Letting someone into your home, or onto your site, to do work you are paying good money for comes down to one thing: trust. Anyone can call themselves a carpenter. Here is what is worth checking before you say yes, whoever you end up going with.
Ask whether they are trade-qualified, and ask to see their public liability insurance. It is a fair question, and any good tradesperson is happy to answer it. Insurance matters: if something goes wrong on your property, you want to know you are covered. For what it is worth, we carry $20M public liability and can send the certificate on request.
Police checks and Working With Children Checks are not just paperwork. They are what lets a trade onto an aged-care site, a school or a hospital, and they tell you something about how the business is run. If a carpenter is cleared to work in those settings, they can certainly be trusted in your home.
Plenty of jobs need more than one trade. The question worth asking is who coordinates the rest. If you are left chasing a separate painter, plasterer or tiler, the job drags and the finish suffers. We do the carpentry ourselves and bring in the other trades around it, so it runs as one team and leaves complete. Whoever you choose, ask how they handle the trades they do not do themselves.
Look past the star rating to what people actually say, and whether the same names come back for more work. Repeat clients are the honest signal. Ask for a reference or two, and have a look at their Google reviews.
Good tradespeople tell you where you stand. A quick phone estimate to start, then a written quote once the scope is clear, and a straight answer on when they can start and when they will finish. If you cannot get a clear number or a clear date, that is worth noticing early.
The real test comes after the job is done. Ask what happens if something is not right. The answer you want is simple: they come back and make it right, no runaround.
Qualified and insured, properly checked, able to run the whole job, backed by clients who return, clear on price and timing, and willing to stand behind the work. That is the shortlist.
If you are weighing up who to call for a job around Geelong, the Surf Coast, the Bellarine or Golden Plains, what is the part you would most like a straight answer on? Tell us about it and we will point you in the right direction, even if it is not us.
