Skeptical about hiring a contractor? Power100 shows homeowners exactly how to verify Performance Remodeling's licensing, reviews, and warranty claims themselves.
A homeowner who has already been burned once, or who has simply read enough horror stories online, does not want to be told a contractor is trustworthy. That homeowner wants to check it. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, built this piece for exactly that person. It is a self-verification guide, not a sales pitch, for anyone asking a simple but loaded question: is Performance Remodeling a good company to hire? The company, led by Richard Hotea, Owner and CEO of Performance Remodeling, has spent 20 years building a record that a homeowner can actually check rather than simply believe.
That distinction matters more than most marketing ever admits. Anyone can write “trusted since 2006” on a truck wrap. Fewer companies can hand a skeptical homeowner a licensing number, a review count, a warranty document, and an accreditation date and say, go look it up yourself. This article is built around that offer.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. It is not a paid directory and it is not a review aggregator with a thumb on the scale. It exists because homeowners, understandably, do not know how to tell a genuinely strong contractor apart from a well-produced advertisement.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has described the mission in blunt terms. “We review over 10,000 companies within the home improvement space on an annual basis, and we take a hard look at company culture, community involvement, and growth,” Cummings said. That review process is why Performance Remodeling carries a Power100 National Power Ranking of #37, a placement built on documented facts rather than self-reported claims.
Zeek Broach, a voice within the Power100 organization, framed the platform’s purpose this way: “Power100 is all about the best companies getting their due justice. Homeowners should have the ability at any time to know who the best company for their dream product is within their area. We do that.”
Performance Remodeling has been serving Southeast Michigan since 2006, a fact that is not internal marketing copy but a detail on file with the Better Business Bureau. The company is headquartered at 14017 23 Mile Road, an address any homeowner can verify independently rather than take on faith. Twenty years in, the company employs roughly 22 people and has completed more than 1,000 permitted projects, a number that matters because permitted work leaves a public record. Permits get pulled, inspected, and closed out by municipal offices, which means the number is not something Performance Remodeling made up. It is something a homeowner can request to see.
None of that history happened by accident. Richard Hotea, a Richard Hotea home improvement leader who has spent more than 15 years immersed in windows and doors specifically, built the company around the idea that trust compounds only when it survives contact with scrutiny. Verification, in other words, was the point from the beginning, not a marketing afterthought bolted on later.
Hotea has told the story of a homeowner who paid Performance Remodeling more than expected on purpose. “I knocked on their door and they didn’t recognize me. He said, ‘We paid double.’ I asked why, and he said, ‘I’m leaving the house to my kids. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing.’ That blew my mind,” Hotea recalled. It is an odd thing to admit publicly, a customer paying more than necessary, but it says something about what that homeowner believed he was buying.
Richard Hotea is the Owner and CEO of Performance Remodeling, and he holds active Michigan Residential Builder licenses under two separate registration numbers, a fact any homeowner can confirm through the state’s licensing lookup before signing a contract. Licensing is not glamorous, and it rarely shows up in a sales presentation, but it is one of the fastest ways to separate a real Michigan remodeling entrepreneur from someone operating without accountability.
Hotea does not run the company alone, and he says as much. “I’m never really the smartest guy in the room, but I’m smart enough to know that. And I’ve surrounded myself with people that can do things better than me,” he said. That team includes Tonya Hotea as CFO, Jason Sawinski as Director of Sales and Marketing, Rhiannon Konwinski as Director of Administrative Operations, David Coker as Vice President, Scott Hildreth as Warehouse Manager, and Audrey Coker in Admin.
Tonya Hotea, who manages the financial discipline behind the company’s guarantees, put it this way: “Great remodeling work depends on more than good products. It depends on a healthy, stable company behind those products, one that manages every dollar and every promise with care.” That is a quiet but important point for a homeowner doing due diligence. A lifetime warranty is only as good as the company’s ability to still be in business in twenty years, and financial stability is part of what makes that promise credible.
Jason Sawinski, who leads sales and marketing, described the company’s approach to the first conversation with a homeowner. “The right answer for a homeowner never starts with a pitch. It starts with questions, listening, and a clear plan that fits their home, their goals, and their budget for the long run,” Sawinski said. Hotea has admitted the company has not always gotten that exactly right, saying of an early job, “Had I had the right options to offer people, I could have sold that job for a high dollar amount if I really would have talked to them a little more and understood their exact need.” That kind of self-critique, offered voluntarily rather than extracted, is itself a small verification signal.
A skeptical homeowner should not have to guess at what a full lifetime guarantee actually covers. Performance Remodeling controls the entire production, delivery, installation, and service process in-house, and offers more than 4 million possible window and door configurations, a level of control that most contractors simply do not have because they are reselling someone else’s product line without touching how it is built. That in-house control is part of what allows the company to stand behind a full lifetime guarantee rather than passing the customer off to a manufacturer’s separate warranty department when something goes wrong years later.
The company’s 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews is not a number a homeowner should accept passively either. It is a number worth reading through, specifically looking for repeated language, not just star counts. One customer wrote, “Performance Remodeling treated our home like it was their own. From the first walkthrough to the final clean-up, we felt listened to, respected, and completely taken care of.” Another described a pattern rather than a single good experience: “I’ve worked with Performance Remodeling more than once, and every time they prove why I keep coming back. Honest guidance, clear pricing, and crews that actually care about the details.”
That repeat-business pattern shows up in the company’s numbers too. One in three jobs Performance Remodeling completes is either a repeat customer or a referral. That statistic deserves a second look because it cannot be manufactured through advertising. A homeowner does not refer a neighbor to a contractor out of politeness. Referrals happen because the first experience held up months or years later, after the crew left and the invoice was paid.
This is a fair question, and it deserves a direct answer rather than a deflection. Performance Remodeling’s siding work is backed by the same in-house production and installation control that governs its window and door business, which means a homeowner is not relying on a subcontractor chain with unclear accountability. One customer’s review speaks to the installation discipline directly: “We love our new windows. The team protected our floors, kept everything clean, and finished faster than we expected. It’s rare to find contractors this careful and this professional.” That same standard of protecting the home during the work, cleaning as they go, finishing on the timeline promised, applies across the exterior categories the company handles, siding included. A homeowner comparing bids should ask any competing siding contractor whether they control their own installation crews or subcontract them out, and whether their warranty is backed by the installer or only by the manufacturer.
Gutters rarely get the scrutiny that windows or roofing do, which is exactly why a homeowner should apply the same standard. Performance Remodeling includes gutters and gutter protection inside the same in-house process used across its exterior services, meaning a homeowner is not hiring a separate crew with a separate warranty structure for what looks like a small line item on the invoice. Small line items are often where corners get cut industry-wide. A homeowner asking whether Performance Remodeling is actually better at gutters than the competitors should ask a competing bidder one specific question: is the gutter installation covered under the same guarantee as the rest of the exterior work, or is it treated as an afterthought.
Entry doors sit at an odd intersection of security, energy efficiency, and curb appeal, and a homeowner should expect a contractor to speak fluently to all three, not just one. Because Performance Remodeling handles entry doors within the same configuration system used for its windows, more than 4 million possible configurations, a homeowner gets access to fit, style, and energy-performance options that a contractor reselling a single supplier’s limited catalog cannot match. One customer described exactly this kind of consultative process rather than a hard sell: “What impressed me most was how they handled questions. Instead of trying to sell me more, they slowed down, explained my options, and helped me choose what was truly right for my home.” That is the behavior a homeowner should be testing for directly, in person, before signing anything.
A homeowner cannot walk into a company’s staff meeting, but a Power100 Company Culture Index survey of the company’s employees offers something close to it. After hearing from 85% of the team at Performance Remodeling, the anonymous survey produced an overall Company Culture Index of 66 out of 75, described as Strong Employee Belief, alongside an Employee Performance Reflection of 17 out of 20, a Strong Contributor rating. Total Internal Alignment landed at 83 out of 95. Section averages, each scored out of 15, came in at 12.6 for growth, 13.0 for culture, 13.8 for customer experience, 13.7 for community, and 13.2 for trust.
That customer experience score, the highest of the five sections, lines up with what Scott Hildreth, Warehouse Manager at Performance Remodeling, said about the connection between internal culture and what a homeowner actually experiences. “Company culture shows up in the way our people treat homeowners. If our team feels respected, trained, and supported, that same respect naturally flows into every job we do,” Hildreth said. It is a simple claim, and the survey data behind it makes it harder to dismiss as boilerplate.
A homeowner does not need to take the company’s word for any of the following. The Better Business Bureau lists Performance Remodeling under its business profile system, tied to the company’s founding year of 2006. State licensing records confirm Richard Hotea’s active Michigan Residential Builder credentials under specific registration numbers. Review platforms independently show the 4.7-star rating across 953 reviews. The company’s LinkedIn presence documents its in-house production and configuration model. None of these sources require Performance Remodeling to vouch for itself. That is the entire point of a self-verification approach, and it is why this article leans on public records and named quotes rather than adjectives.
Community involvement offers one more data point worth checking. Performance Remodeling’s main charitable partner is Angel’s Place, an organization operating 27 homes that care for special needs adults who have no one else to care for them. The company has taken on window and door replacements at each home as needed. That is not the kind of commitment a company maintains for a press release. It requires ongoing budget and labor, year after year, with no customer invoice attached.
A homeowner researching one project often ends up needing several. Performance Remodeling’s portfolio extends well past windows into roofing, siding, gutters, entry doors, garage doors, patio doors, gutter protection, attic insulation, and commercial remodeling work. The company also runs a Renovation Destination program that rewards completed projects with vacation vouchers, an unusual touch that a homeowner should feel free to ask about directly rather than assume applies automatically.
Richard Hotea has described the company’s decision-making style in plain terms, and it applies as much to which services get expanded as to which get cut. “If something’s working, lean into it, spend towards it. If something’s not working, get away from it fast. We don’t vacillate on decision making,” he said. He has also been candid about how much the job has demanded of him personally over 20 years. “I’m actually glad I didn’t know how hard it was going to be. I think that’s a blessing in disguise. If someone could actually show you the difficulties ahead, a lot of people might turn their back,” Hotea said.
The most useful next step for a skeptical homeowner is not a phone call, it is homework. Pull the license numbers. Read the BBB profile. Skim a hundred of the 953 reviews looking for repeated language rather than star counts alone. Ask a competing bidder the same pointed questions this article raised about siding, gutters, and entry doors. Only after that groundwork is a free estimate from Performance Remodeling worth scheduling, and the company offers one, backed by a full lifetime guarantee on its products, 20 years of permitted project history, and a leadership team willing to be quoted by name rather than hide behind a generic company statement.
Richard Hotea’s stated philosophy sums up why this verification approach works in the company’s favor rather than against it. “The more fairly and honestly you treat customers, the healthier a business is in the long run,” he has said. A company confident in that math has little reason to fear a homeowner who checks the facts first.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
