Home Maintenance

phinsher

Just wondering what you guys think about an idea I have for a home maintenance business. The idea has been brewing for some time and due to some posts on this and other boards I'm really beginning to think this might work.

Our area has a growing poulation of retired people and people who own second homes here. This business would target mainly those people.

Currently I am a 2 man painting operation. My sole employee (my brother) previously ran a small but successful lawn and landscape maintenance business. I look at most painting as also being maintenance work. We would add on the tools and skills to be able to perform many of those basic tasks that many people don't like to do. here's a quick lil list.

interior/exterior painting
Lawn care
landscape maintenance (mulching, weed control etc.
gutter cleaning
screen repair, seal coating driveways
deck and dock refinishing
window cleaning etc.
replace filter, light bulbs
pressure washing
test smoke detecors etc
clean chimneys


We would look to find people willing to sign up for one or all services either on a one time basis or early contract kinda deal. We go out become cetified in the areas we could. Once a year we could do something like a home inspection, and make reccomendation to the home owner. For the projects outside what we're capable of doing we'd give the homeowner a qualified list of contractors or we could deal with the contractors directly.

Seems like this type of business would present more opportunity to grow for me, a greater sense of comfort, trust and convienence for the customer.

What do you guys and gals think?

slickshift

I offer "deck recovery" as a specialty
Int. Ext. painting and PWing kinda fall in there under painting too

Small repairs, drywall patching, gate straightening, all that stuff helps if you are going to paint/stain it anyway
Might as well get the money yourself

Most of the rest is in Handyman territory
-not that I don't get requests for most of that stuff lol

The thing is, for most of those you'd need a Handyman Service model to be profitable
Like, $75 a trip, or first hour
$55 hour after the first
Stuff like that

You could to a set fee per item, but you'll be pissed when Mrs. Kravits calls you up the change her porch light again, and you only charge XX for light bulb changes

It's a good idea, those services can do well
But it's a bit away from painting

The sealcoating is a bit of an expense to start-up though
And a bit of a learning curve
And extremely messy
...and a bit of a storage/logistic problem
I mean, w/o dedicated industrial space, or a large yard with no nosy neighbors and zoning
Where'd that come from?

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phinsher

SlickShift,
Thanks for the feedback. I agree the setting up of a cost per visit would be necessary. And make it expensive enough so they're not calling because they though they heard a funny noise kinda stuff.

The cost of equipment isn't a huge concern nor is the issue of a place to store equipment.

I've been watching a few folks in the seal coating business and maybe they just make it look easy. I'd be using a small rig just for driveways etc, not a big truck for parking lots or anything.

Most of the things I'd offer I'd say I can do pretty well now, guess its just a matter of making it profitable. Well me and my good ideas have gotten me in trouble before but in an area with more painters than we need, I gotta find something, someway to click with homeowners and build a better business.

Teetorbilt

I have a friend that retired doing condos. He supplied a punchlist of everything that needed doing to the customer and they filled it out over a month.

Every month his guys would come in and do the reg. maint. (A/C filters. etc.) plus basic stuff like lightbulbs, cleaning the dryer duct, etc. for an extra cost. Worked like a charm for him.

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ProWallGuy

Your idea isn't new. It's called a 'handyman'. Not a bad thing, but there are a lot of franchises out there doing the same thing.

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phinsher

doesn't sound too far off, but would be sold more a home maintenance. In these parts a handyman is usually the guy who's not qualified to do anything specifically. Nothing against those handymen who can, but thats what i see in my area. And nobody i see really seems to have much of a comprehensive list of services. most offer light carpentry, powerwashing, and trash removal. Or Painting, powerwashing, roofing. No One that I see has really fully met the need for people who own summer homes, or just want someone to do everything. Set up a plan of services, sign once, and we'll send invoices when services are completed.

Maybe there's a good reason for it that I don't see, thats been the case with a few of my ideas.

slickshift

Come on out for a clam bake phinsher
There's tons of Co.s here that do just that
Called property mgr. (not the way we normally think of prop. mgr.-it was confusing to me at first) or prop. maint. services
Also the Handyman Co's like RentaSon are into it also
Might be worth a look into for research purposes


I'm still not sold on the sealcoating
I'm sure you've seen the guys just spraying the driveways and thinking it's like spraying paint
-it is...lol...but really you need so much more
I mean, it's not a sideline-type business "I do sealcoating on the side"
It's not something you can "pick up as you go"
That's like saying "Hey I bought this Wagner-I'm offering painting services"
You know the equipment you'll need right?
If you don't have it you'll be out to measure a ton of jobs you can't do
I mean, if you say you know how to hot crack repair and you've got two Little Wonders in the garage already I'll understand
If you did it before I'll understand

But if you just picked it because it looks easy I gotta tell ya, it's the same as starting a painting biz

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Always Greener

Sounds like you will have too much on your plate. As far as landscape maintenance (weed control) you better be licensed if you’re spraying, yes even if you are using round-up, and if you are hand weeding every week you will lose lots of time and money to do it right. Lawn and landscape is not something you add to another business just to make some extra money, you have to do it fulltime to do it right and make the customer happy.

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phinsher

Thanks for the input, for now its just an idea, needs plenty more research etc. There seem to be people in the property maint. business in areas surrounding me, but none locally. Maybe this place is begging for it, or maybe somebody's already tried and it failed.

Always Greener, My brother (partner) still has a chemical applicators license. The plan would be to split the biz into three main catagories 1) Lawn and landscape maintennace 2) Interior/Exterior Painting 3) standard home maintenance. Like i said for now its an idea, worth a deeper look, but i appreciate your inpus because I sometimes get a little carried away with my ideas.

slickshift

Well, with the proper research you can figure if your area can support it
Sounds like it's part-time anyway so that shouldn't be a big deal to find enough potential customers

If you are looking at your local population breakdowns (income, home prices, education, own/rent, year-round/summer etc.) the most telling info I've found came from the papers (the local ones are better for me here-not the Boston ones)
Their advertising department has all that stuff down
That's how they sell ads to people like us

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Originally Posted by ModernStyle I have never used this crap before and I pray to the paint gods that I never have to use it again, I would rather use Behr

phinsher

SlickShift,
Thanks for the info, and about that clam bake............When's a good time? Blue Crabs should be running pretty hard here by mid summer if your interested.

A+Carpenter

I even as a framing remodeling contractor do handayman jobs all the time.


BIG $$$$ in small jobs

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Melissa

I think it's a great idea. I've thought of something similar before, and the customers would pay like a set monthly fee.... Kind of like a membership.... Just an idea.

Cole

You got that right.

You can make a ton of money if you do quality work and can be trusted.

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Micvanlen

One thing to consider with a home maintenance business is to situate it in snow-bird communities. I know some rich guys who pay $1000 a month for their local home and even more for some conceirge services in their vacation property. The conceirge services are airport pickups, watering plants, stocking fridges with food and beer. I can't believe how much these companies make.

Darwin

Professional handyman services are becoming an explosively fast growing segment of our industry.All we do are small jobs with the occasional large job.

Requires a different mindset to operate than traditional contracting.

Find what works--good luck