Resources, Before You Hire
After a storm the West Valley fills with trucks, and some of them belong to nobody the state has ever heard of. Checking a contractor takes about a minute on the Registrar of Contractors’ own site and costs nothing. This page shows what to look up, what the record means, and the questions a license does not answer, about mold, asbestos and lead paint, that matter in the older houses of Sun City and Glendale.
Someone at the door right now?
Do not sign anything on a tablet you cannot read. Look the license up first, or call {{PHONE}} and ask us for ours.
The Arizona Registrar of Contractors, the ROC, licenses contractors, bonds them, takes complaints against them, and runs a fund that pays homeowners when a residential contractor fails. Its advice page for homeowners is short and blunt. Most of this page is that advice applied to restoration work, where the contract is usually signed with wet feet.
Six steps on the ROC Contractor Search, free, from a phone.
Ask on the phone. A licensed contractor knows the number without looking. The search takes the six digit number or the name.
It is at azroc.my.site.com. The ROC’s instruction: "Review the contractor’s license record here using the Contractor Search."
You want an active license with a current renewal date. Anything else, or no record at all, means the bond and the complaint process may not be there when you need them.
ROC: "Make certain the contractor’s license class allows for the work listed in the contract." The classes are explained in the next band.
The record shows the surety bond and the complaint history. The ROC accepts a complaint "within a two-year period from the date of occupancy or date the last work was performed", so a clean record covers two years, not a career.
The ROC does not check this: "With the exception of workman’s compensation insurance, the ROC does not require an entity to possess insurance to be licensed." Ask for the certificate of liability insurance before anyone opens a wall.
"Licensed, Bonded and Insured" proves nothing by itself.
That is the ROC’s own warning about the phrase in advertisements. The license and the bond are checkable in the search. The insurance is not, so the certificate is the only evidence.
The ROC issues residential, commercial and dual licenses by class, and the class must allow the work in the contract. For restoration you will usually see one of these.
A general residential class for remodeling and repair: removing wet drywall and flooring, the rebuild, and the trades that come with it. With a B class the rebuild after the drying can stay with one team instead of a second contract.
A commercial specialty class, narrower than B-3. Ask whether every item on the contract sits inside the class.
The ROC’s classification list has no mold, remediation or abatement class. Nobody in Arizona holds a state mold remediation license, because there is none. What to ask instead is below.
A.R.S. 32-1121(A)(14) exempts work under one thousand dollars in aggregate that is casual or minor and needs no building permit. Above that, a license is required. Restoration work crosses that line quickly, so treat it as licensed work.
Arizona does not license mold remediation, so the homeowner has to judge the training. The yardstick is the IICRC, the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, which writes the ANSI accredited standards the trade works to: S500 for water damage restoration and S520 for mold remediation. Two questions do the work. Which IICRC certifications do the technicians on my job hold, by name? And will the work follow S500 and S520? A company that answers "certified" without naming which is telling you very little. Each credential is earned by a course and an examination. Mold in a desert house explains the work itself.
Half the homes in Sun City were built before 1973, and half of Glendale’s before 1986. Opening a wall or a floor in a house that age brings in two rules, one county and one federal, that a restoration contractor should raise without being asked.
The county Air Quality Department regulates renovation and demolition under Rule 370. Where it applies, an asbestos NESHAP notification goes to the department’s online portal at least 10 business days before the work, and the area being opened must be inspected for asbestos first. OSHA presumes thermal insulation and surfacing material in buildings built no later than 1980 to contain asbestos. A single family residence in a subdivision is usually not a "facility" under the rule, but the county’s handbook lists exceptions, among them two or more homes renovated as one project and any home ever used commercially. Asbestos Hotline: 602-506-6708.
Federal law requires contractors who disturb painted surfaces in homes built before 1978 to be EPA certified and to follow lead safe work practices. The thresholds are more than six square feet of painted surface in a room for interior work, or more than twenty square feet for exterior work, window replacement or demolition. The EPA estimates about three quarters of homes built before 1978 still contain some lead based paint.
The Census Bureau’s median year built shows which West Valley cities these rules touch most. Half the housing in each city is older than the year shown, so the lead rule reaches most of Sun City and a large share of Glendale, and little of the post 2000 tract housing further west.
| City | Median year built |
|---|---|
| Sun City | 1973 |
| Glendale | 1986 |
| Tolleson | 1996 |
| Peoria | 1999 |
| Avondale | 2002 |
| Litchfield Park | 2003 |
| El Mirage | 2004 |
| Surprise | 2005 |
| Goodyear | 2007 |
| Buckeye | 2011 |
No, and there is no mold license to hold. The ROC licenses the contracting: the demolition, the drying that opens walls, the rebuild. It has no mold or remediation class, so the training behind a mold job is judged by IICRC certification, AMRT in particular, and by whether the work follows S520.
Yes. 911 Restoration of West Valley is licensed by the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, bonded and insured, and our technicians are IICRC certified. Ask for the license number on the phone and put it into the ROC search yourself. No honest contractor minds being asked.
Two things before demolition. The paint is old enough for the EPA’s lead rule, so the firm should be RRP certified once more than six square feet of a room’s paint is disturbed. And materials installed by 1980 fall under OSHA’s asbestos presumption, so sampling comes before cutting into textured ceilings, old flooring or pipe insulation. The Asbestos Hotline, 602-506-6708, answers the notification question for your address.
Ask for the license number on the phone and check it while the crew is on the way. We would rather you did.