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How to Choose a Remodeling Contractor
Most remodeling disputes are not caused by bad workmanship. They are caused by a vague scope, an unclear change order process, and a bid that was never comparable to the one next to it. Here is what to check before money moves.
- Licensed & Insured
- 20+ years remodeling
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The short answer
Compare contractors on the written scope, not the bottom-line number. A real bid names materials by brand and model, states who pulls which permits, defines how change orders are priced and approved, and sets a payment schedule tied to completed stages. Verify insurance directly with the carrier and verify plumbing and electrical licences with the state board.
Read the scope, not the number
Three bids arrive. One is noticeably lower. Before you conclude anything, put the three documents side by side and count the nouns.
A bid you can rely on names things. Not “install tile,” but which tile, what size, what pattern, what setting material, whether the substrate is cement board or a membrane, and how many square feet are included. Not “new vanity,” but the cabinet line, the door style, the box construction, the countertop material and edge profile, and the faucet by model number. Not “paint,” but how many coats, on what prep, in what sheen.
The low bid is often low because it is quiet. It says “customer to select tile” with no allowance, or it carries an allowance so thin that every real-world selection becomes an overage. Allowances are legitimate when you have not chosen finishes yet, but they should be written as a number per unit, and they should be a number you have sanity-checked against what you actually like at a supplier.
Ask specifically what is excluded. A short exclusions list is not generosity, it usually means the exclusions live in the contractor’s head and will arrive as change orders. Good exclusions read like: existing subfloor repair beyond ten square feet, drain line replacement if cast iron is found failing, appliance purchase, HOA submittal fees. That is a contractor who has done this before and is telling you where the surprises live.
Verify licence and insurance yourself
Texas does not license general remodeling contractors at the state level. It does license plumbers and electricians through state boards, and those licences are searchable online. So “licensed” on a remodeler’s website means the trades they use are licensed, which is what actually matters for the work that gets inspected. Ask for the licence numbers of the plumber and electrician who will be on your job and check them yourself.
Insurance is where homeowners get lazy and it costs them. Do not accept a photocopy of a certificate emailed by the contractor. Ask for a certificate of insurance issued directly to you by the agency, with your name and project address on it. Then look at two things: general liability, and workers’ compensation.
- General liability covers damage the contractor causes to your property. Confirm the policy is current, not expired last quarter.
- Workers’ compensation matters more than people realise. Texas does not require most private employers to carry it. If your contractor does not, and someone is injured in your house, the question of who pays can end up pointed at your homeowner’s policy.
Ask directly: do you carry workers’ comp, and do your subcontractors? If the answer is no, that is not automatically disqualifying in Texas, but it is a real risk you should price into your decision and mention to your own insurance agent before work starts.
How they handle change orders tells you everything
Every remodel of an older Houston house finds something. Open a 1970s bathroom floor in Sharpstown or Spring Branch and you may find cast iron drain line that is scaled shut or cracked. Open a wall in a 1960s house and you may find galvanised supply pipe that will not take a new fixture without replacement. Pull cabinets in a house that has been through a slab-movement cycle and you may find a floor that is out of level enough to matter.
None of that is a contractor failing. What separates the good ones is what happens in the next hour. The process you want, written into the contract:
- Work stops on the affected item. Nobody proceeds and bills you later.
- You are shown the condition, ideally with photos, before a price is discussed.
- A written change order states the added scope, the added cost, and any schedule impact.
- You sign it before that work begins.
- The markup rate on change order work is stated in the original contract, not negotiated in the moment.
Ask a candidate to walk you through the last change order they wrote. A contractor who has a clean answer, with a document they can show you with the client details removed, has a system. One who says change orders rarely happen is either new to older housing stock or is planning to absorb surprises by cutting corners somewhere you cannot see.
Ask who pulls permits, before you ask about price
Permitting is a fast character test. Ask each bidder: for my scope at my address, what permits are required, who pulls them, and whose licence goes on them?
The answer you want is specific. It identifies the jurisdiction correctly, since a Houston mailing address does not necessarily mean the City of Houston, and unincorporated Harris County, Fort Bend County, and cities like Katy, Sugar Land, Pearland, Missouri City and Bellaire each run their own process. It says the licensed plumber and licensed electrician pull their own permits. It accounts for HOA architectural review as a separate approval with its own timeline.
The answer that should worry you: some version of “we can do it without a permit and save you money,” or a suggestion that you pull an owner’s permit in your own name so the schedule moves faster. The second one shifts responsibility for code compliance and inspection onto you and strips out your leverage. It is a cost transfer dressed up as a favour.
Also ask how they handle failed inspections, because they happen to everyone eventually. Who schedules the re-inspection, who pays for the correction work, and does the schedule absorb it or does it become your delay? A contractor with a straight answer has been through it. One who bristles at the question has told you something useful for free.
Sequencing, and why it is the real skill
Anyone can hang a cabinet. The difference between a smooth remodel and a miserable one is trade sequencing, and it is worth asking about because the answer reveals experience quickly.
The order matters: demo, then any structural work, then rough plumbing and rough electrical and rough mechanical, then rough inspection, then insulation and drywall, then finishes, then trim-out, then final inspection. Work that skips ahead has to be undone. A tile setter who arrives before the shower valve is inspected has created a demolition job.
In Houston there are humidity-specific choices inside that sequence that a good remodeler makes without being asked. Plywood substrate rather than particleboard in wet areas, because particleboard swells and stays swollen here. Bath exhaust sized to the room and actually ducted to the exterior, not into the attic where it becomes a mould problem in an unconditioned space that runs brutal in August. Proper waterproofing at the shower, not just cement board and hope.
Ask how they schedule around slab movement season too. Our expansive clay swells and shrinks with the wet and dry cycle, which is why doors bind in one season and free up in another. If your doors are sticking and your tile has a hairline crack, a contractor who wants to chase that with a cosmetic fix in the middle of a drought is not thinking about what happens after the next long rain.
Red flags, and what a fair payment structure looks like
Some of these are common everywhere. A few are specific to how business gets done here.
- A large deposit demanded before any written scope exists. Money should follow a signed document, not the other way round.
- A price that drops sharply if you sign today. A real number does not have that much slack in it.
- Door-knocking after a storm, with a truck from out of state and no local address. Houston gets a wave of this after every major weather event.
- Cash-only, no written contract, no invoice, no insurance certificate.
- No physical business address you can find, or one that turns out to be a mailbox.
- Refusal to name specific products, or an allowance with no number attached.
- Pressure to skip permits framed as saving you money.
- They cannot tell you which trades are their own employees and which are subs.
On payments: what you want is a schedule tied to completed and verifiable stages, with a meaningful final payment held until the punch list is finished and any final inspection has passed. Never let payments run ahead of completed work. If you are paid up to eighty percent and the job is half done, you have lost the only leverage you had.
MS Home Remodeling is at 1530 W Sam Houston Pkwy N in the Energy Corridor, licensed and insured, with 20+ years of remodeling experience and 5-star Google reviews from 21+ clients. If you want a scope written the way this page describes, call (281) 235-6971.
Common questions
Does Texas license general remodeling contractors?
Not at the state level. Texas licenses plumbers and electricians through state boards, and those are the licences attached to the work that gets permitted and inspected. So when you check credentials, check the trade licences by number on the state board sites, and separately verify the remodeler’s insurance directly with their agency rather than from a forwarded PDF.
How much deposit is normal?
There is no single right figure, and any contractor quoting you an industry-standard percentage is generalizing. What matters is structure: a deposit should come after a signed contract with a defined scope, not before one, and subsequent payments should be tied to completed stages you can see. Keep a meaningful amount held back until the punch list is done and final inspection has passed.
Three bids came in and one is much lower. What do I do?
Do not assume it is a better deal or a scam. Put the documents side by side and find the difference in writing. Usually the low bid has thinner allowances, fewer named products, no permit line, or excludes something the others included. Once you normalise the scopes, the gap often shrinks or reverses. If it does not, ask the low bidder directly what they are doing differently.
Should I pull the permit myself if the contractor asks me to?
Generally no. When a permit is in your name, you carry responsibility for code compliance and inspection outcomes, and you lose leverage over the contractor. Licensed plumbers and electricians pull permits under their own licences for their own work. Being asked to take that on so a contractor does not have to attach their credentials is a warning sign, not a shortcut.
What should be in the contract that homeowners usually forget?
Four things. The change order process, including the markup rate and the requirement for your signature before work proceeds. A clear exclusions list. Which permits are being pulled and by whom. And what happens to schedule and cost if a hidden condition is found, which in older Houston housing stock with cast iron drains and galvanised supply is a realistic possibility, not a theoretical one.
Related reading
- Permits for Remodeling in the Houston Area
- What Makes Our Work Different
- Living Through a Remodel
- Remodeling Questions, Answered
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MS Home Remodeling · 1530 W Sam Houston Pkwy N, Houston, TX 77043 · (281) 235-6971