The story of 3 contractors....

Picking a contractor has been quite a saga. Of course it doesn't help that we are trying to do so in the largest construction boom that Singapore has had for awhile. Apart from the higher construction costs, the effort and enthusiasm levels from the contractors is simply not there.

Of course, our job is also a really small one and I'm a picky customer, so it doesn't help that I go through the quotations with a red pen and periodically mark down items to 50-75% of their quoted costs. But that's what you're meant to do isn't it?

We started with 3 contractors, let's called them R, E, T and P, all of whom came through friend's recommendations. We called up and arranged to meet with all four of them (I know I said 3, it gets there very quickly). This needed to be done in a hurry as I had already left it till to close to when I was to get the keys and Z was going to be away for 3 weeks.

They were all acceptable to meeting up, they all came on time. Immediately, we felt that R was not going to be suitable as he kept quoting to us that we needed to hire a structural engineer to certify the knocking down of the walls. And if we wanted to create a master bathroom out of the second bath, we could do so, with the engineers.

Ranking my reservations, it'd have been that he seemed keen to hand work out to others, he had a very sneaky looking face, he kept quoting large projects and houses he had worked on and he looked as if he were ill- very pale and fainty. I resolved not to call him back.

E seemed very enthusiastic and had just broken out of a large ID firm to set up his own ID-contracting business, promising to go down to look at the site and to come up with plans. I felt that our meeting went pretty far. T was also very responsible, though quiet. P on the other hand, was fairly indifferent, he made suggestions, then doubled back on his own suggestions and pretty much agreed to most of what we said.

The point of contention seemed to be in converting the second bathroom into a master bathroom so that we could use a knocked-through BR3 and BR2 as a large master bedroom. R was convinced it could be done if certified by a structural engineer and suggested some clever ideas, T flatly said it could not be, P thought it couldn't be done and E was undecided (though he later came back with his doubts).

We quickly dropped to just three contractors, E, P and T when we got our keys and all three submitted quotations that in total, came to similar amounts, though E seemed to be the cheapest (but the least comprehensively quoted). There were two particular "stories" that for me, were telling and helped us to make some decisions.

One story was about P, who seemed like a nice person although a bit lacksadaical and charging at first, fairly high prices for individual items of work. I had asked for a quotation for three pieces of solid surface to cap the three bay window seats in the apartment. He in turn, sent the request to his sub-supplier, who unknownst to him, faxed a reply back to him and to me, as my fax number had been written on top of the apartment layout diagram.

When P sent his own quotation back to me, there was a $1000 difference between the sub-suppliers price and his quotation to me. When I messaged him about it, he at first said that I must have the wrong person but when I detailed the fax, he became quite embarassed and gave some excuse about "contractor discount and long-term relationship". Blunderous...

The second story or saga, was with E. He was the earliest meeting and the first one to promise a detailed drawing and quotation. The drawing was late, I received it literally hours before we were meant to meet the second time. Also, the drawing was terrible, it included an idea for furniture, in a walkway where any decent measurement would have revealed that there wasn't enough space. (And what a dumb idea, who on earth wants to sit in the doorway anyway?)

He had designed a walk-in that wasn't where I specifically said it should be. And he had made a quotation that left out three items which I'd specifically mentioned and itemised. That made me worried about how forgetful he was.

He cancelled one meeting through SMS twenty minutes before we were meant to meet (if I had already been on the road, I would not have seen it) because he had "a stomachache" and was late for a rescheduled meeting, then delayed on the new drawing and quotation, finally sending an email right before we were meant to meet that "perhaps he would not be able to do the job".

My initial response was going to be to pick up the phone and scream down it. Or else show up at his office and give him a good piece of my mind in front of his colleagues. In the end, I wrote him a disgusted email threatening to go to the board of registered interior designers in Singapore and decided not to call as I had nothing good to say.

The only good meetings so far were to an extent, with P and with T, who true to quiet form, had come down to the site with tools and samples and who had provided helpful and pragmatic advice and ideas. At this point, I decided to search for a couple more contractors and remembered my cousin's friend J, who had done some great work a couple years earlier on her house and whom some family were again asking to do their renovations.

They recommended her based on her reliability and also reasonable prices, luckily she was available to talk when I called her up. J was quite different to work with, very self-motivated and educated, I personally felt she was over-qualified for the job. Also, she gave a lot more design input and was a lot more forceful then I was used to but I liked that she had exacting standards for herself.

In the end, it came down to T, who had been upfront with his firm's busy schedule and the fact that they might not be able to start till August and J and after meeting both, Z liked J the best and found her the easiest to work with, so after a month's consideration process, we were set!

The consideration process was worth it, I think. It is a very small job that we are doing but I think the variation in price, within individual items, can be very large, especially in the "built-in" construction where contractors take the most margins. I also think that particularly in smaller spaces, the creativity of contracting work plays a big part and for me, the detailing is also very important.

Lastly, as we've been away a far bit, it was a relief to have someone who is responsible. While there have been inevitable delays and we are working with a fairly flexible and unstressful timeline, the owner-contractor relationship hasn't at all been a struggle and I believe that is because J is independant enough to be happy to continue working while we are not around.