What to Check Before You Hire a Contractor in Myrtle Beach

We are a contractor writing about how to check contractors, so read this with that in mind. Everything below is checkable without taking our word for any of it, which is rather the point.

Check the license, and check it yourself

South Carolina licenses residential builders through the Department of Labour, Licensing and Regulation. You can look up a license number online in about a minute, and it will tell you whether the license is current and whether there is disciplinary history.

Ask for the number rather than the phrase. Plenty of people say licensed and insured on a truck. A number you can type into a search box is a different thing. Ours is RBB 51927.

Ask who is actually doing the work

Most general contractors subcontract trades, and that is normal and correct. What matters is whether the trade holding the license is the one doing the work, and whether the general contractor is holding the schedule between them or leaving you to.

The question to ask is simple: if the electrician and the drywall crew both want the same week, who sorts that out? If the answer is you, that is worth knowing before you sign.

Deposits, and what is reasonable

A deposit is normal. A contractor buying materials for your job should not be funding it out of pocket. What is not normal is a large percentage up front with no written scope, or a request to pay in cash, or a price that drops sharply if you pay a chunk today.

Reasonable looks like: a written scope, a defined deposit tied to materials or mobilisation, and payments tied to stages you can see from the driveway.

Read the estimate, not the total

A one line estimate that says roof replacement and a number is not an estimate. A real one says what comes off, what goes on, what happens if there is rot underneath and what that costs, who pulls the permit, and what is not included.

If two quotes are far apart, the difference is almost always in what is not written down.

The warning signs that come first

They are boring and they are always the same. Slow to return the first call, before you are even a customer. Vague about dates. Reluctant to put changes in writing. Pressure to decide today. And a phone number that is only ever a mobile with a full voicemail box.

None of those on its own means anything. Three of them together is a pattern.

Check the reviews properly

Look for reviews that describe a problem and how it was handled, because those are the ones that tell you something. A wall of five star reviews with no detail tells you less than one three star review where somebody explains what went wrong and what the contractor did about it.

Then ask the boring question

How often will I hear from you, and from whom? A contractor who has thought about that will answer immediately and specifically. It is the single best predictor of whether you will be chasing them in six weeks.