Avoiding Bad Contractors

I posted this on Craigs List, and thought I’d share it with all my loyal blog readers, so you can be armed with the knowledge you need in order to avoid getting taken in by the ridiculous number of “contractor” scam artists that have crawled out of the woodwork lately! Please, please help me spread the word and share this with your friends:

All right, we are going to be perfectly frank here, because we are thoroughly disgusted by what we see happening to homeowners in Hampton Roads.

PLEASE be careful about whom you hire to do repairs to your home. There are a lot of unlicensed and/or uninsured “contractors” in the area who have no regard for the safety and well-being of your family and your property. They will take your money, do a half-baked job and disappear. They will show you a city license but not a contractor’s license, or they will show you someone else’s contractor’s license that’s not theirs. They will say they are insured and give you a photocopied insurance certificate when in actuality they have already canceled the policy, so you and your property are NOT protected! A lot of these guys are simply unemployed former construction laborers; they are not true businessmen, they do not have the knowledge, experience or ethics to run a business, and yet they are being let into thousands of peoples’ homes all over Hampton Roads!

There is very little legal recourse if you get ripped off. Even if you successfully sue, it will cost you thousands of dollars to do so, and the “contractor” will simply file bankruptcy and bail out, leaving you with nothing. Then they can open up shop under a new business name and start all over again!

We get calls all the time from desperate homeowners, asking us to fix a terrible situation that was caused by the rock-bottom contractor they previously used. Now they have to spend more money for us to do the job right.

You don’t have to worry about being a victim of an incompetent “contractor” if you call us first!

We are Chelsea Custom Contracting, a Virginia Class A licensed and insured contractor with 25 years experience. We do roofing, remodeling and new construction. Excellent work, fair prices that accurately reflect the quality of materials and skilled labor that we provide. We have REAL references (not fake references from family and friends) and are frequently interviewed for radio, tv, and publications because of our sterling reputation in Hampton Roads. Please call us. We are always happy to help you. Your family’s health, safety, and well-being is our number one priority.

Chelsea Custom Contracting
Owned and operated by Alexandra Whiteside “The Lady Contractor”
Call us at (757) 407-2653

Custom Home Building Featuring Modular Homes

The Lady Contractor operates a full service general contracting firm, including design, residential new construction (new home building, room additions, second storey additions), remodeling, and commercial fit-outs.

We are also an authorized builder for Excel Homes, the nation’s third largest modular home manufacturer.  The Lady Contractor is an enthusiastic proponent of modular or “systems built” housing because of the savings we can offer in terms of cost and time, and the options that are easily available and affordable for green construction (durable, sustainable, recyclable materials, improved indoor air quality, energy efficiency, lowered carbon footprint).

THIS is 21^st century systems built modular home construction, and it is superb:

 

As you can see, modular homes are NOT manufactured homes or “trailers.” Modular homes are real houses built to meet, and frankly, often exceed, the same standards and codes as site-built construction. You have real floor joists, insulation and drywall. Your modular home has to pass all the same city inspections as if I were building it on site. You cannot tell the difference between an off-site built (modular) home and a site-built home, because they are the same thing, just built in two difference places!

Excel modular homes are comprised of three-dimensional sections (modules) that are assembled in climate-controlled factories and then transported to the home site, where the final finishing occurs. This factory construction process allows for a controlled environment with close supervision, resulting in a consistently higher quality home and faster build.

Imagine, while The Lady Contractor is clearing your land and building your foundation, the rest of your home is being built at the same time! You can’t do that with standard on-site construction!

A fellow contractor used this analogy, and I love it:  When you buy a new car, you want it built in a factory, right? You wouldn’t want a pile of parts delivered to your driveway and then put together outside! So, why are we still building our homes outside, with rain, heat, cold, snow, ice, and mud compromising the construction materials and creating tons of work delays?  We should be building our homes the way we build our cars – in highly controlled factory conditions with a strict quality assurance program and dozens of inspections (in addition to the mere handful of inspections required by the city) throughout the construction process.

Excel is equipped  with 5 million square feet of capacity.  This enables The Lady Contractor to offer you our home building services year-round, protecting materials from the harmful effects and delays of outside weather.

When you build an Excel Home with  The Lady Contractor, you can be confident the product you are getting is built with quality, craftsmanship and durability. For more info, call us at 757-407-2653 or e-mail Alexandra@theladycontractor.com.

P.S. The “Boys Hope/Girls Hope” home in Baltimore, Maryland is an Excel modular home specially designed and built for Extreme Makeover.  Check out the slide show here!