Hiring education · Plain English
Know what you’re signing.
Hiring a contractor is one of the biggest financial decisions most homeowners make. These guides cover what to ask, what to watch for, and what your contract should — and shouldn’t — say.
Building your shortlist
01Fixed price, cost-plus, and everything in betweenStart here. Before you decide who bids on your project, know which pricing structures you’d accept — it decides who carries the risk of overruns, narrows which contractors belong on your shortlist, and shapes how to read every guide that follows.Read →02Red flags before anyone bidsMost contractor disasters announce themselves early. The warning signs that should keep a name off your shortlist entirely.Read →03How to verify a Utah contractor licenseUtah requires a DOPL license for most construction work. Two minutes on the state’s lookup shows whether a license is active, what it covers, and any past discipline. Here’s how to read it.Read →04Insurance: the certificate to ask forIf an uninsured worker is hurt on your property, the claim can land on you. One document — requested the right way — closes that door.Read →05Five questions to ask before any bidFive questions to ask before a general contractor makes your shortlist — and some answers that should worry you. Pay as much attention to how they’re answered as to what’s said.Read →06Checking references the right wayEvery contractor hands you their three happiest clients. The signal is in which projects you ask about — and which questions you ask.Read →
Bids & the contract
07How many bids — and how to compare them apples-to-applesThe low bid is only a bargain if it covers the same project as the others. How many bids to solicit, and how to line them up so the differences mean something.Read →08Big deposits vs. milestone billingThe payment schedule is the quietest page of the contract and the one that decides who holds the leverage. A fair schedule ties every dollar to finished work.Read →09Contract terms that protect you from estimating missesEvery estimate has errors in it somewhere. A handful of clauses decide who pays for them — and they differ depending on whether your contract is fixed price or cost-plus.Read →10Mandatory arbitration: the clause that signs away your courtroomBuried near the back of most construction contracts is a paragraph that decides where you’re allowed to argue if the project goes wrong. Here’s how to spot it — and what to negotiate.Read →
During the build
11Change orders: get it in writing, every timeChanges happen on every project. The budget blowups don’t come from change — they come from undocumented change. One sentence in the contract prevents almost all of it.Read →12Questionable charges: equipment, fuel, and other line items to questionMost padding on a construction bill doesn’t look like fraud — it looks like boring line items. Equipment rental, mobilization, fuel surcharges, markup. Here’s how to read them like an estimator.Read →13Lien waivers, explained in one pageIn Utah, a subcontractor you’ve never met can put a lien on your home if the general contractor doesn’t pay them — even after you’ve paid in full. Lien waivers are how you close that door.Read →
Your rights
14Utah’s three-day right to cancelFor most home-improvement contracts signed in your home, you have three business days to walk away — for any reason, with your deposit returned. Most homeowners never learn they had it.Read →15What a warranty must actually say“We stand behind our work” is a sentence, not a warranty. A real warranty lives in the contract and states three things: how long, what’s covered, and what voids it.Read →