Certain home repairs are out of your league. That’s why you need a reliable handyman. But what if you don’t have someone you trust yet? How do you go about picking the right man or woman for the job? Before you start Googling “handyman near me,” read our helpful tips for finding and choosing an experienced handyman you can trust.
5 Helpful Tips for Picking an Experienced Handyman
Get Five Names from People You Know
Your goal should be to collect five names of handymen, and whittle that list down to one or two people. Believe it or not, word-of-mouth is the best way to find the handyman you need. Your neighbor, co-worker, friend, or hardware store owner might already have used a great repairperson. They can share their firsthand experiences with their handymen. That doesn’t you blindly take your neighbor’s word. You need to investigate further.
Verify Your Referred Handymen’s Good Work
Someone you know might have hired a handyman for plumbing, and you need electrical work. Double-check the work and professionalism of each repairperson on your list before you pick up the phone.
What if you’ve asked around and nobody has presented any useful contacts? Well, now you search Yelp, Angie’s List, or Thumbtack. These sites will have reviews of local handymen from actual customers. If you did get a few names of handymen from your neighbors, we’d recommend verifying how good their work was by searching their names on these sites, too.
Have a Pow-Wow with the Finalists
You didn’t get your job without an interview. Maybe it was two or three interviews. Then your soon-to-be boss brought you into the office to meet your co-workers and see how you fit in. It’s no different when you choose a handyman.
Meet with the final one or two people you’re considering and interview them. Ask them about their previous jobs. Ask them for references. Check their references. If you can, go see examples of their finished jobs. Ask them about their experience, their electrical knowledge, and their educational background. You’ll find many highly qualified handymen have MS electrical engineering degrees. This educational background may be especially important if you need a handyman to do electrical work for your home or commercial building.
Get Detailed Plans with Your Estimate
An experienced handymen will outline how they are going to fix your home’s electric when they give you an estimate for the job. They will be thorough, explaining exactly what they are going to do first and how long it’s going to take. They won’t cut corners, and they won’t skip over details.
While reliable handymen might be hard to come by, the search to find them will be much easier if you follow these simple tips.
Leave a Reply