Van Vollmer

First of all let me warn you all from ever dealing with a con-artist named Van Vollmer. His company name is sometimes called NY Wood. He does custom wood windows, cornices and doors. He robbed us blind and he robbed other people we recommended him to. Which leads me to my next thought....do not just go with somebody's on line recommendation before you hire a contractor. This sounds obvious, but it's not. Make sure the person you got the reference from (on line or in person or whatever) is willing to back it up with personal contact info so you can find out what they mean by their recommendation, how recent they used that person, what type of job, etc. And then call the contractor and get names and numbers of recent references. Also check that they are not in trouble with the BBB. And if they claim to be licenced, go on line and check that they are really licensed. And lastly, this sounds really ridiculous, but get credit references from contractors. They all buy or pay subcontractors right? Well if they are not paying those parties on time guess who suffers? You the customer. It's the first sign that they are not going to complete a job on time because they have no credit to do so. And also before you pay a contractor a dime, get a copy of their driver's license. Okay, so maybe this all sounds nuts to you. Won't sound too crazy when you are broke and the job you wanted to get done isn't even 1/2 way finished. Check out this link: http://brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2005/07/general_contrac.html