Hey, Ms. J (s), that's the independant sales/marketing thang. But yeah, house contractors are like auto mechanics like car salesmen like etc...you just need to haggle a little from knowledge. Of course, how to get knowledge? Having a sales engineer with negotiation experience handy could help a lot, if you've got one, who is willing to "go to the mat" with the men.

Even then, like realtors, the work is more expensive than you would expect.

I had one really good contractor, but he got liver cancer and isn't doing much. No, seriously...

Thanks for the offer of help; the people I need to track down aren't that hard. I'm finding them, slowly, through normal channels.

Cheers!