Want great work from contractor crews? Follow these simple tips.

I'm getting wall to wall carpet put in the basement of Mothmanor (our Mothman themed AirBnb) right now. The floor is really uneven and a pain to work on. I was concerned about getting a good job. 

I followed my own tips working with the El Salvadorian crew that's 6 hours from home to get great work and great attitudes:

- Gave them drinks (water was all I had in our rental)
- Showed them which bathroom they could use (one fellow was very grateful and was about to go find one)
- Tipped them up front (tipping afterwards is dumb, it doesn't incentivize anything) and showed them the details I wanted. $50-100/crew member goes a long way on most jobs, use your judgement. 
- Bought them dinner ($5 meals at McDonald's, nothing special, but they said they hadn't eaten in a while)
- Let them know they could use the microwave to warm up their food (they kept going a while after I brought it)
- I brought them water bottles after a while
- I didn't hover the whole time, but I was curious and asked questions and joked with them. 

They're chatting and working happily on the pain in the butt uneven floor in this place, doing details they wouldn't normally do.

It's also an example of messed up incentives, they are scheduled for 2-3 hours installs. It's 9:15 PM as I write this and they're still here, they arrived at 2:45. I'd done almost all of the prep for them. But they have a job tomorrow so they need to finish this one. I'm betting they get a fixed rate per job, at least the tips helped even that out. There's a balance between square footage and difficulty, I'll write more on that sometime. In this case I'm getting a deal even with tips.

Their attitudes are amazing, the one fellow said he'd rather work than just sit in a hotel. And at least they're paid for the extra time now.

I've found this method works wonders on any project. Be nice to the crew. Feed them and give them stuff to drink. Show them which bathroom to use. Tip upfront, tell them what you want.

There are countless small details that can easily be skipped if the crew is in a hurry or thinks you're a jerk. You will never know. These methods make them far more likely to get done. 

Do these things and you'll get better work and they'll be happy to do it for only a bit extra than you were already planning to spend. A few hundred in crew care can buy you far more than that in results, I'd argue 10X that on HVAC if those extra steps double the life of the system. 

If it's a local contractor (unlike this instance), it'll likely buy you cred with the crew and owner too which is useful should you do further work (like renovate another AirBnb) or refer your friends. Tell your friends the same tips! 

This post is one small piece that'll be in the upcoming Common Sense HVAC guide so you can get a great system AND a great install that can live to the ripe old age of 15-20 years instead of 8-12 problematic ones. 

PS Bonus points if you can tell what 3 pieces of equipment are in the mechanical area. 

PPS They finally left at 11 PM, over 8 hours on a 2-3 hour scheduled task. It looks great. Huge thanks to Ulises and Franki!