the same. It’s perfectly acceptable to want what you want as long as you realize that changes incur costs and what you want may not be physically possible. You cannot say to your contractor that you want to install a 24″ vanity in an 18″ space and expect them to make it happen. That is not something that’s the contractors fault, it’s basic physics.
In any project there are times that no one could anticipate an issue or a necessary change. Blaming your contractor because existing piping in a house is defective and needs to be completely changed is unfair. There are some problems that no one could know exists until you get into the project. This is the perfect time to have a rational, informative conversation about solutions and costs.
When you select a contractor you feel comfortable with you develop a level of trust that is very important. You need to know that when he says you need to replace your roof instead of patching it, as was in your contract, that he has your best interests at heart. You can always opt to not do what they suggest but with the understanding that it may create issues for you in the future. Good contractors will want to be sure that, at the end of the day, everything was done to hand over a safe, beautiful home.