Would you pay for regular home maintenance?

Question

Would you pay for a service, similar to a house cleaning service, that would have a handyman come out to your home on a monthly basis to take care of any minor home repairs and keep up regular maintenance tasks (like cleaning gutters, changing filters, etc.)? This service could be offered when you bought your home to keep it in good shape.

How much would you expect to pay for such a service?

Answer 1

$50 a month. The homeowner buys the filters, bulbs, chemicals, etc.

This could also cover regular time trouble calls for things like blown fuses or severely clogged drains for example.

I would think night and weekend emergency trouble calls would be an extra charge.

Answer 2

I had this service but, on a call business in a Southwestern State, like I said it was "on-call" and I was so busy I had up to thirteen people working for me. Between painting and repairing, we were more busy then I sometimes would want.

I didn't charge a monthly fee, only the word that I had the jobs for their service. A few did call others from time to time but, I also had a unsaid word with them, when they called me, they waited for me, unless they only wanted me. No one waited for more then a few hours.

If you pay for a monthly fee, you may never use the service then, they may call for everything from changing a light bulb (I did this too) to serious work they thought of while falling asleep. My way worked best, "on-call"

Answer 3

I would not have someone coming out unless there was actual work needing to be done. You can look around your house and decide what needs to be done...if not instead of offering a monthly service they can give you a handout that lists things to look for every month and a maintenance schedule on things. I have my own handyman business and if I was to come around once a month it would be a $35.00 sevice fee just to come out and check on things and if anything needed to be done then there would be additional charges.This is what we do with our local bussinesses to keep them looking good. I mean if you are paying someone a flat feee then there would be days he gets burned and days you get burned if you know what I mean.

Answer 4

If it was not too expensive - maybe. I woul dhave to really study the fine print in the contract though. I think that the costs vary so much on home maintenance issues that it would be difficult to price a monthly fee that would cover the vast amount of things that could need repair. So I imagine there would be a lot of things not covered and then it would just be another useless expense.