Whether you are developing land or merely cleaning it up, sooner or later earth moving equipment becomes necessary.
Of course, it’s always an option to rent a machine and do the job yourself but duration of the job and end results will vary based on your competency with the equipment you rent.
In many cases, it’s fun to rent and play with equipment but for most people this approach could end up costing more money in the long run. However, you already know this and this is why you’re reading my article.
You realize there is a point when calling in a professional is the smart choice for your project and because you are prudent, you have three or four local contractors coming by to look at your job later this week.
Now you need to know what questions you should ask and what should you be watching and listening for when meeting with them?
Uncomfortable questions like:
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What happens if there is an accident leading to an injury or accidental damage to my property or my neighbor’s property?
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How do I know you will finish the job once I’ve paid a deposit?
Questions people might not think to ask like:
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How do I know if you have the experience, manpower, and equipment to handle my job?
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Which of your credentials are relevant and/or beneficial to me?
This article will address these concerns and a few more. You should be much more comfortable meeting and interviewing contractors after reading this.
Without further a due, here are six areas where you need to feel comfortable and informed before you select an excavation (really any) contractor.
- Timeliness & Promptness.
Right off the bat, contractors who do not keep appointments and are not accountable to potential customers probably won’t become more punctual or reliable once they have secured a contract for your job.
Good contractors will get very busy, if you want good people sometimes you must wait for them (waiting for an appointment with them, not waiting for them because they are late for your appointment).
Being on time, and in general, doing what they say they’ll do when they said they would do it, is a key aspect of building and maintaining a solid relationship with any customer in any field.
In fact, few things erode relationships faster than perceived disrespect, and not caring about a customer’s time can be seen as disrespectful.
Avoid contractors who don’t keep their appointments or follow through with commitments they make. That behavior and the lame excuses that go hand-in-hand with it are likely become more prevalent over time.
In the author’s experience, contractors who engage in this practice rarely stop doing it, in fact, they seem to do it more and more frequently as time goes on.
- Decency & Fairness.
The phrase “Business is Business” is essentially a euphemism for ‘Buyer Beware”. In the majority of cases, excavation companies are local businesses and they rely on having a solid local reputation, particularly in the age of online customer reviews.
Ruthless business practices and hard nosed negotiation tactics are not helpful to a contractor in building a positive local reputation.
While it’s true that people do have a “type of respect” for strong personality’s who set rigid personal standards and have rigid interpersonal boundaries, but negotiations that are friendly, respectful, and decent go much further in building a long-term relationship that can withstand the occasional conflicts that are common or even inevitable in complex projects.
When you meet them, let your potential contractors talk, ask them about their last jobs, listen for signs that they had conflicts, listen for how they resolved those conflicts. Get a sense for their personality, approach to conflict avoidance, and conflict resolution.
You are going to be deeply connected to this individual or their company for the duration of your project, you need to be certain that their demeanor and SOP dovetail with your morality, beliefs, and standards.
I know it might sound silly but “getting along with others” is just as important of a skill for a contractor to possess as knowing how to grade a completely level and flat building pad.
Avoid contractors that: have unresolved conflicts, openly badmouth property owners they’ve worked for, or openly badmouth other businesses.
Remember, those that gossip/badmouth about others to you are just as likely to gossip/badmouth about you to others.
- Honesty + Accountability = Integrity.
Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one will ever know the difference.
Anyone who has run earth moving equipment for any amount of time will tell you that if you operate near buildings or infrastructure regularly, it’s inevitable, you’re eventually going to hit something by accident.
From rain gutters in your blind spot to unlocated underground services, there will be damage from time to time. As much as human instincts tell us to hide it and hope no one ever notices that we screwed up, rational and mature reasoning must take over.
An honest and accountable contractor owns up to any accidents and makes right all damage caused by their (or their employee’s) errors.
As a property owner it’s completely acceptable and very common to ask a potential contractor to provide you with references that you may call. Depending on the value of your project, it may be worth your time to call those references and ask some specific questions about their experiences with this contractor.
Another way to get a sense for a contractor’s honesty or accountability is online reviews. Other customers will share their feelings if they are particularly pleased or particularly upset. A contractor that is concerned about his reputation will address complaints in a positive and constructive manner knowing that potential customers can see those complaints.
Avoid contractors that have unaddressed: customer complaints, claims of property damage(s), or those that respond poorly to their customer’s concerns.
Reconciliation is a key part of any business transaction where things didn’t go exactly as planned. In the author’s experience there is rarely ever a job that goes exactly as planned.
- Bonding & Insurance.
Depending on the size of job you need done, you may wish to hire a bonded contractor that carries extra insurance aimed at performance and completion guarantee.
Not all contractors carry a bond as bonding is really only common in large scale civil and public projects that have multiple contractors working on them.
Bonding isn’t usually needed or required for small private projects. Bonding put into simple terms is an additional insurance policy carried by a contractor that protects the customer from under performance, in-completion, or unreasonable variation from agreed scope of work.
As previously explained, not all excavation contractors carry a bond but all of them must have liability insurance. In broadest terms, liability insurance compensates the customer for any damage to, or destruction of, their property or a neighbouring property caused by the contractor’s negligence or lack of foresight.
Contractors with insurance and bonding are going to obviously charge more as those policies start around $1200.00 a month EACH (for a small company, larger companies would be paying substantially more).
Ask for proof of insurance.
Avoid contractors who do not have insurance or are under-insured as you would be left without recourse (short of legal action) should the contractor have an accident that damages your property or a neighbour’s property.
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Size & Scale.
Contracting companies come in every size possible. Some may be father and son teams, and some may have dozens of employees and be so large that you never meet the actual owner of the business.
Speaking generally, small contractors will be more cost effective for small-scale jobs and large contractors with lots of equipment and employees can usually complete large jobs more efficiently and cost effectively than a small contractor could.
Ultimately, it’s up to the customer to decide if the contractor is properly suited to the size of job they are hiring for. One way of determining this is to look at the contractor’s website and look at photos of past jobs and take note of the size of equipment in those photos.
As a generalization that is mostly true, companies with lots of large equipment carry considerably more overhead costs than small contractors with compact or less equipment and hence they often find it more difficult to be competitive when bidding on small jobs.
Oppositely small contractors may have to scale up (buy, rent equipment, or bring in a subcontractor) to complete large jobs and this can make them less cost-effective as they are outside their normal range of operations.
Avoid hiring too small or too large of a contractor for your needs.
If you are not sure, bluntly ask them how many workers, specifically what equipment they would bring to your job, and if any of those choices add unnecessary expense to you for the sake of their convenience (You are paying the bill).
- Trades Associations, Union Memberships, & Safety Credentials.
When you look at a contractor’s website or business card you may see any number of abbreviations, emblems, or names indicating membership(s), certified training(s), regulatory compliance, or specific indemnification.
It’s a fact that memberships in unions, construction associations, and trades associations do not mean those contractors are superior contractors to any who are not members, but silently implying that distinction is generally the intended purpose of listing those memberships.
The benefits of membership in construction or trades associations is firstly about promoting one’s business and secondly about providing customers with the mistaken but comforting impression that there is some external overseeing authority maintaining high standards and providing an avenue of accountability for the customer should any substandard work be done.
Association membership should also not be mistaken as proof or assurance that they represent a higher standard or ability than those not in any association(s).
Union membership, again is not an indicator of experience, quality, or professionalism. It’s common for companies to be required to buy a union membership to be able to work on certain job sites in certain fields and is of no particular value to the customer.
However, training, specifically safety training, is something you want to see on a contractor’s credentials. You should look for CORE, ECORE, or other construction safety certification.
Be aware companies without employees (one man shows) will not commonly carry CORE certification as that certification is @$5000.00 and is for companies with up to 10 employees and ECORE is for those with more than 10 employees.
So there you have it!
SIX things you need to know about your contractor before you hire them.
Of course there are many other ways of judging a contractor’s fitness for your job, but these criterion will give you a good sense of the contractor(s) you are considering hiring and possibly understand a bit about their company culture.
Hope this helps! Check out my other post: Excavation Contractor Pricing Explained.
R.Morben
