Skip to content 
Good contractors have always been hard to find and to be perfectly fair, the market is not on the homeowner’s side today. If you want quality, experience, and convenience, expect to pay a premium and wait a bit.
But it is always worth the effort. A good contractor for your San Diego remodel can catch all the details, go through every legal issue, and deliver a high-quality remodel that will be both durable and useful. They will know how to listen to your explanations and ideas and make your vision come to life.
One pro tip when choosing the right contractor is also the directness of the price. Due to materials and demand, especially for highly experienced contractors, the price will not be cheap. A contractor in demand will tell you exactly when they can do it and how much it will cost.
There are no sales moments for you to sign or purposefully hidden costs. Premium contractors simply don’t have the time to mess around, which can work in the favor of prepared homeowners.
Homeowners Adapting to the New Market
In the last decade, the construction and remodeling industry in San Diego has been booming. This is due to the location, proximity to Mexico, and the need for housing and redesign.
Sadly, while finding individual services is not that hard, finding a good general contractor in San Diego is. The emphasis here is on the “good.”
Everyone can simply call for individual services and manage it on the surface level. What you want is someone who will survey the situation, make a detailed home inspection, and give you a time and money estimate that will be correct. You don’t want to wonder if everything is done correctly, but rather, be certain that that will be the case.
The first tool for homeowners here is patience, followed closely by planning. You don’t want to do an urgent remodel but rather have the time to wait for the best deal and opportunity. That might take a few months, but it could take a year as well.
If you are planning upfront, you can secure the best contractor for work at the most opportune time next year. Ideally, you can plan your vacation at the same time so you don’t need a different place to stay during a full home remodel.
Patience will also give you the time to check out your options and maybe even get some new ideas.
Key-in-Hand Contractors Only
You are paying the contractor to do the work for you. For contractors who need you to call, open, supervise, and clean up after them, it might be faster and cheaper to enter a trade school and do a DIY after that. Only take “complete service” contractors doing everything from administrative work and design to the final assembly and debris removal.
Ideally, you will want to give your home keys, go away for a while, and return to a brand new home that is done exactly to your specifications. A general contractor who offers a whole remodel will mean that quite literally.
Pre-Work Consultations
The best contractors will always leave ample time for consultations and primary design. For one, you will need a home inspection to check if everything is up to code and if some work must be dedicated to fixing existing problems before starting the remodel.
Then, a good general contractor will have a whole service that will go over the local building laws and ordinances as well as opportunities. They can file all necessary documentation to make the remodel up to code.
Finally, there is a complete architect and designer step where you describe what you want, get a virtual model of the finished home, and then change things with the designer and the architect. This should all be done under the same contractor.
Included Inspections
When talking about home inspections, most people are focused on the possible code violations and structural flaws that might occur in some houses, but that is not the full extent of what is being observed. Looking at it holistically is the way to go because everything is connected.
They need to find out what can be changed and what must stay in place. There is no breaking down of load-bearing walls by accident. Next, there is an order on how different designs are built and disassembled, and the GC will need to know exactly what they are planning to do if they wish to give a good estimate.
Design and Inspiration
Design is not a question of Pinterest collections. The GC will have an architect and a designer on staff who will go with you through your vision and then show you how that will look in the end. They will also have the experience to propose even better solutions than your primary design.
In most cases, this will not be a single cycle, as the designer will need to go through both the architect and the constructor to check if their ideas are sound and then present all of the versions back to you.
High-Quality Materials
Cheaping out on materials can be the worst possible choice you can make. While the debate can be held between utility and luxury, there mustn’t be one about quality. Even basic materials must be good if you want your home to be comfortable.
A simple example is tiles. The difference between laser-cut and machine-cut tiles is in the microns and arc-seconds. The human eye will never notice a difference. But, the latter will crack, crunch, break, and detach way faster, as well as be worse for water insulation and temperature retention.
Due to over-use, especially in California, there are many builders who skimp out on lumber. Old-grown lumber is exceedingly expensive, and if someone offers lumber built for cheap, they are scamming you.
It is much better to diversify materials and use modern techniques that guarantee good quality than to try to circumvent the basic truths of the modern construction market.
Conclusion
It is not easy to choose a good general contractor in San Diego, but if you have the patience and know how to check, it is not impossible. If you know that you will need to wait for your turn and that every good home remodel will cost, you will sense that GC knows what they are doing.
