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Choosing a Contractor

Contractor Responsibilities

Few homeowners consider the many responsibilities involved in running a contracting business beyond the services performed at their home. But there are numerous administrative tasks that contractors must perform to ensure customer satisfaction and maintain a lawful practice.

Why Should It Matter to You?

• The inability to fulfill administrative, managerial, and regulatory responsibilities is one reason that many contractors fail.

• A failed firm can mean an interrupted job and/or lost warranty support.

• The more you understand what it takes to run a successful business, the better chance you have to choose the right contractor.

To learn more about how Hartwell Exteriors offers you peace of mind in selecting a home improvement remodeling contractor, siding contractor, roofing contractor, replacement window installation, and more, please complete our Free Estimate Form online or visit our Contact Page.

Consider the less obvious tasks that a contractor must perform to ensure customer satisfaction and a lawful existence.

• Selecting which manufactured products to use, keeping up with new and future products, and staying attentive to manufacturers’ changes. This includes taking time to access changes and their impact on future work. Installing bad or inadequate products is costly to a contractor’s reputation.

• Maintain awareness of and compliance with regulatory changes in the insurance industry, including licensing and standards authorities, building code regulations, taxing authorities (both state and federal), and employment issues. This is a full time job for any business owner.

• Home improvement remodeling contractors, siding contractors, roofing contractors, replacement window installation contractors, etc. routinely file reports to a variety of taxing authorities. There is the Department of Employment and Taxes (DET), the Department of Revenue (DOR), the Secretary of State, the Social Security Administration, the IRS, and annual census reports to the Department of Labor. Contractors doing business in more than one state must almost double the work.

Contractors of any size are responsible for these administrative tasks in addition to their obvious job of selling homeowners their services and executing successful projects. After being paid, contractors are responsible to execute warranties relating to labor, as well as support homeowners in materials warranty issues.

Managing time is a key factor that either limits or ensures a contractor’s success, especially when Mother Nature gobbles up large chunks of our productive time in the form of foul weather. Even discussing project needs with a home owner is often a time sensitive task which must take place during evening hours.

Sizes of Contractors

Contractors come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. Whether a home improvement remodeling contractor, siding contractor, roofing contractor, or replacement window installation contractor, to a greater or lesser degree, each size firm has the same management concerns. So what's the difference between them?

Why These Influences Matter to You

Now let’s consider how these responsibilities and influences play on the resources of each size contractor.

The Small Local Contractor

He has the longest individual day. It begins with picking up stock early in the morning, working the project, running out at lunch to handle a warranty question, and after dinner, meeting with new prospective clients. Weekends are full of administrative tasks. In fact, a small local contractor would be pleased if it were only this easy.

The benefit to the homeowner is personal attention.  Due to poor efficiency in the utility of time, to be successful most small contractors work an extraordinary number of hours per week. The largest number of business failures occurs in this size category. Many of the individuals who give up their business end up working for one of the two larger categories of contractor listed below.

The Medium Regional Contractor In this range, a marketing staff finds the prospective homeowners with a need, an estimating staff defines the scope of the projects and writes contract terms, a project management staff coordinates ordering and delivery, and tradesmen do the work. Owners handle product and workmanship quality issues. The benefit to the homeowner is value and efficiencies of workflow. Projects are much less likely to be delayed because someone is sick or an emergency comes up. Owners, field management, and project estimators are available for personal attention.  Hartwell Exteriors provides all the benefits of the regional contractor, while gaining some of the efficiencies of even larger contractors.

The Large Multi-Region/Multi-State/Major National Contractor

For the large contractor, major marketing departments develop a plethora of prospects from one central location using many forms of advertising. Large sales training groups pump trainees out to cover the expensive appointments. Sales ‘closers’ follow-up on unsold appointments, looking to ‘drop prices’ and ‘buy orders’. Owners shop for volume buying opportunities. Regional managers control workmanship quality issues.

For the homeowner, there is a perceived benefit of dealing with someone big; however, actual benefits can be few or nonexistent. ‘Big’ is insensitive to a homeowner’s needs. Materials often range toward the low end of the spectrum, keeping prices low and profits high. When a warranty claim arises, the contractor and the licensor/franchiser point to each other as the responsible party. The homeowner is left out in the cold.

Large companies can find themselves fighting for existence in the cut-throat world of the stock market and ending in bankruptcy within a short time.  Hartwell Exteriors receives many calls from homeowners looking for help with problems left behind by contractors both too large and too small.

What size contractor is Hartwell Exteriors?

Hartwell Exteriors is a group of small to medium-sized regional contractors working in affiliation to gain the economies of scale of a large contractor, but without the overhead and lack of personal attention to customer needs which is part of corporate contracting.

When choosing a home improvement remodeling contractor, including the best siding contractor, roofing contractor, replacement window installation, and more, choose Hartwell Exteriors. To learn more, please complete our Free Estimate Form online or visit our Contact Page.

Areas of Service

Hartwell Exteriors has served customers in Boston, Newton, Canton and throughout Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island for over 45 years. We have remodeled homes and have replaced roofs, siding, windows, doors in many towns and neighborhoods including:

Abington, Acton, Amesbury, Andover, Arlington, Ashland, Attleboro, Avon, Ayer, Bedford, Bellingham, Belmont, Beverly, Billerica, Braintree, Bridgewater, Brockton, Brookline, Burlington, Canton, Concord, Danvers, Dedham, Dover, Dracut, Duxbury, East Bridgewater, Everett, Fairhaven, Fall River, Foxboro, Framingham, Franklin, Hanover, Hanson, Haverhill, Hingham, Holbrook, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Hull, Ipswich, Kingston, Lakeville, Lawrence, Lexington, Lincoln, Littleton, Lowell, Lynn, Lynnfield, Malden, Manchester, Mansfield, Marblehead, Marlboro, Marshfield, Mattapoisett, Maynard, Medfield, Medford, Medway, Melrose, Methuen, Middleboro, Milford, Millis, Milton, Natick, Needham, Norfolk, North Andover, North Attleboro, North Billerica, North Easton, North Reading, North Weymouth, Northborough, Norton, Norwell, Norwood, Peabody, Pembroke, Plainville, Plymouth, Quincy, Randolph, Raynham, Reading, Revere, Rockland, Salem, Saugus, Scituate, Sharon, Sherborn, Shrewsbury, Somerset, Somerville, South Easton, Southborough, Stoneham, Stoughton, Stow, Sudbury, Swampscott, Taunton, Tewksbury, Wakefield, Walpole, Waltham, Watertown, Wayland, Wellesley, West Bridgewater, West Roxbury, Westborough, Westford, Weston, Westport, Westwood, Weymouth, Whitman, Wilmington, Winchester, Woburn, Wrentham

In Boston - Allston, Boston, Brighton, Cambridge – Central, Charlestown, Chelmsford, Chelsea, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale, South Boston, Winthrop, Brookline, West Roxbury

In Newton - Auburndale, Chestnut Hill, Newton, Newton, Newton Center, Newton Corner, Newton Highlands, Newton Lower Falls, Newton Upper Falls, Newtonville, Nonantum, Waban, West Newton