Angie's List

I have rarely hired anything done around my house in the past 40 years, being one of those do-it-yourself guys. But with working at the store 6 days a week and the old bones get tired easier, I have taken to having the house painted and a new patio/side deck built rather than doing myself. Since I don't know whom to call for quality work, I joined Angie's List and its turned out to be a very viable resource. I was able to get the exterior of my house painted on some Angie's Specials for about half the price I was getting quoted elsewhere and they did very good work.

I used Angie's List again for the patio/side deck I wanted done. The Contractor I picked was initially very good, but then he just disappeared and never gave us plans or a quote. My wife called him three times and I emailed him four times and he replied once he was busy, and then we didn't hear from him at all (I think he really preferred only larger jobs in the $ 25,000 and up range, which ours was not). We gave him three weeks to reply and nothing...then we went with another Angie's list contractor and they've been working on our project as I type this and doing good work, being highly recommended on the List.

So I put a review up on Angies List of the first guy, and gave him a "C", saying he was a nice guy and we wanted to give him our business, but he was un-responsive to move forward with the job. Now the interesting thing was that once I posted that to Angie's List I heard from him via email in 24 hours! Amazing how that works.....lol. Apparently these contractors really value these Angie's List reviews and he has asked me to remove it, and I declined because it was simply factual. Like it or not, the internet is here to stay. I know I have reviews of my store out there all over the web, and I try very hard to make sure things turn out for customers as best I can to avoid negative reviews (fingers crossed) as I realize the impact a bad review can have upon business. I think there are two or three bad ones of my store floating around out there, but they are pretty emotionally charged and that comes through the reviews as well.

Angie's List is a great resource. I was hesitant to pay a fee to use it, but it was really money well-spent. RECOMMENDED if you need work done and don't know whom to call.