What is a professional handyman?

 A professional handyman is someone who is in the business of maintenance, fixing, assembling, installing, and making.  Mostly in the areas of residential and light commercial locations.  We fill a "gap" between various licensed trades as well as fill a service need for customers who for various reasons, are unable or unwilling to make those repairs, or perform certain tasks themselves.

Many of us have achieved various specialized certifications and formal training in addition to other general skills accumulated over time through hands-on experience.

As a "professional", we are licensed or registered as local contractors, insured, and in many cases, are affiliated with professional organizations such as the Association of Certified Handyman Professionals (ACHP) or similar.

When referring to ourselves as "professionals", we make sure to know what our "lane" is and we stay in our lane in an ethical and safety related focus to not endanger or otherwise do poor work that we are not legitimately qualified to do.  Most local building codes tell us in what circumstances a licensed tradesperson is required to perform certain work, and in which situations,  if we have the training and experience,  we are able to provide certain services.   We respect and abide by the building codes.

That's pretty much the basics of being a professional handyman. 

1) be registered/licensed contractor 

2) be insured

3) be ethical

4) we stay in our own lane/abide by the local building codes.

Being ethical and staying in our own lane are somewhat related.   We owe it to our customers to do the best we can based on our knowledge,  experience,  and legitimate ability to provide a specific service.  We don't want to create a bigger problem for them or do work we aren't qualified to do.

By doing things outside of codes and qualifications,  we expose our customers and ourselves to liability risks, voiding warranties  and insurance coverages, and even inviting legal consequences for them and ourselves.  That's not professional.

The professional handyman is specifically task oriented.   Our role is more along the lines of a "technician" that carries out and executes the tasks, generally leaving the planning and bigger picture aspects to those with the education and training for it.

With obvious exceptions,  if it requires licenses and permits,  it's out of our lane.  We certainly need to know if those are required so that we don't get ourselves and our customers trouble.  For example, in my area, it is actually the property owners responsibility to ensure that necessary permits are pulled,  not the contractor.   However,  it is usually the contractor who can and will pull permits on the customer's behalf as a convenience.

If we, as a professional handyman and registered contractor are going to pull a permit,  it is extremely important to make sure the customer is aware and informed at every step.  This is particularly important where pursuant inspections are required and scheduled in the permit process. Ongoing communication with the customer is a critical part of the ethics we refer to.

As I mentioned at the beginning,  this is generally what a "professional" handyman is.  But, the term "handyman" has been used (and abused) for a very long time.  It gets used by trade guys "moonlighting" for extra income, and it gets used by people who honestly aren't very ethical at all.  

Unfortunately,  because of work done in the name of "handyman" but in bad faith by the "quick buck bunch", the professional handyman gets a much undeserved black eye.

What a professional handyman is NOT.  We are not discount trade professionals like plumbers, hvac techs, or electricians.  They have their lane, we have our own.  

We take a lot of pride in the work we do.  That's why we go to the trouble of being insured, registered,  licensed, certified, etc...  just like many other professionals.



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