Your Home Improvement Company – Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough Counties

Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough County Home Inspection

What will your home improvement company be?

There are basically 3 different routes that you can go:

1. General contractor or other specific contractor
2. Handyman
3. Do it your self

What are some of the factors that will help you make a decision?

GENERAL CONTRACTOR

A contractor who is doing things right should be doing work standardly per the codes of the municipality you are in. He is going to be pulling permits where permits are required and if he needs other subcontractors in some other specialty trades he will hire them to work underneath him.  You can request to see the permits, not only when they are first pulled but when they are fully signed off from the building department when the work is complete.

That might be an advantage to you so that you know he is responsible for the work and if there are issues he should handle them as he has a legal obligation.

Perhaps the disadvantage to this, depending on your viewpoint is that this is likely going to be the most expensive route.

HANDYMAN

Your next option is with a handyman. There are handymen who are contractors but not always.

If you go this route you may find a gem, someone who does things strictly by the book, follows codes, pulls permits and does a fully standard job. If you can find someone like this then this can be a good solution.

If however he is the sort of handyman that just does the work any way he sees fit so “it works” and does not follow any standards, does not follow codes and does not pull permits, then you can be asking for trouble. We see this sort of work all the time at home inspections.

For example, even if the work done functions, when you go to sell your house in the future, some home inspector like me is going to point out all the points which appear to have been done in a substandard manner and your prospective buyer will likely then ask you for these points to now be done standardly or ask for credit off your asking price for them to be fixed.

So your thought of wanting to save money with your home improvement company can cost you more money in the long run if your handyman home improvements are substandard and the work is done in a fashion as in the example above.

And what is the scenario if the company you use do not operate using permits for their work?  Worst case is you could potentially be fined and the work done having to be removed.  And if a natural disaster occurs such as a fire the insurance company may not honor payments on the unpermitted areas. Oops – your home improvement company was the wrong choice. Of course this would depend on the municipality you reside in, their rules and regulations and the individual you deal with from the city. Either way you are at the effect end rather than being at the cause end of the situation.

DO IT YOURSELF HOME IMPROVEMENTS

The last option is do it yourself home improvements which is really not using a company so is a page in itself if you want to go that way.

If you are selling your home in the Tampa Bay, Pinellas, Hillsborough or Pasco county, it is always a good option as a seller to get a standard property inspection done to get some specifics on the condition of the home prior to having potential buyers arrive with a home inspector. This way you are cutting out a lot of the back and forth that can occur when the inspection is not done until the buyer has it done. This can also potentially save time and money for both parties.