Home service categories

Every trade we cover across the Triangle. Each listing shows verified customer reviews, NC contractor license status, and insurance where the business has provided it.

45 categories

Find a business

These are what each business tells us about itself. We publish the claim, we don't verify it: unlike license and insurance, which we check.

Every trade, every town

We cover 8 Triangle towns. Pick your own rather than taking Raleigh's answer.

Before you call anyone

Most of what goes wrong on a home job goes wrong before the work starts. These four checks apply whatever the trade, and they take about ten minutes.

Check the license yourself

North Carolina requires a general contractor license for most projects over $30,000, and separate boards license electricians and plumbers. Do not take a license number off a truck or a website. Look it up, and check the status is current rather than expired or on probation.

Look up a license

Get three quotes, in writing

Not to find the cheapest, but to find out what the job actually is. When one quote is far below the others it is usually not the same scope, and the difference tells you what the other two are including that this one is not.

Describe your job once

Ask who is doing the work

Some companies sell the job and subcontract every part of it. That is not automatically bad, but you should know it before you sign, because it decides who turns up, who is insured, and who you call when something goes wrong a year later.

How ownership works

Look at the permit record

Permits are public, and they name the contractor. A company that pulls permits in your town regularly is established there. One that has none in your jurisdiction may still be fine, but it is worth asking why.

Search the permit record

What the grade on each listing means

Every business here carries a letter grade, or says it is not graded yet. It is computed from reviews, license standing, and the public record, and no business can pay to change it. A grade only appears once there are enough reviews to mean something, so a blank one is a business we do not have enough on yet rather than a bad one.

Read the methodology