What to Ask Your Site Contractor Before Signing

What to ask before you sign with a site contractor

Site work and ADU builds are where the biggest, most expensive surprises happen — and where the gap between a real builder and a guy with a truck shows up fast. The questions below are the ones that actually protect you. Ask them before you sign, and get the answers in writing. Here is how Langone Site Services answers each one, out of West Newfield, on jobs from Wells to Rochester.

1. Are you licensed, insured, and bondable?

Ask for proof, not a promise. You want current general liability, workers' comp, and — for commercial or larger work — evidence they are bondable. In Maine and New Hampshire there is no state general-contractor license for residential work, so insurance and bonding are your real vetting tools. A contractor who hesitates to hand over a certificate of insurance is telling you something. (We carry a $5M umbrella and are fully bondable.)

2. Do you own your equipment or rent it?

This is the sleeper question. A contractor who owns their excavators, dozers, and trucks controls their own schedule. One who rents — or subs out the earthwork — is at the mercy of a rental yard's availability and another company's backlog. Owned equipment is why we can hold an 8-week ADU schedule; rented equipment is why other builds stall between phases.

3. Who pulls the permits?

The right answer is "we do." A builder who makes you pull your own permits is offloading liability and telling you they would rather not be the name on the town's paperwork. We pull permits on every job and handle the site plan, elevations, septic capacity, and DEP erosion-control plan as a package.

4. Is the scope and allowance list in writing?

Vague contracts are where change orders breed. Insist on a written scope that spells out exactly what is included and a clear allowance for any items priced as budgets (fixtures, appliances, flooring). Our turn-key model pricing is transparent line-by-line, so you know what the number covers before you sign.

5. How are change orders handled?

Ask specifically: how are changes priced, and do they need my written approval before work proceeds? The answer you want is that nothing changes the price without your signature first. A contractor who does the work and bills you later is how a $180k build becomes a $230k build.

6. What is the payment schedule?

Reasonable schedules tie payments to milestones (deposit, foundation, dry-in, completion), not to the calendar. Be wary of anyone asking for a large chunk up front with no work-tied structure. Milestone draws also line up cleanly with construction-loan lenders (see our financing guide).

7. Can I see references and an active jobsite?

A real builder will hand you recent references, a portfolio of completed work, and let you tour a job in progress. Seeing how a crew keeps a site — erosion controls in, materials organized, work square — tells you more than any brochure.

8. Are you DEP-certified for erosion control?

On many Maine sites this is not optional, and the penalties for getting it wrong are steep. Ask directly whether they hold Maine DEP Erosion and Sediment Control certification — here is why it matters. We are certified and install controls before the first bucket of dirt moves.

9. Do you guarantee the timeline?

Ask what happens if the schedule slips and what could cause it. An honest builder will name the real risks — permitting delays, weather, custom changes — instead of promising a date they cannot hold. We communicate weekly and are upfront about what moves a timeline and what does not.

Ready to vet us against this list?

Run our instant pricing calculator for a transparent number, or book a free consult and put every one of these questions to us directly.