I'm trying to choose a good carpet dealer. I recently got badly burned by a drain service and am getting cautious about choosing various businesses. I Googled but couldn't find reviews of the carpet dealers I am considering. Maybe I should sign up for this Angie's List review list?
TIA
Check out Yelp, you will find some fairly objective reviews there. In fact, if I were you, I would change my approach, I would consider the dealers I find reviewed on Yelp and ignore dealers with no references.
The carpet business is as shady as the mattress business.
I'd be googling up area suppliers and talking to friends. Lists like Angie's are paid by contractors to advertise and may be far from the best in the area. Unsure about all of them but you have to ask what's in if for them to make such lists.
You can also go to any of the big box stores, like Home Depot, Menards, etc, and buy your own carpet. Then ask about who they have available to install it. Most of those places have a list of local installers. Ask these men for references.
Save yourself money by removing the old carpet yourself.
While you are not wrong about Angie's List getting paid by contractors, it's not that simple. If things haven't changed since this 2013 Forbes article was written, contractors must meet - and maintain - a rating criteria in order to advertise and they must offer a discount in that advertisement.
Please don't take this as defense of Angie's List. I have never used their site so I have nothing to say about their service, good or bad. I simply want to help make it clear that (assuming what is said below is still true) it takes more than money to advertise on Angie's List. It appears that you have to prove yourself worthy to consumers first.
Stolen without permission from:
In a statement, Angie?s List founder and CMO Angie Hicks said, ? ??Angie?s List is built on a foundation of fairness and transparency. Everything at Angie ?s List starts with the consumers. The consumers give the reviews and assign grades. The companies? A-F ratings are the average of the consumer reviews we receive. Companies that are A-B rated are eligible to advertise with Angie ?s List, but they must offer a discount with that advertisement and if their grades fall below a B, we pull their advertising.?
Easy to get burnt. Avoid anyone that takes a full page ad in the Yellow Pages. Ask neighbors about the little shop in town that has been there for 20+ years.
Price is important, but not the most important part of a buy. Service, reliability, quality of installation are more important that saving $100 on an item you may have for the next 25 years. Avoid anyone offering "free" anything as nothing is free. Same with those big SALE signs.
Now is also the time to consider other flooring options. Possibly a wood floor with throw rugs or tile in a hallway.
We have a local store that I'd go to. I'd pay the price he quotes and know I'm getting a fair deal. I've known the guy from when he as a manager at a Sherwin-Williams store and later opened his own. He was here longer than the 35 years that I've been here and he does well. There must be a reason. Find a place like that from talking to your neighbors.
Speaking of big SALE signs, there was a store near me with huge signs that took up basically the entire front windows.
It was the arrangement of their signs that was pretty funny. Most of us read left to right, correct? So how would you read these signs, hanging side by side, across the front of a store:
SALE SALE SLATE COUCHES POOL SECTIONALS TABLES
Considered DIY using carpet squares?
"KenK" wrote | | I'm trying to choose a good carpet dealer. I recently got badly burned by a | drain service and am getting cautious about choosing various businesses. I | Googled but couldn't find reviews of the carpet dealers I am considering. | Maybe I should sign up for this Angie's List review list? |
One note on drain services: We paid $270 awhile back for a drain blockage that I couldn't reach. It was out near the street. A root growing into the drain. The man was not a plumber and only used an industrial snake. He could have used a holesaw-type fitting to clear the root, but he didn't. He just cleared it "for now". Eventually the whole thing had to be relined. I learned my lesson. Next time I want to spend $270 I'll buy a highpower drain snake and do it myself. (As with rubbish hauling, I'm repeatedly amazed that some of the highest incomes are made by the least skilled contractors.)
You didn't mention price. A lot of carpet layers advertise great prices. You can't expect top quality AND low price, so that's one thing to consider. With that in mind, you might want to look for someone local and independent who's been in business for awhile.
Just my opinion, as I've never used Angie's List, but I am a contractor.... I wouldn't want to be on Angie's List or on Yelp. The reviews can't be trusted and one negative can cause problems. Most people are not fully informed, fair and honest. Many will either make a hero of their contractor or demonize him, which has more to do with their vanity than with the contractor. I've found that I can sometimes glean something on Yelp about a company with many reviews, but for the most part I wouldn't put any stock in them.
I've had phone calls and emails from Home Advisor, which advertises a lot on TV. When I looked into it I found they're basically just an advertising company. If I signed up they'd send me contacts, which I'd have to pay for. Then I'd have to call the customer quickly and try to get the job before all the other contractors who had just bought the same lead! After a lot of reading I found that some contractors, in some businesses, liked the service. But most didn't.
The problem with all of these advice companies is that their motive is to make money, not to help you find a good carpet layer. And Yelp, AL, HA are all recent developments taking advantage of recent Internet developments. They may or may not be around in 5 years.
All of my business has always come through references and I'd suggest the same to anyone who asks: Ask your friends. Find people you know who have actually hired the contractor. With carpet that may be more difficult. It's not the kind of thing that one buys very often. Still, asking around is the best place to start.
We had Home Depot do our attic about 15 years ago. It still looks good. An impeccable job. But it also doesn't get much wear, so I can't be certain about the quality of the carpet itself. I've also had Home Depot for several of my kitchen jobs, to get granite counter tops. They all worked out well. It's not actually Home Depot. Rather, they subcontract someone local. If they do a good job then you've got a name for the future. I only had one bad experience with HD. I needed laminate countertops and dislike making them myself. I decided to try HD. The order was fine except that one piece had the laminate on the wrong edge, leaving an exposed edge. I took it back. They agreed it was wrong but said it would take 3 weeks to fix! I'm in Boston. The laminate contractor was in S. NH. My job was almost done. I asked if I could drive up to NH on my own time to get the counter done quickly. No way.
3 weeks. I went and bought a sheet of laminate and finished the counter myself, at my own expense. That was the last time I called HD for something I can do myself. But in general I've been happy with things I've ordered from them. At the very least, you know that they're not going to use a subcontractor who generates complaints.
If you give an idea of where you are located, maybe there are others here who would know of good carpet dealers in your area.
In my area, South Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania, I belong to 3 different local real estate investor group that have online discussion forums. A question that frequently comes up is where to buy carpet (and other types of flooring), who to use for the installation, what to get (what type, quality, etc) etc. So, if you were in my area, I would be able to give you specific names of where to buy, who to use, etc. based on the recommendations that I see over and over in those online forums.
You may want to see if there are any real estate investor groups in your area that could offer specific suggestions. Most require a membership fee to join, but many also have free meetings that the public can attend. Here is a link to help locate real estate investor groups in all states:
I used Home Advisor for furnace repair, roofing, and replacing a broken glass pane. It was called Service Magic then, so it was 6-7 years ago. I found the contractors were pretty much split. The guys who got my jobs were okay with the service, of course. Some of the others resented paying the $20 or $100 for the referral, while some just wrote it off as the "cost of doing business."
"Vic Smith" wrote
| I used Home Advisor for furnace repair, roofing, and replacing a | broken glass pane. It was called Service Magic then, so it was 6-7 | years ago. | I found the contractors were pretty much split. The guys who got my | jobs were okay with the service, of course. Some of the others | resented paying the $20 or $100 for the referral, while some just | wrote it off as the "cost of doing business." |
I didn't realize they'd been around that long. Maybe they just recently expanded nationally. They've only contacted me in the past year, apparently using the state of MA contractor registration listings to get names/numbers of contractors.
I can see how HA might seem good for the customer. You get to hold an auction, with several contractors showing up quickly to bid on the job. So HA is doing all the legwork for you. The only down side is that it's all impersonal. You know nothing about any of the contractors and they don't necessarily have any concern for you.
I would guess the contractor view would depend a lot on where you live and what kind of contractor is involved. I'm in a big city, don't advertise and have enough work. I wouldn't even want responses to my own ads as long as I can avoid it. That would mean sorting through lots of people who don't know me. Most would be only looking for a comparison estimate or looking for a very low price. In other words, wasting my time. With HA it's much worse. I'd need to compete, often in a short period of time, trying to outbid a number of other contractors. That would only be worthwhile if the job were very big and very lucrative, which is highly unlikely in the case of HA. Generally I won't spend time on a bid if I know the people are getting other bids. That's not a matter of smugness on my part. It's just that I have mostly regular customers, so the time spent to compete for a job I might not even end up wanting is simply not worth it to me. And the repeat business is questionable. Most people who are getting 3 bids will get 3 different bids next time. They don't value loyalty.
With personal referrals there's some trust starting out. The customer has a friend who I've worked for. So we both feel some trust with each other and they usually call me with the expectation that they'll hire me -- not that I'll be one bidder among several. But my work also involves a lot of repeat work. With roofing and furnace repair (and carpetting) the customers are often one-time only. So they need a much bigger customer base than I do, and referrals may not count for as much.
I can't even imagine bidding on fixing a pane of glass. :) You must live in a very affordable region. If someone calls me for that I tell them to make a punch list and call me back, because I'd have to charge them far too much if I go out for just that small job. Neither one of us would be happy. I'd charge them for maybe a half day, and that would be a waste for me. I can't do much with the rest of the day. Meanwhile, they'd be unhappy and tell their friends that a contractor just fleeced them, charging a crazy amount to put in a $5 pane of glass. And in most cases the job can't even be done in one trip. (Someone will need to paint the window after the glazing cures. Most homeowners are not up to that task.)
Awhile back I dealt with a tub refinisher who did a beautiful job and was very responsible. I offered to refer him to my customers, but he couldn't be bothered to even give me a business card. He said he got *all* of his customers from Angies List and had plenty of calls. I guess that's a good example of a contractor who will like those services. He needs a new customer daily to stay in business. Though if Angies List closes or falls from favor, his business will evaporate overnight.
On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 11:02:53 AM UTC-4, Mayayana wrote: ...snip...
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Agreed, but there can certainly be exceptions.
I got a personal referral from a co-worker for an electrician. The guy had done his pool wiring (fairly complicated with underwater lights, a hot tub, bar, sound system, etc.) He came with glowing references.
In my case, his workers screwed up a simple service panel swap. I sent him pictures of what I thought was wrong and he told me that what they had done was OK. I was sure it wasn't, so I called another electrician and verified that what they had done was against code. When I called him him back and told him that I had verified that the installation was wrong, he got pissed at *me* for not trusting him! I had given him his chance and he either lied to me or doesn't know the code and he gets pissed at me for calling somebody else. Wait...what?
Then he told me that I would have to wait until the guy that screwed it up had his own free time to fix it because he wasn't going to let the guy fix his mistake on company time. Are you kidding me? His employee screwed it up, he told me it was fine when it wasn't, he got pissed that I proved him either a lier or incompetent and then he expected me to wait until his employee had "free time". It didn't take me very long to convince him that it better be fixed within 3 days or the authorities would be notified. It was.
When I explained the situation to my co-worker he was shocked. He said it sounded like I was dealing with a totally different company. Who can explain the differences? I can see personality conflicts causing a difference of opinion about a given contractor, but this was a "screw-up and then try to weasel out" situation. Maybe it's only when a contractor screws up that their true colors become evident. As long as everything (appears to) go right, the guy is a God-send. It's when the going gets tough that you find out who you are really dealing with.
A job is a job. You can size them up when they do the bid.
I'm in the Chicago metro area. Plenty of contractors here. But most likely they won't be around next time. Furnaces and roofs are 15-25 year items. I don't expect cracked windows often either. You're right about it being a fast way to get bids. The contractors start calling from their cells in the wink of an eye. I asked the furnace repairman how it worked and he said he gets texted as soon as I hit the enter key. He was very good, and I was lucky, because he was actually the second call. I didn't even have time to tell my wife that I entered my info into Service Magic, so she assumed the first guy who called was a phone solicitor and hung up on him.
Not so sure about that. The guys who sanded and finished my floors and the guys who replaced all my windows were referred to me. I'll never see them again. I referred the guy who replaced my roofing to a workmate, and he did her roof and replaced all her gutters.
It was a tall Anderson thermopane, and it wasn't cheap, just fast.
Grumpy Old White Guy wrote in news:57e42efc$0$7289$c3e8da3$ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:
?? Tell me more please? Never heard of them.
Candidly I only looked at Angie' List once and that was back in the early days when all was free, but none of the contractors were anywhere near me.
When I looked at Home Advisors, heavily advertised on TV, I found that none of their recommended roofers were any of the excellent roofers I know in my area.
I figure the lists are money making propositions for list'er and list'ee.
I tend to be adverse to heavy advertisement and prefer those that are good and don't need to advertise.
The dealer is just a middleman between the carpet manufacturer, most of whom put our a pretty good product these days, and you.
He's not nearly as important as the installer who will be in your house doing the actual fitting, cutting, seaming, tack stripping, laying, stretching, etc.
There's lots of jack-leg "installers" out there with a pickup truck, a carpet knife, and a knee-kick stretcher who don't have a clue what they're doing.
The job may look OK when they finish and you hand them a check-- but in six months or a year, lookout for ridges, opening seams, warping, poor padding issues, etc.
What, precisely, is a "jack-leg installer".
Sure, my younger-than-me landlord hadda knee kicker and installed new front-room carpeting, for me, but I failed to notice if he had any kind of leg infirmity. Yeah, the carpet evententually became loose and had "rolls", but I can't kick. He came thru when I asked and it didn't cost me a cent. ;)
nb
The installer is the one to look for in the quality department.
I have not had any carpet installed in a while,but did have some laminate flooring installed by Lowes. Two Mexicans showed up and were in and out in a couple of hours layind down about 300 sqft in a room. The job looked good and a year later still looks the same. I would hire tham again if I needed any more installed. They even layed a streight edge across parts of the floor and planed down a couple of high spots.
A few years before I went to a place that only deals with flooring and the install job in another part of the house looked ok when done,but shortly after it had a few places where it had buckled somewhat. Also had a room of carpet installed and was not happy with that either after a year or two. This was two of the local men that did that job. Did not think of them when I wanted the second area done.
jack·leg ?jakle?/ noun US informal noun: jackleg; plural noun: jacklegs
an incompetent, unskillful, or dishonest person. "a jackleg carpenter"
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