Kentucky doesn't have a statewide GC license. That's the first thing to know.
A lot of homeowners assume that if a contractor says they're "licensed in Kentucky" it means something at the state level. It doesn't — at least not for general contracting. Kentucky has state licenses for the specialty trades (electrical, HVAC, plumbing) but general contracting is licensed at the local level. In Louisville that means a Louisville Metro Building Contractor license issued by Louisville Metro Construction Review.
There are three classes: Type A for unlimited residential and commercial work, Type B for residential and light commercial, Type C for residential only. Ask which class the contractor holds and check it against the Metro records.
Ask to see the license number, then verify it yourself.
Any legitimate Louisville GC will hand you a business card with a license number on it. Take that number and search it against the Louisville Metro Construction Review site. If they can't produce a number, or if the number doesn't match, they're not licensed. Full stop.
Ask the same for state HBC electrical and HVAC licenses if those trades are in scope. Those numbers are searchable in the Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction database.
Never pay more than 10% up front.
A contractor who asks for 30%, 40%, or 50% at signing is telling you they can't finance their own materials. That's a sign of a stressed business — and businesses that are stressed at the start of your job are worse-stressed by the end. The industry standard for a small residential contractor is:
- 10% at signing to lock the schedule and cover initial material orders
- Progress draws at agreed milestones (usually rough-in, drywall, substantial completion)
- 10% retainage held until the punch list is closed and permits are signed off
Ask for an itemized quote, not a lump sum.
A lump-sum quote — "kitchen renovation, $48,500" — tells you nothing. It doesn't say how many hours the crew is spending, doesn't say what the cabinets cost vs. what the counters cost, doesn't say what the trip charge or dumpster costs. When a change order shows up mid-job you have no reference point to price it against.
An itemized quote lists labor hours × the labor rate, materials line-by-line with quantities and unit prices, and any incidentals (trip charge, haul-off, dumpster, porta-john, contingency). It's more work to write, and any GC who declines to write one is asking you to trust them blind.
Confirm who's doing the work.
Most small GCs sub out the specialty trades — electrical, HVAC, plumbing, sometimes tile and drywall. That's normal. But it's also where jobs go sideways: a sub cancels, the schedule slips a week, and now the whole project is behind.
Ask the GC which trades they hold in-house. If they hold state licenses in electrical and HVAC (like we do), those two trades won't stretch your timeline. If they sub everything, ask who the subs are and whether they've worked together before. A GC using a rotating cast of subs will run less predictably than one using the same crew every time.
Overlay-district experience matters.
If your house is in Old Louisville, Cherokee Triangle, Butchertown, Portland, or another Louisville Metro preservation district, any exterior change has to go through the Landmarks Commission Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) process. That's paperwork, drawings, and a review that can add four to eight weeks to your project if it's your first time.
Ask the GC how many COA applications they've submitted and how many were approved on first submission. If they can't answer with a straight number, they don't have real overlay-district experience.
Ninety days is a fair labor warranty. A "lifetime" one probably isn't real.
Most reputable small GCs warranty their labor for 90 days to a year. Some sub-trades (electrical, HVAC) offer longer warranties on the work itself. Manufacturers offer their own warranties on materials — those get passed through to you. Anyone advertising a "lifetime labor warranty" is either running a much bigger company than they look like, or they're making a promise they can't keep.
Trust your gut on communication.
The best predictor of how a job will run is how the estimate process runs. If they show up late to the site walk, take three weeks to send a quote, ghost your follow-up email — that's how the job will run too. Move on. There are plenty of Louisville contractors who take estimating seriously.