Find a good contractor

Whether it is a problem in your home or your business, whether it is a garage door repair in Long island, or a Storefront gate repair in D.C, at one point you are going to need some home improvement and repair services.
You  may try and do it yourself, you can try contact a friend or a neighbor to come and help, or you can contact a professional handyman to come and fix whatever it is that need to be fixed. But before you call a repairman, there are few things you can do, in order to make sure that you will get the service you are expecting to get. You can search, for information about the problem, for example, if you need a garage door repair in Alexandria VA, but you have no idea of how to repair a broken garage door, or how much a repair is going to cost, a quick search online may give you a lot of important information.
In this article, we will try and give you some tips and information on how to find a good contractor, and how to try and maximize the chanced and help you get the service you need in a reasonable price, in a reasonable time, and with the best results.

Search for a good contractor

In the past, it used to be difficult to find a good contractor, especially if you had no previous information about the contractor. We used to trust our instincts, and to put our faith in a person which we never met before. But those days are over, since today everything is a click away.
Today you can find and search online for reviews, and read about the experience of other customers and their recommendations. The internet is a great tool when it comes to reviews, since the power that the reviews have, can affect the way a contractor behave, and he may think twice before doing something wrong.
One of the most recommended websites for reviews is Yelp, which is considered as a reliable website for reviews. You should keep in mind, that the Yelp platform is very strict when it comes to fake reviews, and they will rather filter a “suspicious” review, although it may seem authentic, than to publish a fake review.
At the same time, it is also recommended to keep in mind that Yelp is a business, and as a business their interest is to make money, so they may “push” the contractors who pay them for advertisement to appear first. The best thing you can do is to take the time and deeply explore the options, and to try and locate the contractor that you think or feel will give you the best results.
Another platform for reviews is Google Plus, which offer reviews from google users who had a previous experience with a contractor. Their rating is between 1-5 stars, and you can see the average results in the contractor’s score. For example, here is a google plus page of a garage door supplier in New York.

Try to get more than one estimate

Sometime it is better to get another estimate from a different contractor, in order to make sure that this is the fair price for the job (In big projects, it is better to receive as many estimates as possible). You may be surprised how to different contractors can see the same project from totally different point of views, and to estimate the costs in different price range.
But the best price is not always the only parameter, when choosing a contractor. Sometime it is the chemistry and the feeling that the contractor gives may also affect the decision. Sometime the cheapest decision can turn into a bad decision, and you may find yourself paying more than you planned, and still not getting the repair you expected. For example: You got 2 estimates for garage door installation in Westchester County, when one of them is 20% cheapest from the other estimate. You may choose to go with the cheapest one, just to find that it meant a different garage door from the other one which may be more expensive. So do not compare apples with oranges, and make sure that you know exactly what you are getting.

Ask People You Know

If you will tell people you know that you are planning to perform a home improvement project, and that you are looking for a good contractor in New York for the job, you will be surprised that many of them may have a strong opinion about a contractor they used to work with.
Some will recommend him, some may tell you to avoid a contractor and never use his services. But the bottom line is that you are going to have more information to consider, and when it comes from a relative, or someone you know in person, it become a very important information.

Do it yourself

The question whether to do try and do it yourself or to contact a contractor for the project is something you must give a lot of thought, especially when it is a complicated project such as wood floor sanding or new garage door installation.
If you decided to go ahead and do it yourself, there are few things you should never ignore, and we would like to go over them and help you make the right decision.

1. The first and the most important thing is safety. Make sure that you know exactly what you are doing, since repairing can be dangerous, especially when it comes to power tools and heavy equipment. Let’s take 2 cases as examples. The first is a customer, who needed a garage door repair in Scarsdale, and decided to repair the door by himself. The problem was a sensor which fell off, and prevented the door from closing. He called us, and we instructed him how to repair the sensor, and he was able to do it by himself.
   But let’s take another case, of a customer who had a garage door in Brooklyn, and had a broken torsion spring, and asked us to advise him how to repair it by himself. In this case, we refused to instruct him over the phone, and told him that a spring replacement is a dangerous project, and should only be performed by a professional technician.

1. Perform a deep research online. You can find a lot of information online, especially on Youtube, especially regarding garage door and repair. But always keep in mind that things aren’t as simple as they seem over the Virtual world, and every repair service, whether it is a garage door repair, or a rolling gate repair, is different from another, and you should always use common sense, and if you are not sure, just contact a handyman to come and help you.
2. Do not assume. One of the biggest problems we see when people try to do things by themselves instead contacting a contractor is when they assume things will work by themselves. And that is both dangerous, and can cost you time and money.
3. Ask for help. If you aren’t sure what to do, ask someone. You can ask on forums like this garage door repair community, or call a local contractor for help.

How to Repair an overhead door or rolling gate?

Some of our customers sometime asking us to help them to repair their broken overhead door or their rolling gate, but they insist to do so by themselves. Now we would like to make it clear, we do not recommend anyone to try and repair their gate or garage door by themselves, but at the same time, there are many problems which can be repaired with basic knowledge and a tool box. We are welcoming you to take a look at our articles page, and find the garage door problems and their repair options that you can fix by yourself.

Why use a professional contractor?

There are many reasons why you should use the services of a professional contactor. We will list them bellow, and you can make your own decision, but we can say that if you want to try and save money by DIY, do not be sure that this will be the result. But if you love to work, and enjoy repairing and learning new things, you should try and DIY. Just follow the safety guidelines and things will eventually work.

We always like to complete our explanation with an example from life. Many people who install their garage door opener by themselves, think that all they need to do is to make the opener work, and by that they have completed the job. But what they do not know is that the opener is also functioning as the lock of the door, so they must also make sure that except from opening and closing the door, they need to make sure that there will be no gap left between the door and the frame, which will allow burglars to easily break into the garage, as you can see in this Video which show how easy it is to open a garage which supposed to be secured when the installation wasn’t performed by a trained contractor.

The Matalonco Team.