Capitol Hill Handyman

Capitol Hill Handyman Review
John was easy to get in touch with, busy but not overbooked, and very pleasant to work with. John fixed some of my doors, windows, unclogged a sink, and installed dimmers. he was willing to talk with a window company on the phone to get the skinny directly from them. He was tidy, friendly with my kids, and someone who respected the level of detail/craftmanship I expect in my house. He is knowledgeable and professional. I recommend him!

I hired John to do a number of projects around my house and for the most part he did a reasonable job on the work done, however there were some problems:

1. John didn't provide an estimate (it was promised "via email" but it never arrived). Without a detailed estimate and task list, John lost track of which projects he still had to do. Also due to the lack of organization he doesn't gather all of the materials for all of the projects ahead of time (more on this later.)

2. John doesn't provide a written contract. In my case I was VERY surprised to learn that in addition to charging $75/hr to go pick up supplies, he also charges a 10% premium over the retail price of those supplies.

3. Due to John's lack of preparation, I paid for more than 4 trips (each lasting at least 1 hr) at a cost of $300 or more for him to purchase supplies! The total price for the supplies themselves was less than the cost to have him go GET them. Remember, in addition to paying for the trip, I also had to pay a 10% premium on the price of each supply.

4. John uses a helper so not all of the work is done by John himself. In fact, John was present less than 50% of the time during this project and. His worker seemed to get stuck when he encountered any sort of a problem and would spend time waiting for John to arrive or call him.

5. John relies on a terrific collection of tools to do accurate cutting and fitting things like doors. Unfortunately in some areas, e.g. dry-walling an outside corner, he didn't use metal edge brackets so the corners aren't even and crumble when sanded or bumped.

6. After 3 days of getting each project I asked him to do about 80% done, John seemed to give up saying that "things were getting expensive." Based on his motivation level and the quality of the work thus far, I agreed to have John finish out the day and leave.

So, instead of having walls patched, sanded, and painted, they've just been patched (something I could have done in a few minutes myself). Instead of having an interior door hung, primed, and painted, it's simply hung. Where John repaired some molding using screws, the counter-sunk screw holes are unfilled and unstained.

In other words, I'm left with most of the detail work I hired a handyman to do in the first place and it cost me an arm and a leg to get here.

John did some minor repairs to my old house including fixing two temperamental toilets, replacing the front door lock, and fixing squeaky doorknobs. He was on time, polite, helpful and reasonably priced. The next time I called him, he came over promptly to help. I would definitely recommend him.