Angie's List

Not being from here, we don't know a thing about who to call to get things fixed. I'd say it takes at least five years of living somewhere to even begin to have a list of regular people who are trustworthy artisans of one kind or another: mechanics, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, you name it. Thank goodness for the internets! We have used Angie's List many, many times now both to research possible projects and to find the right person/company to take on these projects when we're ready to take the plunge.

No, I'm not getting paid to blog on this...I really do just happen to be a big fan of "the list". The thing I love about Angie's List is that you can sort of be a voyeur before you decide to hire someone to do a project for real. What I mean is that you can look through tons & tons of descriptions that people have posted regarding the work they've had done along with what people paid for it and what they thought of the company they hired to do the work. That's priceless information!! It's like getting tons of estimates before you have anyone even come to your house. I HATE waiting around for companies to show up to give estimates. Half the time they don't even bother to show up. But if I spend some time researching on Angie's List I can narrow the potential companies down to one or two (never more than three) and know immediately if the estimate I get falls within the range of what other people paid for similar work.

Here's an example of Angie's List at work. The house we bought in our lovely little village nestled in a corner of our crestfallen Midwestern city was built in 1932. It's a lovely Tudor style house, and we got a great deal on it primarily because no one had ever installed central air. I used the forums at doityourself.com to research what kind of A/C we could even consider having installed in this old house, which has no ductwork because it has hot water heat. Once I settled on a high velocity A/C system I went to, you guessed it, Angie's List to research companies that do this kind of work. I found several reviews of a particular company that has installed Spacepak systems along with price ranges. I brought them over for an estimate, and I didn't have to call anyone else. They were clearly the right company for the job, and their price made sense. It was not cheap, but this was major work. I wasn't looking to bring in umpteen companies so that I could choose who ever gave us the lowest bid for the work. Without Angie's List I honestly wouldn't have known where to start on this project.

So there's my paean to Angie's List. And just to keep things objective, I'll add a criticism of AL. They've started moving into reviews of medical providers in addition to reviews of home repair services. I'm VERY skeptical that this will work and that it's even appropriate. Getting good medical care is FAR more complicated than hiring a plumber, and I worry that AL is attempting to oversimplify the task of finding a doctor, dentist, etc. I simply don't trust what someone has to say about a doctor on AL because the average person has no clue how to rate a medical care provider. My sister & brother-in-law are both physicians, and my wife is an advanced practice nurse, so I know a few things about the medical world simply by virtue of osmosis. No sirree, Angie's List just does not belong in that business.