Angies List is celebrating their 15^th year online and is offering a coupon code that can earn you some cash and save your friends some money as well.

If you’ve never heard of the service, a while back I wrote up an Angies List review and also list some angies list coupon codes you can use to get a discount on the service.  I’m a member and actually used it not long ago when our dishwasher stopped working and flooded with water one night.  The service helped me find a good local appliance place to get the dishwasher taken care of right away.  I haven’t written about it on the site yet but I did tell some friends and co-workers about the incident.

Which brings me back to the anniversary deal that they’re offering.  If you’re a member of the site, you can use their referral form (shown below) to tell your friends about this Angies List promotion.

If they sign up for Angies List with the coupon code CELEBRATE then they’ll save 15% off of their membership. You could just email them directly but if you use the referral form that I showed you above, you’ll also get $15 if they decide to become a member.

Angies List Referrals

I wouldn’t email everyone in your address book about it because most people probably wouldn’t care and might get irritated with you clogging up their inbox.  I’d only use it if you have a few people you think might be interested.

For example, as I mentioned earlier, I talked about my recent dishwasher experience on Angies List with several friends and co-workers. A few of them sounded interested in seeing if there was a free trial or discount they could use to try it out for themselves.

Angies List Promotion

So to recap. If you’re a member you can earn $15 for each person you refer; the link is on the site under the “Member Resources” menu and is called “Invite a Friend”.

If you’re not a member and want to give it a try, you can get a discount with the angies list coupon code CELEBRATE.  The promotion is only for a limited time, if the promo code has expired by the time you read this then check out the other angies list coupon codes.

Angies List promo codes are good for saving money when you sign up for the service but now Angies List is running a promotion for existing customers.  As I covered in my Angies List review earlier this year, I’ve used the service to find contractors for work on our house.

Apparently now there are more than one million members using the service and Angies List is running a promotion to thank existing customers.  If you like the service and tell your friends about it, they’ll give you a month’s free extension on your membership for each person you refer to Angies List.  Each referral also enters you into a contest to win a $1,000 cash prize.

The bad news is that the promotion has been going on for a while and is almost over.  The good news is that you still have a few more days left to participate.  Anyone you refer before the end of the month will get you an extra free month of service and put your name in the hat for the $1,000.

If you invite your friends, be sure to let them know about the Angies List coupon codes so that they can save some money if they sign up for the service.

The benefits of using licensed contractors was the main feature of Angies List magazine this month. When we finished out our basement a few years ago price was the primary factor for which contractors we chose.  We narrowed it down to several contractors that had been recommended and picked the one with the lowest price, with no regard to which were licensed.

Contractor Pricing and Licenses

Looking back on our approach of going with the lowest price, it may be that the contractors we hired weren’t licensed.  The Angies List article looked at the variety of license fees required across cities and states and gave an example of one company in Cincinnati that pays around $30,000 a year to meet the requirements.

When companies spend that much on fees they often pass part of it on to their customers.  However, if a company isn’t licensed then they won’t pay the fees and can afford to offer the work for a lower price. The article suggested that you ask for proof of a license prior to hiring a contractor, the ones they spoke with said that customers rarely to see their license.

Liability Insurance

One of the main reasons the article recommends checking for a license is that typically in order to get a license a contractor will have to show proof of insurance. Their liability insurance should cover property damage and bodily injury caused by work.  However if they don’t have insurance and they get injured you could potentially have to pay for it if your homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover it all.

Quality of Work

Of course the other reason to find a licensed contractor is that it’s supposed to indicate they’ve been through the proper training and testing and know what they’re doing.  Based on the range of local rules and enforcement policies it sounds as though the competence reflected by the license may vary depending on where you live. 

Angies List called me up yesterday to follow up on the contractors that I’d been searching for.  When you signup for Angies List you set in your profile what contractors you’re looking to hire and they wanted to get my feedback on the company that I’d worked with.  What kind of experience I had, was I pleased with the service, etc.

I didn’t know Angies List staff followed up with members to capture their feedback on contractors but I’m glad they do.  I can see how people that have bad experiences with a contractor might be quick to lead negative comments but someone that had a good experience might just get busy and forget to rate their provider after the work is done.  Since the main value of the service is to capture input from all it’s members, I think it’s great that they follow up with us.

Contractor Searches

They also asked questions about the different aspects of membership that I was using and I learned of some features I wasn’t aware of.  In my Angies List review I wrote mainly about the features of the website for searching and screening the list of local contractors.  It turns out members can also just call into the service and ask for information on a certain type of provider and the operator will search the feedback database and make some suggestions for you. 

I’ve never used this feature before but I suppose it could come in handy if you were away from your computer and needed quick information about a company.  Maybe if you were out and about and had car trouble and wanted to lookup a car repair company before having them work on your vehicle. You can also email in the type of contractor you’re looking for and Angies List will respond with some of the best, highly rated matches from their member database.

Angies List Magazine

They also asked for feedback about the magazine, which I have been getting and reading.  It’s a monthly magazine that you get with your subscription that I’ve browsed through each month.  It has a lot of coupons from local contractors, which I haven’t made use of yet, but also a few articles on consumer services. 

One of the good tips I picked up was from an article that looked at companies that will fix your broken or damaged iPod, iPhone, or Zune.  I guess I didn’t realize these type of companies existed, it makes sense that they do.  I figured you had to either work with the manufacturer or buy a new one, these gadget repair companies could be a better alternative.

I mentioned the gadget repair article to one of my co-workers and we got to talking about the Angies List magazine and membership.  He had had some water coming into his basement and was going to checkout the service to research some companies that could help him out.  I let him know he should use an Angies List promotion code if he was going to try it out, and get a discount on the service.