Handyman Services

Most homes accumulate a list. A door that will not latch, a patch where a shelf came down, a wobbling railing, a fixture nobody ever swapped, trim that pulled away, a running toilet. None of them is worth a call on its own, so the list sits for years.

We take those lists. The advantage of having a general contractor do it is that when one of the items turns out to be a symptom of something larger — a stain that is an active leak, a spongy floor that is rot — you get told what it actually is instead of having it covered over.

What we take on

Drywall patching and repair, doors that stick or will not latch, trim and moulding repairs, shelving and closet systems, mounting televisions and heavy fixtures into real framing, light fixture and fan replacement, caulking and re-grouting, minor plumbing fixture swaps, hardware and lock changes, weatherstripping, and general punch-list work after another trade has left.

We also do pre-sale and pre-listing work, where a short list of small repairs makes a disproportionate difference to how a property presents, and post-inspection repair lists.

Booked as a visit, not a mystery

Small jobs work best batched. Send the list — photographs help enormously — and we will tell you whether it is a half day or a full day before we arrive, rather than starting the clock and letting you find out afterwards.

If something on the list turns out to be bigger than it looked, we stop and tell you what we have found and what it will take, and you decide. We will not quietly expand a small job into a large invoice.

When a small job is actually a warning

Some of the most valuable calls we take start as trivial requests. A ceiling stain someone wants painted over is often an active leak. A soft patch of bathroom floor is usually rot around a failed seal that has been running for a long time. A door that suddenly will not close can be movement in the structure rather than a hinge problem.

Because we do full renovations as well, we recognise these for what they are. Painting over the stain is cheaper today and considerably more expensive within a year.

Seasonal and preventative work

A lot of expensive damage starts as maintenance that did not happen. Gutters and downspouts that discharge against a foundation are behind a large share of the wet basements we see. Failed exterior caulk lets water behind trim and siding. Worn weatherstripping costs money every month of the winter.

Getting these looked at once a year is far cheaper than the repairs they prevent, and they batch well into a single visit.

Accessibility and aging in place

Grab bars fixed into real blocking or properly rated anchors rather than into hollow drywall, handrails made secure, thresholds reduced, lever handles in place of round knobs, and better lighting on stairs and in hallways.

These are small, inexpensive jobs individually and they make a genuine difference to whether somebody can stay in their home comfortably. If a bathroom is being renovated anyway, adding blocking inside the walls for future grab bars costs almost nothing now and is a wall-opening job later.

Rentals and property management

Turnovers between tenants, repair lists from inspections, and the recurring small work a landlord needs done reliably and documented. We are used to working to a list, reporting what we found, and flagging anything that is going to become a larger problem.

What we will tell you to call someone else for

There is work we do not take on, and saying so is more useful than pretending otherwise. Live electrical panel work, gas line alterations, main sewer line problems, oil tank work and anything requiring a licensed specialist trade should go to that trade directly, and we will say so rather than attempting it.

If we find something on a small job that needs a specialist, we will tell you what we found, what we think it is, and what kind of contractor you actually need. Being told the truth about a problem you did not know you had is worth more than a cheap patch over the top of it.