How to Find Reliable Skilled Tradespeople for Your Renovation

Even the most avid DIYer needs a little extra help every now and then for projects that are a little outside of their skill level. Here’s how to find good quality skilled tradespeople for your renovation.

I recently worked with a client to help him renovate and decorate his living room and dining room, and although a lot of the project involved furnishings and decor, the scope of what we wanted to do was large enough that we needed to bring in a contractor to help us check off our list. Having worked in the local home industry for quite a few years now, I knew exactly the contractor and cabinet maker that would be the right fit for the job, but that’s not always the case when homeowners first set out to tackle a project on their home. Maybe it’s been a long time since you undertook large scale home renovations, or maybe you’re new to your area. There can be many reasons why the task of finding a skilled tradesperson (and one that you can trust to do a good job) can feel like an overwhelming task. If you’re looking to hire help for your renovation, here are some ideas for where to look.

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The Best Way to Find a Contractor or Designer is Still Word of Mouth

The number one best way to find trades will always be by speaking with family and friends who can give you the full story about their experience and allow you to see the work done on their home up close and in person. If you’re lucky enough to know someone in your area who has recently competed a project similar to the one you have in mind, looking at the work that was completed in their home and hearing about their specific experience will always give you the best idea of what to expect from your own experience. If this isn’t an option, consider reaching out on social media to people from your area who have posted about recent renovation projects and ask them who they worked with and what their experience was like. Most people are more than willing to fill you in on all the details, whether their experience was good or bad.

Online Resources Offer a Wealth of Information About Skilled Tradespeople

Social media is a great starting point for finding help as well. Generally, if you visit the Instagram page of a local tradesperson and you see that they’ve invested the time and resources into hiring professional photographers to capture their work, you can be fairly sure that their work is good enough that they want to show it off. Beyond that, you can even reach out to local interior design photographers and see if they can offer any suggestions or insights into who they would recommend for the job. They see everyone’s work up close when they capture it, so they really know who does a good job and who cuts corners.

If you need an index of local contractors, designers, and tradespeople to help you know where to begin, there are online search engines specifically designed to help with just this issue. Here in Canada, resources such as Homestars or RenoAssistance can be a great starting point, and in the UK, MyJobQuote is a popular option that allows you to compare three quotes from different home improvement professionals.

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Other Local Businesses Are a Great Source of Information

If you don’t have friends or family who can offer you a connection, there are still many local businesses who will have up-to-date information on who does great work, who has room in their schedule, and who to avoid working with. For example, if you’re looking for a plumber to install a new bathroom vanity, visit a locally-owned plumbing shop and ask them if they have anyone they would recommend that they know is available, or even if they’ve ever worked with a specific plumber that you’d like to know more about. If you have electrical work, your local lighting shop will know a lot of different electricians, and for tile, a small local tile shop will know exactly who the tile installer is that they’d like to see working with their product.

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