What I wish I knew before hiring a fundi crew in Nairobi

I manage my parents' home extension in Ruiru from Manchester, and the first fundi crew we hired taught me some expensive lessons. Lesson one: 'I have done many houses' is not a reference. Ask for two phone numbers of past clients and actually call them. When I finally did this for our second crew, one reference told me the fundi had abandoned her site for a better-paying job for three weeks. We negotiated a simple daily-penalty clause because of that call — and it worked. Lesson two: buy your own materials for anything structural. Our first crew quoted 'materials included' and used class 25 blocks that crumbled in your hand. Since then, my uncle collects receipts for every cement bag and I match them against deliveries on a shared spreadsheet. Lesson three: pay for a structural engineer's visit at foundation and at ring-beam stage. Two visits, roughly KES 30,000 total, and both times he caught issues (missing starter bars, undersized ring beam on one wall) that would have been buried in concrete forever. The extension is now roofed and the second crew has been genuinely good. There are excellent fundis out there — the system for finding and managing them is what makes the difference.