HOW TO choose a commercial/industrial contractor.

Finding the right contractor for the job will save time and money in the long run.

For business owners, planning a commercial building project means finding the right experts to help. Ron Martin is the executive director of the Sudbury Construction Association and knows all about what can go wrong when someone picks the wrong contractor.

"The biggest mistake people make is they parcel the work out to various subcontractors on their own. Then they become their own contractors, and there are just too many pitfalls."

According to Martin, many people make the mistake of finding one person to do the plumbing, another to handle wiring and a dozen other people to do various jobs: The idea behind this approach, he says, is that they try to save money by eliminating the middleman and doing all the contracting themsleves. The problem with this, says Martin, is that the business owner becomes his own project manager without having the experience of getting construction jobs done on time and on budget. Martin says a good contractor knows how to hire reputable people with the proper experience. A good contractor will also know how to get the job done properly, on time and for the right price.

Hiring a contractor who is not reputable is another pitfall people fall into, according to Martin.

"The problem exists because contracting is regulated," says Martin. "There are all kinds of guys who say they are consultants to the construction company."

He says there are many so-called contractors who may fail, for instance, to make sure the construction of a project is in accordance with building codes. They may also be less than honest about what kinds of jobs they can handle.

Martin is a strong advocate of using a competitive bidding process to decide which contractor to select for a certain job. He advocates this approach for two reasons. First, theoretically if a number of contractors have to compete for the same building contract the competition should ensure the business owner gets the very best price possible. Second, if contractors believe the competition for a certain construction job is open and fair more contractors will bid for it.

When contractors bid for a job they basically submit a resume, says Martin. He says the contractors will outline what their company can do, a list of clients they use as references, a brief history of the types of jobs they have done in the past, whether or not they have bonding and liability insurance, and even provide...