If you’ve got a job that’ll take a week, contractors will basically fight for it - but if it’s just something that takes a few hours, it’s apparently a real struggle to get anyone to show up.
I just installed a new kitchen sink and hooked up the faucet and dishwasher for a client. He said they had called eight plumbing companies, and all of them either refused outright or said they’d get back to it but never did. One company agreed to come install it but wouldn’t do the hole in the countertop for the sink, so they would’ve needed to hire a carpenter separately - and you can imagine how thrilled a carpenter would be about a job that takes less than an hour.
This is an incredibly common story among my customers. I’m a plumber by training, but when I went self-employed, I expanded my services to cover all kinds of handyman work. Clearly, I’m filling a niche, considering the amount of gratitude I’m getting from customers. I literally received a gift basket from one just last week. I should’ve made the jump a decade ago.
My son has talked about getting into the handyman business, but doesn’t know how to get started finding customers. I’ve always been in the corporate world and I have no idea how to help him get started. Any suggestions?
Good question
I am a homeowner and I wish there were more out there like you. It is very hard to find people who will do small jobs at any price.
My current problem is that I have a big job that I still can’t even get done.
I need a roof, as in I have an extremely old house with a very old worn roof that has actually developed a whole rotted into part of it. If I can get a roofing company to come out to do an estimate, they won’t even talk numbers with me unless I tell them I’ll file an insurance claim as storm damage and they’ll work with the insurance company. This isn’t storm damage. This is me not having money for too many years to get the job done when it should have been done, and now my roof is fucked, and I’m getting a run around by the people to replace it.
Yup, that’s why i do most stuff myself. Paint my own house, repair my own plumbing, repair electrical appliances.
Only if I need to have something done completely from scratch I will hire a contractor. And even then most of them are like, yeah maybe next year we’ll have a spot.
I had some guy come out and say he’d install a washer and dryer hookup for me but he wouldn’t patch the hole he’d make in the wall and he would charge $900 USD for the project. Yeah, no thanks. That’s more than the damn appliances and you won’t patch the hole in the wall when done? He was supposed to be a general handyman, type guy I found off Craigslist.
That was a few years ago and I still haven’t had it done because I just can’t find anyone to do it. I never realized that this was something that didn’t have people available to do. Local plumbers won’t do it, hardware stores advertise “we’ll hook up your appliance for free too!” But that is just hooking up to an existing connection…I just gave up on the idea of having a washer and dryer in my home at this point.
The handyman is more or less gone at this point, all the contractors near me expect big massive jobs, and I’ve had the same experience. While I can do a sink and other things, there are other tasks that I’ll contact multiple people that then just never respond.
It’s funny, I’ve found the most frustrating thing about owning a house is that surprisingly few people want my money
I do everything myself, and it’s led to being able to handyman if I need some cash. Contractor pricing is insane for something that’s never as difficult as it seems. Hell last night I installed a side door on my garage because I had an extra door I ripped out of the house last year. It took three boards, a nailgun, a shim, and an hour.
The job you listed? A wrench, Teflon tape, some valves, putty, and a diamond hole saw. So like 70$ assuming you don’t already have those things.
Most maintenance, installs, or upgrades are the same way, and the next time you do it, you already have the tools. Get a rolling toolbox, a belt, a basic battery tool set, and pick up all the specialty tools as you need them, and you’re a handyman.
It’s an economics thing. Like what would you say is a fair price for something that would take a contractor an hour? $200 plus materials? Does that seem high maybe? If you’re a contractor, that probably seems low. $500? Maybe that gets you out of bed.
If they take a big job that will require a week of work, they might charge $2,000. Now, you think, 5 days, 40 hours, that’s $50 an hour and you were willing to pay ten times that. The difference is that $2,000 job is more likely to result in more work, more hours, with higher budgets. The $500 handyman project is an entire day, between travel and planning and tool maintenance and procuring materials. It’s a day you’re not prospecting. It’s a day where you can’t pay any employees.
And that’s before you consider that most customers didn’t even want to pay the $200. They’re going to grumble and complain that you’re robbing them, that they don’t make that much an hour at their desk job. They are going to demand a level of perfection that isn’t in the budget, and changes and scope creep because they want to get their money’s worth. They will bad-mouth you to their friends and family and internet and anyone that will listen.
It’s the 80/20 rule. 80% of anything comes from 20% of sources, whether you’re talking about profits or headaches. So you put effort into finding the good 20 and avoiding the bad 20, which means focusing on large projects and avoiding small projects.
Any contractor with a few years of experience has had nightmare projects. There’s also some psychological gymnastics on that side of the coin, because contractors who have bad experiences on a larger project are likely to justify or forget the annoyances because the experience was “worth it,” while the small job that caused any trouble at all is going to be extra frustrating because of the perceived lack of value.
I charge 50€/h including VAT. It’s true that small jobs like this don’t really pay much - but it’s also true that they sometimes lead to bigger jobs. One of the customers I’ve charged the most over time originally just had me come over to install a washing machine.
If my schedule is full, then obviously jobs like this get put on the back burner, and bigger jobs always take priority. Still, there are days when I’ve got nothing else to do, so I might as well go hang a shelf and chat with some granny.
Not to mention when you get paid by the hour, the chances of getting a 40 hr paycheck are non existent doing 1-2 hour jobs. How do you expect skilled labor to live on those wages. Someone has to eat that downtime and it won’t be the company.
Am self-employed electrician, I see the same thing. Everyone’s so covered up that they don’t want/need the little old lady jobs - they don’t pay well, typically. I can waste a whole afternoon for them fixing ceiling fans for a couple hundred bucks, maybe, or I can do a job that’ll make 4x that in the same amount of time.
I still take those gigs, I got into this to help people, and old folks and first-time homeowners need all the help they can get. But I’m not gonna lie to you, those gigs are the first ones to get rescheduled. I’d call em beer money jobs but I don’t drink lol.
I’m trying to keep an eye out for any other stuff I can help with, too. I’m not above working outside my trade a little if it means someone’s life improves.
Got a (apparently) kinda special lock in our apartment door and the bolt doesn’t fully retract sometimes. SO wanted to get someone to look at it but of the 2 companies that the apartment management recommended (insisted), one cannot be reached and the other isn’t interested in doing residential anymore.
We’re running on WD-40 and hopes and dreams at this point.
Is it a lubrication thing? It’s sticky? Should use graphite as a lubricant for locks. WD doesn’t lubricate.
Cheers, I’ll give that a try
Yep,
I’ve got a part of the house which needs new render and new capping on a pallisade wall. Cannot for the life of me find anyone that wants to do it. Whole house render, no problem. Turn up and just render every wall in site, no problem.
I had a long discussion with a builder who suggested I remove any lead flashing from the pallisade wall so he could render that. After going and investigating what I could, the lead is what’s keeping water out of the house. No, no thankyou do I want to remove that.
As it goes, I might just have to learn how to render myself as it might be easier than learning how to find a reasonable handyman.
Where I live “handyman” requires a contractor license, insurance and bond. Seems like overkill to me but . . .
At least they own a home tho…
I was thinking the same thing. Not to belittle OPs comment, because it does sound like a super annoying problem, but I’ve literally been unable to calm down or relax for the last few days, because the lease on my apartment expires tomorrow, and I haven’t been able to reach my landlord to get his approval to go month-to-month. I’m genuinely terrified I’m going to have to spend the next solid month looking for a new place to live (much easier said than done here), but all of that could turn on a dime if my landlord decides to take a second and call me back.
I’m so sick of the constant stress and uncertainty of renting and not knowing if this place I’ve poured all my money into might just not get renewed, I’d love to have the problem of trying to find a handyman or contractor. Oh and I know if my landlord finally does let me stay beyond the initial lease, he’ll raise the rent, because he can.
Renting is genuinely the worst, some rando having complete control over your life simply because one time they happened to have or had been given enough money to cover a downpayment on a home? What a farce.
They can kick you out due to no fault of yours, they can raise your rent to any amount, they are obliged to do very little maintenance, it is literally the same as serfs of the past. You provide value to the land holder in exchange for living on “their” land.
I was lucky enough to transition to homeownership after many years of renting, it is much more expensive now but rent increases year over year forever, the mortgage is a fixed rate for however long it takes to pay off and in a few years the costs of rent vs mortgage will flip, with the mortgage being more economical.
Few people talk about the long term rent cost outlook, take a peek at what rent will be in 15, 30, 50 years and feel your knees tremble. Our system is broken and will likely never be fixed.
I’ve found that even if there was someone who would come out and fix things, they charge so much that it’s unreasonable anyway. YouTube has thousands of videos showing how to fix things and using the opportunity to learn to do it on your own is very beneficial long term. But I get it, because I don’t always want to learn.
I try to do my own work, but I always have a stuck skrew and have difficulties where the tutorial video glosses over :(
That’s the fun part! It’s also why my motto is “nothing’s ever easy”
