Improve Your Home With These Services
Spring and summer offer the ideal time to make home improvements. Whether you want to update your garage door or repaint your home’s exterior and have matching roofing gutters installed, you’ll need to hire professionals to complete the work. Read on to learn which home improvement companies to hire to complete the work most efficiently.
Gutter Services
Let’s start with the home’s exterior. Roofing gutters take a beating from storms and high winds. They require annual maintenance; roofing gutters need thorough cleaning at least once per year, typically after fall. After a few years, they need repairs. Because roofing gutters work to keep the home’s roof in good shape, when you look for local gutter installation, you often won’t need to look further than your local roofing company.
Most roofers also install roofing gutters and downspouts. The guttering system surrounding the home protects the roof from pooling water and the foundation from pooling runoff. When you’re looking for home improvement companies to hire, finding a good roofer can serve you in many ways.
Roofing Services
Roofing companies offer much more than roof repairs. Most roofing firms also offer roof inspections, roofing installations, roof maintenance, and roofing gutter installations and repairs. Some roofing companies also install siding but check the website of each of the companies you consider for their services list.
Homes need an annual roof inspection. This inspection uncovers any lost shingles, developing leaks, or flashing problems, so the homeowner can have them repaired.
Choose the type of new roof you want to be installed before shopping around for your roofing company. Most roofing firms specialize in one or two types of roofing. For example, some companies only install standing seam metal roofs. Others may specialize in commercial roofing, installing built-up roofing (BUR) or other types of roofing for flat roofs.
Landscape Services
To improve the curb appeal of your home, start with landscaping services. A landscape architect confers with you to design a landscape plan that includes the landscaping, outdoor living areas, such as patios, porticos, or gazebos, and the hardscapes, such as the driveway and walkway paths.
From this plan design, the landscaping crew purchases flowers and plants, then plants them in beds that match the design. They don’t handle installing the other portions of the design. To add the hardscapes to your yard, among the home improvement companies to hire you’ll need a hardscape services company.
Hardscaping Services
Most companies handling this type of work operate both a hardscape design company and installation of the hardscapes. That means if you don’t want to re-landscape your yard, you can hire a hardscaping company to design and build the garden paths, walkway, or patio you want to add. The hardscape designer will draw a plan similar to that of a landscape architect, then build it once you approve the plan.
Some hardscape firms install retaining walls and other yard dividers, such as garden bed walls. Depending on the outdoor living areas you asked your landscape architect to include in the plan design, you’ll also need to hire either a deck builder for a deck, or a master carpenter for a gazebo. Hardscape companies may also install reflecting pools or koi ponds, but they don’t handle the large-scale excavation and installation of swimming pools.
Pool Installation Services
For swimming pools, you need a swimming pool installer. These companies typically specialize in either above-ground or in-ground swimming pools. Once you decide which type of pool you want, start with recommendations from friends who had swimming pools installed. Finding a truly great pool installer tops the list of tough-to-find home improvement companies to hire.
The pool installation company designs the swimming pool, excavates the ground, lays the cement, installs the liner, builds the walls, and fills the pool with water, adding its first round of chemicals. Your pool installer also explains how to care for the pool and shows you how to change the chemicals.
Some swimming pool installation companies also offer pool repairs and maintenance. Maintenance refers to cleaning the swimming pool once per week and changing the chemicals at regular intervals.
Hot Tub Installation Services
Some pool installers are also jacuzzi and hot tub installers. Other companies only offer hot tub installation or jacuzzi installations. That means if you think you want a pool and hot tub, you can save yourself money by hiring one company that offers both services. These firms typically offer a discount when you purchase both a swimming pool and either a hot tub or jacuzzi.
Paving Services
Asphalt paving companies offer some of the same services as hardscape companies but specialize in driveways and sidewalks. They don’t typically construct patios or porches. Paving services companies focus on paving transit areas.
Painting Services
Among the home improvement companies to hire for remodeling or renovation, a professional painter tops the list. Some painters only paint exteriors or interiors. The two locations require different equipment and training.
Interior painting requires a lot of detail work, such as trim, baseboards, and crevices in carved designs. The painter must use brushes to accomplish this work.
Painting exteriors require a painter sprayer, a device that spreads an even amount of paint across a wide area. Doing so quickly covers the home’s exterior. The crew can efficiently place two coats on the home and add a topcoat if needed.
Flooring Services
When hiring flooring services, you’ll need to choose the type of flooring you want before trying to hire services to install it. That’s because installers of luxury vinyl floors typically don’t install stone flooring or bamboo floors.
Typically, flooring services divide their businesses according to flooring type, so a company that installs hardwood and laminate flooring specializes in that flooring. Tile installers install glass tiles, ceramic tiles, and marble tiles. The methods for installing cork flooring and stone or marble vary vastly.
Carpeting also falls within the category of flooring installation. Carpet layers specialize in wall-to-wall carpeting and usually don’t install anything else. They do offer a range of carpet piles and materials.
All of this means that if you want to have a few different types of flooring in your home, you’ll need to hire more than one flooring service company. For this reason, most homeowners choose a single type of flooring to install throughout their homes. If they want carpets, they use room rugs and area rugs.
Garage Door Services
Replacing a garage door can transform the exterior of your home for less than $1,000. Garage door installation requires a professional that specializes in the task. These individuals also typically perform repairs to garage doors. These might include replacing springs, installing a new garage door opener, or straightening a bent frame.
Sometimes, your garage door doesn’t need repairs and recently underwent replacement. In this case, try a garage door vinyl wrap. Just like cars get wrapped in vinyl, so do garage doors. These reasonably priced wraps let you change the appearance of your garage door seasonally or more often if desired. Simple wraps cost less than $100. Some complex designs cost about $500.
Electricians
When you want to update the lighting in your home or add electrical outlets, you’ll need a licensed, certified electrician. These individuals can design outlets for a home office or home theater, then install them. Working with them, you can remodel any room in your home to feature the electrical outlets and USB charging stations you need.
Electricians also install rapid charging stations for electric vehicles. Upgrade your garage with one of these units to charge your EV in less than three hours.
Plumbers
Plumbers can help you improve your home in many ways, including kitchen expansions and building new bathrooms. Other ideas include adding a powder room, a utility sink in the washroom, new outdoor spigots, or an outdoor shower.
Plumbers can also install an outdoor kitchen. If you want to transform your patio into a full-service kitchen, your plumber runs the wet wall for the sink and installs the sink and faucets. A master carpenter handles the construction of the bar or grill area.
Master Carpenters
Most home improvements require hiring a master carpenter. These individuals build everything from new rooms to carved newel posts for the staircase.
A master carpenter constructs built-ins, such as bookcases, wet bars, or desks. These individuals undergo specialized training, just as electricians and plumbers do. After completing their apprenticeship and journeyman process, these individuals earn licensing and certification from their state or city.
Hiring a General Contractor for Big Jobs
Perhaps what you’ve planned goes beyond simple home improvements. If you want to build an addition or a workshop at your home, you’ll need a team of these talented service personnel. Hiring a general contractor (GC) to manage the process provides one of the simplest ways to assemble this team.
A GC performs many construction jobs. They may do light construction, frame a new room, and install the wallboard. This individual may also paint the room and install flooring. For larger projects though, it’s more likely that the GC will hire sub-contractors.
When building a home addition, they typically sub-contract out the flooring, plumbing, electrical, and some of the carpentry work. This lets them focus on the bigger picture – the project management.
The GC works with the architect to create the homeowner’s vision for the project from architectural plans. This individual handles the payment of all of the workers and obtains all of the permits for work on the project. They ensure that all work done on the project meets local and state code requirements.
That might not sound huge, but without permits, most cities will force a homeowner to undo the work they did and redo it with a permit issued. Obtaining a permit requires hiring a licensed, certified service person.
Once the crew completes the work, the GC lets the city know, so it can send an inspector. The inspection ensures that the work meets the code.
Hiring a Construction Company
Hiring a construction company provides another efficient method of locating the right construction workers for the job. A construction firm typically employs all of the above positions and a few others, such as masons.
While hiring independently can result in hiring some non-union workers, hiring a construction company typically ensures you hire all union employees. That’s because many cities require union workers for specific types of jobs, as does the federal government.
If you want to undertake a major home improvement project, such as the construction of a mother-in-law cottage, hire a construction firm. This action ensures that you acquire all of the licensed and certified talent that your job requires.
Choosing the Right Workers
When hiring for home improvements, first check the background of the individual or company. Start locally with the Chamber of Commerce. Also, check their records with the Better Business Bureau.
Phone the city to check on their licensing and certifications for their specialty. This may also require calling the union that oversees their type of work.
Read their reviews online at sites like Yelp and the BBB. Find a site that requires proof that the consumer reviewing the individual or company actually hired them though. Some unscrupulous firms try to cheat the system by leaving fake bad reviews. Finding a site that only allows verified customers solves that problem.
Finally, call each business on your shortlist. Ask them questions about the services they provide, scheduling, and costs. Also, inquire whether you purchase the materials or they do. You can save money by having a contractor purchase materials since they get bulk discounts.