August 25, 2009

I'm Reconsidering Joining Angie's List

A while back I wrote asking Is Angie's List Worth It? and at that time I figured it probably wasn't really worth the cost and decided against joining. When I first looked at Angie's List I was interested but wasn't willing to gamble on the expense of the membership. I had hoped that they would have had a free trial but they don't. So I decided to pass. But now I'm thinking maybe its worth it to join Angie's List.

Lately we've gotten two major home remodeling projects done. We got our lawn fixed up and we got installation added and air sealing done. Both of these cost over $6,000 and researching good contractors took some time. In hindsight I think it really would have been beneficial to have Angie's List as a reference when researching the contractors. Thankfully the two contractors we hired did do a pretty good job for a reasonable price so we're happy enough with the work done. I think the primary benefit of Angie's list is giving you more data on customer satisfaction so you can make a more informed decision.

We'll probably get a heat pump installed soon as well so that will be another major project to undertake. I think it would be nice if we could do some screening of contractors via a service like Angie's List. I've done some Google searches and checked sites like Citysearch to see what I can find for reviews of local HVAC contractors but not come up with too much. Angies List could help us screen out the bad contractors and find a pool of contractors who consistently do a satisfactory job.

Money Smart Life has an article with promotional codes to save on Angie's List memberships.
The current promotional code of FOX will save me $15 on a monthly membership or $30 on an annual membership. So I could either get 1 month for $7.50 or 1 year for $44.00. Paying $7.50 for a month to try out Angie's list and at least check out contractors for the heat pump seems like a pretty fair deal.

Is it worth the cost? I think spending a few dollars to filter out the really bad contractors is a good use of money. If we don't use Angie's list then we'd run a higher risk of getting a poor contractor that ends up costing us more money in the long run. The $7.50 to join for a month isn't much money to spend to try Angies list.

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