Questions to Ask a Kitchen Remodeling Contractor

A kitchen is not one trade. It is a carpenter, an electrician, a plumber, a tile setter, a countertop fabricator, and a drywall crew, and somebody has to keep them from tripping over each other. Most of vetting a kitchen contractor is finding out whether that somebody knows the order the work goes in. Nearly every question below is built so a bluffer cannot answer it smoothly.

Ask which license class they hold, not whether they are licensed

"Are you licensed?" gets you a yes, and the yes tells you nothing. Licenses come in classes. What you need to find out is whether the class they hold reaches the two parts of a kitchen that carry real risk: structure and systems.

California spells this out better than most states, so use it as the model even if you live somewhere else. The Contractors State License Board issues a Class B general building license, which section 7057(a) of the Business and Professions Code ties to work involving at least two unrelated building trades or crafts. Since January 1, 2021 it has also issued a Class B-2 residential remodeling license, defined in section 7057.5 as work on an existing residential wood frame structure calling for at least three unrelated building trades or crafts under a single contract.

Here is the part both sides of the table get wrong. Section 7057(b) says framing and carpentry do not count toward the two unrelated trades a B license needs. So adding up cabinets, wiring and pipe to prove a license fits your job is bad arithmetic.

And the B-2 has two hard limits printed on the board's own page, both of which land squarely on what people most want out of a kitchen. A residential remodeling contractor 'shall not contract to make structural changes to load bearing portions of an existing structure, including, but not limited to, footings, foundations, load bearing walls, partitions, and roof structures.' The same contractor 'shall not contract to install, replace, substantially alter, or extend electrical, mechanical, or plumbing systems or their component parts' unless he holds the right license classification himself or subcontracts with someone who does.

Read that with your own kitchen in mind. Opening up the wall between the kitchen and the dining room is a structural change to a load bearing portion. Moving the sink out to an island, or running new circuits for a second oven, is extending a plumbing or electrical system rather than swapping a fixture. Both of those sit outside a bare B-2. Neither one is forbidden. Somebody on the job just has to hold the class that covers it.

One more limit gets missed constantly: the B-2 applies to wood frame structures. A masonry or steel building, which describes a lot of condos, falls outside that classification entirely.

Licensing is set state by state, and some states do not license remodelers at all, so the letters and numbers change where you live. The question travels anyway. Does my kitchen touch structure or systems, and if it does, who on your team is licensed for that part, by name and license number? Then go look it up yourself. Every state that licenses contractors publishes a free lookup, and reading the status takes about a minute.

No, there is no kitchen small enough to skip the license

Contractors sometimes float a dollar figure as the reason a license is not needed. California does have a minor work exemption, in section 7048, and it pays to understand it, because it was written to shut exactly this door. It covers work under one thousand dollars that is 'casual, minor, or inconsequential.' Then it adds a second condition: the exemption 'does not apply... where the work or operation requires a building permit.'

Both halves have to be true at the same time. A kitchen requires a permit. So no price makes a kitchen exempt. Not a small job, not a cheap job, and not one where he tells you he is doing you a favor.

Ask who is actually swinging the hammer

The person selling you the kitchen is often not the person building it. That is normal. What matters is whether they will say so plainly.

• Are your electrician and plumber employees or subcontractors? Both answers are fine. Evasion is not.
• Are they separately licensed in their own trades, and have they pulled permits in this city before? A sub who has never worked in your jurisdiction is a schedule risk, because he does not know the inspector.
• Who is on site every day, and who do I call when nobody shows up on Tuesday?
• Will the same crew finish the job, or does the A team start it and a B team finish it once the next sale closes?

Ask who pulls the permit

There is one answer you want, and it is "we do." If a contractor steers the permit toward you, you are not being handed a shortcut. You are being handed his risk.

Pull an owner-builder permit and the board's own language gets blunt fast. You assume full responsibility for all phases of your project and its integrity. If you use anyone other than a licensed subcontractor, CSLB says you may be considered an employer, which drags workers' compensation coverage and payroll taxes along with it. And if your workers get hurt, or your subs turn out to be unlicensed or carrying no liability or workers' comp coverage and they get hurt, CSLB says you could be asked to pay for their injuries and rehabilitation through your homeowner's insurance policy, or face lawsuits.

In Nevada the legislature already settled this one for you. NRS 624.970 puts the permits on the residential contractor: he is the one who must go get them. So a Nevada contractor who asks you to pull the permit is asking you to help him break the law.

Then follow up: which inspections does this job need, and where does the work stop until an inspector signs off? Anybody who has run a kitchen can tell you without checking notes that rough plumbing and rough electrical get looked at before that wall closes up. If you are thinking about swinging a hammer yourself to save a little money, learn where the permit line sits before you start.

Ask which electrical code cycle your city is on

Kitchen wiring has its own rules in the National Electrical Code, and the code keeps moving. Two of those rules changed in the 2023 cycle, and what they did to your ground fault protection and your island outlet is a story for the sequencing page. Here it is only a probe.

Ask the question that decides it: which NEC cycle has this jurisdiction adopted, and what does that mean for my existing circuits? The 2026 edition is published, and live jurisdictions run anywhere from the 2017 cycle to the 2026 one. Where home rule applies, the statewide answer means nothing, because your city adopts on its own schedule.

Now listen to what comes back. "I will confirm with the inspector" is an honest answer from a busy man. A glance at your outlets followed by "those look fine" is a man who has never once thought about it, and he is the one who will be arguing with the inspector on your dime.

Ask what the allowances are set at

Ask this during the interview, before anybody hands you a number. It is the fastest way to find out how a contractor prices.

An allowance is the placeholder figure standing in for whatever you have not picked yet: countertops, tile, lighting, hardware. Describe exactly what you mean to buy, then ask what allowance they would write for it, and whether an overage carries their markup on top.

You are not testing the number. You are testing whether a real figure comes out of their mouth while you are sitting there, or stays soft until your signature is dry. A soft allowance is one of the quiet reasons one bid reads cheaper than another, and it stops reading cheap around the time you go pick your stone.

A contractor who walks you through the allowance mechanism before you think to ask has told you a great deal about how the rest of the job will go.

Ask about the deposit, and know the ceiling before they answer

Deposits are where homeowners lose money that no lawyer ever gets back. Ask the number out loud, at the table, before anyone drafts anything.

What you are testing is not the figure. It is whether he knows his own state law without reaching for his phone. A kitchen contractor working in California should be able to tell you the down payment ceiling there is a thousand dollars or a tenth of the job, whichever comes out smaller, and that exceeding it is a misdemeanor rather than a faux pas. One who cannot is telling you he has never read the statute he signs contracts under.

Listen for the excuse, too, because there is a standard one. He needs the money up front for special-order cabinets. CSLB has answered that in writing: special-order materials buy no exception to the cap. A contractor who reaches for it either does not know that or is hoping you do not.

A big ask is not automatically improper, either. A handful of states set a ceiling, no two of those ceilings match, and in several of them a properly bonded contractor may lawfully go above it. Which state you sit in, which bond he carries, and what the statute actually says are all questions about the paperwork, and they are answered where the paperwork lives. What belongs at the table is the follow-up: what deposit are you asking for, and what does my state cap it at? Then watch whether he answers or estimates.

Ask about lien waivers before the first sub arrives

Two questions, and what you are really listening for is whether the contractor already knows where you are heading. Who are the subs and suppliers on this job? And will you get me a signed waiver from each of them as they get paid?

An unpaid supplier can come after your house even when you have paid your contractor in full, which is why the answer matters. Somebody who fields the question crisply has heard it before from a homeowner who knew what he was doing, and that alone is the information you came for. The paperwork itself belongs in the contract, not in the interview.

Ask about credentials, and know which initials are dead

Trade credentials range from genuinely demanding to a logo somebody bought. Three organizations run the real ones for kitchens. And several of the initials most likely to be printed on the card in your hand cannot be earned by anybody anymore.

• NKBA, the National Kitchen and Bath Association, awards exactly two designer credentials today. CKBD takes two exams, a Fundamentals Exam and a Portfolio Exam, plus one of three ways in: NCIDQ certification or a licensed architect; or 30 credit hours of interior design or architecture education plus three years in the industry, one of them as a designer; or seven years in the kitchen and bath industry with three of those as a designer.
• CMKBD sits above it. It calls for a minimum of six continuous years holding an active CKBD, plus continuing education units, a portfolio exam, and three client references.
• NARI, the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, certifies remodelers. CKBR is the kitchen and bath one: a minimum of five years continuous experience in the remodeling industry, a minimum of four kitchens or bathrooms a year, at least 16 hours of continuing education, and a 200-question proctored exam with a four-hour clock on it. CR is the broader remodeler credential and carries that same five-year bar, so do not read it as the junior rung.
• NAHB's current remodeling credential is CMRP, the Certified Master Remodeling Professional. It asks for a minimum of five years in a leadership role at a residential building or remodeling firm, plus 50 hours of professional development in the past five years.

Then check whether the badge is still alive. NKBA has stopped awarding AKBD, CKD, CBD and CKBI to new candidates, and folded the old CKD into CKBD. NAHB has moved CGR and GMR onto its legacy list. If any of those six sets of initials shows up on a business card, the person holding them may be excellent, and the training behind them was real. It just is not something anyone can go earn today, which is worth knowing while you are being sold on it.

So ask which credential they hold, then check it against the issuing body's own member directory instead of the contractor's website. And keep the two ladders separate. CKBD says somebody can design your kitchen. It says nothing about whether their carpenter can hang the doors straight.

Ask for the insurance disclosure, not just the certificate

This is where almost every hiring checklist on the internet is wrong. California does not require a contractor to carry general liability insurance. CSLB's own consumer publication asks the question and answers it flat: "Is this insurance required? No. But the Contractors State License Board strongly recommends that all contractors carry it." So "are you insured?" can be answered honestly with a no, and you have learned nothing you can act on.

Here is the lever nobody pulls. A home improvement contractor in California is required by law to state in writing, either way, whether the company carries commercial general liability insurance, and that statement has to come with the bid, if there is one, and again with the contract. So do not ask whether he is insured. Ask him to hand you the disclosure. He owes it to you no matter which way it reads, and either answer puts you on solid ground.

What California does require is a different list than people assume. Every licensee posts a contractor's bond of $25,000, up from $15,000 at the start of 2023. And workers' compensation is mandatory the moment a contractor has an employee. CSLB puts it without any wiggle room: California law requires that employers, including those in the construction industry, carry workers' compensation insurance, even if they have only one employee.

Which is where a lot of advice sends people wrong. A blank workers' comp line is not a red flag on its own. A genuine one-man contractor with no employees may lawfully file an exemption and show no policy at all. It turns into a red flag the second anybody else is standing in your kitchen. So the question to ask is not "do you carry workers' comp." It is: who is physically going to be in my house doing this work, and is every one of them covered by somebody's policy?

Ask for the certificate too. It arrives as an ACORD 25, the standard certificate of liability insurance form. Then do the step people skip: look up the insurance agency's phone number on your own rather than dialing the one printed in front of you, and call. CSLB gives the same instruction, which is to check with the insurance company and verify that the coverage will cover your project. A certificate describes one day in the past. Policies lapse, businesses run under names that differ from the one on the truck, and a PDF takes about four minutes to alter.

Questions to ask a kitchen contractor's references

Ask for at least three references, and ask for one whose job went sideways. Every contractor has one. The useful information is what they did about it.

1. 1What did they find behind the wall that nobody expected, and how was the extra work priced?
2. 2How many change orders were there, and did you see each one in writing before the work happened?
3. 3Did the countertop template happen when they said it would, and how long was the gap before it was installed?
4. 4Were you without a working kitchen longer than they told you? By how much?
5. 5Did the same crew start and finish?
6. 6Who did you call when something went wrong, and how fast did they pick up?
7. 7Did they come back for the punch list after final payment?
8. 8Knowing everything you know now, would you hire them again for a kitchen specifically?

That last one matters more than it looks. A contractor can be excellent at bathrooms and out of his depth in a kitchen, where the cabinet run, the countertop template, and the appliance dimensions all have to agree with each other.

Ask a design question they cannot fake

NKBA publishes a set of kitchen planning guidelines covering aisle widths, landing areas, and clearances. They are recommendations, not code. Every guideline carries the same note about state or local codes, and where a code applies, the code wins. Anybody who designs kitchens for a living still knows the numbers cold.

So pick one and ask. How wide is the work aisle in the layout you are proposing? NKBA puts the floor at 42 inches of aisle for a single cook, and raises it to a 48-inch minimum once multiple cooks are in there together. A real kitchen professional answers you in inches, then asks how many people cook in your house. Somebody who does not design kitchens will tell you it is going to feel spacious.

The short version to take to the table

Ten questions, and you can run all of them in one sitting. Take them with you, and write the answers down as you go. What you hear at this table is what you will be holding him to later, so the answers you liked need to end up in the contract.

1. 1What class of license do you hold, and does my state say it covers structural work and system work?
2. 2My kitchen touches a load bearing wall and the plumbing. Who on your team is licensed for those parts?
3. 3Are your electrician and plumber in-house or subcontracted, and have they pulled permits in this city?
4. 4Who pulls the permit, and which inspections stop the job?
5. 5Which NEC cycle is this jurisdiction on, and what does it mean for my kitchen circuits?
6. 6What allowance would you write for the countertop I just described, and does your markup apply to an overage?
7. 7What deposit are you asking for, and what does my state cap it at?
8. 8Will each sub and supplier sign a waiver as you pay them?
9. 9May I have your insurance disclosure, and a certificate I can call the agency about?
10. 10How wide is the work aisle in the layout you are proposing?