Three contractors, no callbacks - what am I doing wrong?

What a contractor is deciding when your message arrives

Whether the job is real, whether it is the kind of work they do, whether the scope is knowable without a site visit, and whether the budget is in the same universe as the work. A message that leaves three of those open goes to the bottom of the pile, not because you are being ignored but because there are five above it that do not.

What gets answered first

• A scope in a few bullets: what, where, and what finish level.
• Photographs and rough dimensions.
• A budget range. What would it cost reads as a fishing expedition; my range is X to Y reads as a client.
• Your timing, and whether it is flexible.
• A line saying you expect permits to be pulled and the contractor to be licensed and insured. It filters for the ones you actually want.

How and when to make contact

Telephone rather than email, early in the morning before eight or after five, when someone is in a truck rather than on a roof. Leave the scope in a message and follow with an email so it can be read properly later.

Make sure you are calling the right trade

If the job is genuinely two hours of work, you want a handyman, not a general contractor — a GC pricing a two-hour job has to cover mobilisation, insurance and overhead, and the number will offend you both. If it involves structure, permits or several trades in sequence, it is a contractor job and the scope above is what gets it moving.

Once someone does call back, run the four verification checks before you let them quote, and know what payment terms are normal. If you would rather skip the search, here is how I run a project.

A template that gets answered

Keep it to six lines: what the job is, where it is, the rough size, a budget range, when you want it done, and that you expect permits and a licensed, insured contractor. Attach three photographs.

That message can be priced roughly without a visit, which is what decides whether it gets a call back today or a maybe next month. It also filters out the contractors who were never going to pull a permit, which saves you the conversation later.