Find a contractor — and the questions that filter out the bad ones
Tell Mabel the job and your area. Get local contractors with real links, plus the vetting questions for your specific project, before anyone quotes you.
Finding a contractor has two failure modes. The first is the search itself: a neighborhood Facebook thread, a lead-generation site that sells your phone number to six companies before lunch, a guy your coworker used once in 2021. The second is quieter and more expensive: hiring someone plausible without knowing which questions would have revealed the problem. Most contractor disasters were detectable in the first conversation. People just didn't know what to ask.
You can outsource both halves of this.
What to send
Email [email protected] with the job and your location:
"I need a contractor to replace a 200 sq ft section of fence and rebuild the gate, in the 80304 zip. Cedar, probably. Nothing's falling down yet but it's close. Who's good near me, and what should I ask before getting quotes?"
More detail sharpens everything: rough budget if you have one, timeline, whether this is cosmetic or structural, anything weird about the property.
What you get back
Two things. First, a short list of local contractors who actually do your kind of work, with links to their real websites or Google Maps listings so you can check reviews, photos of past jobs, and license info yourself, not a wall of sponsored results. Mabel searches and cites; she can't personally vouch for anyone, and she'll say so. The links are there precisely so you can verify.
Second, and this is the part most people skip, the vetting questions tuned to your specific job. Fence work has different failure points than a bathroom remodel. For the fence, expect questions like:
Are you licensed and insured for this work, and can you send certificates? Will you pull any required permit, or is that on me? How do you set posts here, concrete depth matters with our frost line? Is old fence haul-away included in the quote? What's the payment schedule, and is any of it due before materials arrive? Can I see two fence jobs from the last year, with phone numbers?
Each question comes with a note on what a good answer sounds like and which answers are walking-away material. A contractor who wants half up front before a single post hole is dug, for instance, is telling you something.
When the quotes come in, forward them back in the same thread. Mabel will compare them line by line, flag the suspiciously cheap one (usually missing scope, not generosity), and tell you what the price spread is really about.
One small upgrade
Attach photos of the actual project, the leaning section, the gate, the slope of the yard. Real conditions change both the list of who's right for the job and the questions worth asking. "Replace a fence" is a category; your fence is a job.
Three calls, six questions each. That's the whole filter, and it's the cheapest insurance in home ownership.