The Fit Test: What to Check Before You Call a Single Contractor
How do you tell three remodeling companies apart when all three look the same? Which one do you hire?
In this post, you will learn how to see if a remodeler is a good fit, which homeowners we serve best in Oro Valley and Catalina Foothills, the projects we turn down, and what our design-first process looks like week to week.
Who Is the Right Remodeling Contractor for My Home?
The right remodeling contractor for your home is the one whose way of working matches what you actually want out of the project.
Match a remodeler on four things:
- The kind of work they take on.
- How they handle design.
- How they run communication during construction.
- What they stand behind afterward.
Price alone tells you almost nothing.
How to find a reputable contractor.
How to Tell if a Remodeler Is the Right Fit for Your Home
You can tell whether a remodeler fits your home by asking 5 questions:
- Are your license and insurance current?
- Does your contract list what’s excluded, or only what’s included?
- When does my price lock, and what has to be decided first?
- What’s getting permitted, and which licensed trade does each phase?
- What does communication look like in a normal week?
License and insurance.
If a contractor can’t show you their license or prove they’re insured, you shouldn’t use them, even if they’re offering a low price. Unlicensed and uninsured work means if anything goes wrong, it all falls on you.
Our license number is AZ ROC 253812 (search for it here, just enter the numbers)
Every trade partner we use carries W2 employees, workman’s comp, and general liability, and they present a safety program before we’ll put them on a job.
Exclusions in writing.
Our contracts run 10 to 15 pages, spelling out what’s included and what isn’t.
Joe, the owner, has seen what the alternative looks like: a single page that says, “Tile your shower, $4,500, sign here.” That tells you next-to-nothing.
Everything not written down becomes an argument in month three.
When the price locks.
We give you a ballpark price on the first call.
The real number comes after design, and is based on finished renderings, plans, and material selections.
Permits and licensed trades.
We pull permits for you.
Every phase we’re not licensed for goes to a trade partner who is. You want a tile guy who does tile all day, not one person and a helper doing the whole house.
Before we start, you get a list of every sub on your project with their ROC number, address, phone, and company name so you know exactly who you’re working with.
Communication in a normal week.
Ours is a scheduled in-person walkthrough every week.
We also provide daily photos in CompanyCam and a live Gantt chart showing who’s in your house on which day.
Ask any remodeler what their normal week looks like. If the answer is that they’ll reach out when something comes up, you’ll never know where your project truly stands at any given moment.
The Homeowners Frei Serves Best
The homeowners Frei Remodel and Design works best with:
- Want a white-glove, design-build process.
- Live in the Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley neighborhoods.
- Are usually 60+ years old and living in their forever home.
- Live in a home that’s worth at least $1,000,000.
- Know who we are, what we do, how we do it, and how much our services cost.
Who We Aren’t the Right Fit For
We are not the right fit for:
- Real estate agents and house flippers.
- Homeowners who are fixing up a house to put it on the market.
- Anyone whose main goal is the lowest of several bids.
- Small handyman and repair work, paint-only or light cosmetic updates, roofing, siding, exterior-only projects, insurance restoration, and storm repairs.
- People who want to be their own general contractor.
- Anyone bringing in their own design.
What a Calm, Design-First Whole-Home Remodel Looks Like With Us
A calm, design-first whole-home remodel looks like a finished plan before anybody touches a wall.
Design and construction sit under one roof here, so the same people who planned your project are the ones overseeing the build. That continuity helps the final space look just like the plan.
Video Call
It starts on a video call.
We talk about the space, what’s wrong with it, what you like and what you don’t, and we talk about money on that first call instead of three meetings later.
Design
If you move forward with us, we go into the paid design phase.
You get a full set of renderings, a full set of plans for permits, spec sheets on every material, and a contract with an exact number on it. That’s yours to keep, even if you choose to move forward with another builder. If you build with us, the design fee comes back as a line-item discount on the construction contract.
Pre-Construction
We draw up your contract based on the plans from the design phase.
Every selection and every rendering is written into it, along with a day-by-day schedule.
Then we take a deposit, order your materials, and put you on the calendar.
Materials get ordered before demo starts, which is a large part of why doing a project with us takes weeks less than with other contractors.
We also walk you through a 4-page pre-construction document. It includes things like:
- Where the dumpster goes.
- Where the crew parks.
- Your pets, and how we keep them from going out the front door.
- What hours we’re in the house.
- What condition we leave it in every night.
- Dust control methods, such as putting up barriers, running air scrubbers, protecting the floors, and changing your furnace filters weekly.
Construction
Demo starts once your materials are in.
Joe is on your job site most days.
Every project runs in CompanyCam. You get invited in, and photos go up daily. If we open a wall and find rotted studs, you’ll see a photo the same day showing what we found and how we’re handling it.
Once a week, we walk the site with you to go over where we are and answer any questions you may have.
Closeout
We clean the space and any adjacent rooms, or the whole house if that’s what we remodeled.
Then we stage it, take final photos and video, and walk through the finished project with you.
You get a closeout packet: your warranty card, instructions for making a claim, and paid affidavits confirming everyone has been paid and no liens exist against your home.
Last, we go through our warranty.
Ours is 5 years on craftsmanship. For the first 2 years, we schedule a walkthrough with you every 6 months and go through the whole project looking for things you wouldn’t notice yet.
What to Do Before You Call Us
Read our pricing pages to see where your budget fits.
Check out our reviews to see what our past clients (your neighbors) have to say about us.
Look through our Featured Projects to see what we’ve done for people near you. The videos here are worth a million words.
Skip the Bid Pile and Find Your Fit With Frei Remodel and Design
The remodeler who fits your home is the one whose way of working lines up with what you actually want out of the project, and you can figure that out long before anyone hands you a number.
If the way we run a remodel sounds like the way you want yours run, we would love to hear about your project.
Fill out our contact form or give us a call today.
