brit_usa2014

Can someone recommend any handymen with good rates here in the Mass area? Not sure, but if no one can recommend, can anyone tell me what the rates are (like is it a full days rate, or hourly, or fixed rate)?

Looking to move to our first home soon so don't know what to expect.
Also, any moving (to new home) general checklist please would be most helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Hotscot

You can hire an independent inspector to give your house a once over and prep a report.
Massachusetts

If you want to hire someone read this first.

Home Improvement Contractor Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

99% of jobs may be plane sailing but if you end up in the 1%...

Pulaski

Those are pretty big questions!

IME tradesmen usually quote "for the job", and only occasionally "by the hour".

No matter how thoroughly you, or anyone else, inspects a house, problems will appear after you have lived in it for a few weeks or months. Every house I have ever owned has something dumb and/or dangerous with it that either has not be fixed, or a previous owner, or their contractor, did wrong, sometimes horribly wrong. ..... I've seen hot and cold plumbing switched, a water heater wired to a lighting circuit, a 12"x18" hole in the floor patched with hardboard, walls faced with 1/4" plasterboard (1/2" is reqd), lights wired without an earth, the u-bend under a shower too big for the gap in the floor so the ceiling bulges, random electrical switches with no discernible purpose, GFCI sockets wired to "downstream" sockets half way across the house, stud walls with verticals 48" apart (should be 16"), a hole "cut" in plasterboard to wire in a socket for a microwave, using a claw hammer, a clothes dryer vent that just blows into the crawlspace (I've seen that three times ), a "stain" in a bath that was actually rust that had dissolved the bath from behind (I pushed my thumb through it), and a widened doorway cut in an old house without installing a new door jamb (vertical).

There are probably many more things that I could think of, but buying a house is always an adventure!

Hotscot

(Damn...I meant 'plain' ...aaaarrrggghh!)

Pulaski

Oh, and the lath and plaster kitchen ceiling patched with cement, a 2ftx3ft patch. ....... Obviously that looked terrible, so it was hidden by a suspended ceiling of plasterboard hung from 2"x2"s .... which needless to say sagged.

Then there was the socket apparently covered over from new-build by paneling, the shingle roof installed without tarpaper, and with all the shingles too far apart both vertically and horizontally, porch railings installed with uneven gaps, outdoor sockets wired with buried cable that was neither armoured nor in conduit, a door "z seal" that wasn't attached for 12" at the bottom because rotten timber had been replaced but without leaving the groove that the seal slots into, and the garage built without a light switch, so you have to stumble and fumble through the garage to unlock the inside door to reach the friggin' light switch. .... A stud wall "attached" to the ceiling joists by the crown molding on one side, a hallway that isn't parallel to the house it runs down the centre of (no biggie until I installed hardwood flooring .... it's out of parallel by about 1.5" in 15 ft).

Then there was the bathroom extension build from solid brick - no cavity wall, plasterboard nailed in a few places to scraps of wood cemented between the brick as the wall was built, huh? ..... and the plumbing was bricked in permanently up the middle of the wall! WTF! Seriously WTF! .... And of course no insulation so during the winter the bathroom was always like a fridge.

Hotscot

Should get that seen to...

Pulaski

Much of that lot has justified a garage full of tools, ..... and more to come!

Hotscot

I'll give you first refusal on my DeWalt gear when I leave.
I'm sure one angle grinder isn't enough.

robin1234

What town though? Most contractors work really locally, within twenty miles say.

As a general comment I'd just say that we've only ever had luck with personal recommendations and old established friendships etc., in other words looking in the yellow pages or online never works out. My wife worked in a prison for fifteen years, and a couple of guys that she used to work with do all kinds of jobs for us at reasonable rates, but mainly because we know them. Problem is, it can take years before you become a local and get to know such people!!

WEBlue

I agree, you need local word-of-mouth recommendations. Ask someone you trust at work for a name....

dunroving

There are often Facebook sites either for local communities, or for local buy and sell and businesses. We have a local community site (this is in the UK), and three local buy and sell sites and on all four there are often posts asking about or recommending local tradespeople. Word of mouth is a lot more than a gaggle over the garden fence these days.

thinbrit

or years

I'm remodeling our kitchen. I found the built in microwave plugged in to one of these that was attached, completely exposed, to the cupboard with just 2 screws, no box, and not even wrapped in insulation tape! Had the microwave been pushed too far back it could have made the whole microwave live.


The electric range wasn't wired much better.

We have lived here since 2008

Pulaski

Sadly that doesn't surprise me. ...... The "claw hammer hole" I referred to above is behind the cabinet above my microwave.

I installed a dryer when a neighbour moved in a few years ago, requiring a four pin pigtail to be attached to his dryer which was designed for a three pin set up. He watched with amazement, as if I was practicing some sort of black magic, as I drilled a hole in the dryer chassis and connected the ground wire. The idea of needing a ground wire, and how to go about connecting one, was completely alien to him.

Bob

If you're in the metrowest area, well most areas in fact, have a decent freecycle type FB group, where people post personal recommendations of services too.

Definitely go with word of mouth, also worth checking that they're properly insured.

Most jobs around here would be quoted for the job, unless it's small stuff like replacing the insides of a toilet, then you might get the hourly rate, but there's probably a $50-100 call out fee too.

Pulaski

Plumbers are a complete ripoff for small jobs. When you can buy a universal toilet mechanism for less than $15, and with practice it takes less than 15 minutes to remove the old one and install the new one, paying the typical (even down here) $90 call-out fee is insane. .... And any small job around the house now has numerous tutorial videos on Youtube to guide you.

American houses do seem to need a lot of up-keep and getting comfortable doing at least some of the tasks yourself can save you a small fortune.

I had a leak in the water supply pipe in my front yard once, and called out my usual plumber, who brought out his backhoe and dug up the pipe and repaired it. As he had previously charged me $90 (minimum) to drill out the seized screw and repair a dripping shower tap, I braced myself for a bill close to $1,000. ..... IIRC the bill was just over $300!