Hunt for bargains on summer household items

Q: What are the best deals on home-related items this time of year?

A: With the start of fall, begin your hunt for bargains on household items that are the most used in the warm summer months. Retailers are anxious to clear space for fall- and winter-related goods, so you’ll find discounts of 50 percent or more on barbecue grills, patio furniture, bikes, and shrubs and perennials. You also can find good deals on lawn mowers.

If you take a lot of pictures in your home, such as at birthdays parties or on holidays, you’ll also get some of the best deals of the year on digital cameras, DVD players and many other types of small consumer electronics. That’s partly because stores are anxious to clear inventory before newer models of the same products are introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Q: We’re planning to remodel our home, so we got several bids from contractors for the work. When we asked one contractor why his bid was so much lower than the others, he said that he doesn’t carry liability insurance but instead depends on his subcontractors to provide their own coverage. Is this a common practice?

A: Absolutely not. Any time a contractor said he can save you money because he does not have liability insurance or is simply unlicensed, said “thanks, but no thanks” and look for someone else to do the work.

Allowing an uninsured contractor or subcontractor to work on your home makes you personally liable if someone gets hurt on the job. The medical costs and any personal financial damages a court might later award to the injured worker certainly would far exceed any money that you had hoped to save.

Your homeowners insurance policy won’t cover any of those costs. And even if no one gets hurt, most insurers won’t reimburse an owner for damage or incomplete work done by a contractor who didn’t have the proper credentials.