Angie's List: Have You Used it to find a Contractor? Thoughts?

[Joshua Dorkin]

I'm having a horribly difficult time finding contractors for a large project I need completed at my home. One of three red flags appear when I contact one:

a) They come and never follow up with an actual bid - over 50% of the contractors who have come to see the full task.
b) Their bids take much longer to return then promised. If you can't return a bid on time, how are you going to be able to complete a large project in any kind of reasonable amount of time?
c) Their bids are incomplete or include several areas where markups are excessive (eg. bid came in that included gutter work that was 2x the bid of all other bids on that part of the job).

So - I'm running out of patience - fast - and need to get this job done in the next 2 months.

Which leads me to Angie's List. Have any of you used this site to screen contractors (looking for a GC)? What are your thoughts?

[George P.]

a friend had account with them and gave me a few names, but they never panned out.

what i do is the following:

let's say i need windows (like i do at the moment). I called a window wholesaler/distributor and asked them to give me 3-4 contractors. they do, i call them and work with them.

i did that for brick work, gutters/siding, windows, sprinklers, you name it.

works every time and i get great contractors.