This is a topic I’ve been kicking around in my head lately. I think maybe lots of handymen must wonder why they do what they do. I know I have. After all, what possesses anyone to repair a toilet one day, and repair a roof the next, all the while maintaining a respectable degree of knowledge in both areas? Not to mention in the all the other areas they need to know a thing or two about.

I think my handyman roots go way back to my child hood and the habits I developed with mechanical things. Well, more about that later on…

Probably the question comes to mind since I recently helped a family interview four separate handyman service companies for some partial renovation work. They asked me if I could show the handymen the work they wanted quotes on and answer questions the handymen might have so they could turn in accurate bids. I don’t normally get an opportunity to talk with other handymen or ask them questions or collect bids so I jumped at the chance. Wow. I must say, it was an eye-popping experience. I was really amazed at two things in particular;

First, two out of four different handyman services required at least two people just to come and look at the relatively small bathroom wall repair, paint job and grab bar installation. One “team” was made up of a father/son handyman service, but interestingly enough, came to the house but didn’t knock on the door for over 30 minutes until a third person, a well-dressed lady showed up. The three of them went in together and looked the job over, left and stood in the front yard for another thirty minutes in discussion before they left – in separate cars. Another crew was an apparent husband/wife team, and they both actively asked questions and took lots of notes. The other two handyman service companies were lone men – much like myself when it comes to my own handyman business.

Second, I was blown away by how varied these guys’ approach was. I asked one handyman a question about the height of a grab bar in a tub enclosure (which is, in case you don’t already know, a device for aiding handicapped and the elderly particularly in areas like the bathroom). His response was a confident “four feet off the ground”. Well, sounds good anyway.

Okay… Well, anyway, back to what kind of person becomes a handyman…I think I was around 6 or 7 years old the first time I tore apart a radio. Hmmm…could’ve been a TV… I’ve taken a few radios and TV’s apart in my life. I don’t recommend taking apart old tube televisions. That’s where I got my first real taste of electricity. To this day, I’ve never actually repaired a radio. Or TV for that matter, but the handyman seeds were being sown. At least I learned that an old television doesn’t need to be plugged in to get a good shock from it. I don’t know about new televisions. I’m not a TV repairman.

In my early teens I discovered the really true enjoyment I got from working with wood. I first began buying speaker components and building cabinets around them. I made my first set of speakers at 14 years old. I probably built around a half dozen speaker cabinets before I was twenty. At 19, I built some custom shelves in a closet in my parents home that are still there today. Years later, my first house was a HUD home and the work required to fix it up didn’t faze me one bit. A few years later I sold that house and made a tidy $22,000 profit on it. More seed was sown.

My point is, that I think some people just have a knack for becoming a good handyman and deserve to make a good living at it. There are plenty of people out there who are not really cut out for it, but do it because it’s a fairly easy business to get started in, as businesses go. If you happen to be looking for a handyman service in your area, do ask questions and see what makes your handyman tick. A good one is a very good thing to find and if you are persistent, you can find a great one.

So, I think a good handyman is someone with some degree of creativity who has a knack for understanding mechanical things, has spent a heck of a lot of time learning a lot about many different things…and likes fixing them. I’m not covering the range of prices I saw for the exact same work, which was quite a spread, but you can read some of my thoughts about that in this article.

Oh, and the correct height for a grab bar in a tub enclosure is 33″ to 36″ from the floor, according to the 2010 ADA Standards For Accessible Design. And, when a second bar is installed for in-tub seated showering, that one should should be 8″ to 10″ above the rim of the tub.

I’ll stick with that.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net