About Handyman William

How I came to do this for a living

I trained as a joiner straight out of school. The first ten years of my working life were spent on building sites with a bench, a tool roll and the long apprenticeship that goes with timber work — staircases, doors, windows, bespoke fitments and the joinery side of new builds and restorations. Working on a site teaches you a lot, but most of it isn’t what a normal homeowner needs. By the time I was thirty I was getting more enquiries from friends and neighbours about “the small jobs my builder won’t come back for” than I was getting site work, and I started to think there might be a quieter, more honest living in being the person who does come back.

So I went out on my own as a handyman. That was over fifteen years ago now. The work is varied in a way site work isn’t. One day I’m fitting a new kitchen sink in a bungalow in Felixstowe; the next I’m mending three sash windows in a listed farmhouse near Lavenham; the day after that I’m putting up shelves and hanging pictures for a recently-widowed customer in Bury who told me she’d been looking for someone polite and patient for three months. That last sort of job — small, almost invisible, but quietly important to the person who needed it doing — is the work I most enjoy and probably the work I’m most proud of.

How I work

The mechanics of a job with me are straightforward. You email me with a description and ideally a couple of photos. I read it and reply the same working day, usually within a couple of hours. For small jobs I can quote there and then; for anything bigger I’ll come round to look. The first visit is free and there’s no obligation either way. If we agree, I write the price down, add it to the diary, and turn up when I said I would. The price I quote is the price I charge. If the job turns out to be smaller than expected, the bill goes down. If I find something on site that genuinely changes the scope, I stop and talk to you before doing anything that adds to the cost. There are no salespeople and no upsell — just one person doing the work and charging for it.

I bring my own tools and most of the smaller materials. Larger materials (sanitaryware, kitchen units, paint, fencing) are usually more economical for the customer to buy themselves, but I’m happy to give a sensible shopping list and pick things up on your behalf if it suits you better. I clean up properly before I leave and I take all the rubbish with me. Bigger strip-outs go to a licensed transfer station and the disposal cost is itemised on your invoice so there are no surprises.

My qualifications and credentials

I hold a City & Guilds qualification in Site Carpentry and Bench Joinery, and additional certificates in CSCS health and safety, working at height and asbestos awareness. I carry £2 million of public liability insurance and I am happy to email the certificate before any work starts. For any gas-related work I bring in a Gas Safe registered engineer; for any notifiable electrical work I work alongside a Part P / NICEIC registered electrician. The work I do is properly insured and properly documented.

I am a sole trader registered with HMRC for tax and self-assessment, not a limited company, which means there is no expensive corporate structure adding cost to your bill. I am happy to issue invoices on plain stationery for ordinary jobs and on more formal invoices when needed (for landlord or insurance purposes, for example).

What I won’t do

It’s only fair to be straight about this. I won’t take on any unattended gas work — that’s a Gas Safe matter and I won’t pretend otherwise. I won’t carry out notifiable electrical work without a registered electrician on the certificate. I won’t take on roof work above the second storey unless proper scaffolding is in place. I won’t make structural alterations without proper engineering calculations and the right consents. And I won’t take on a job I don’t have time to do properly — if I can’t fit you in within a sensible window, I’ll say so honestly so you can find someone else.

I also won’t pretend to be cheaper than I am. My rates are reasonable for what is a careful, finished, properly-insured job by a qualified tradesman. They aren’t the lowest you’ll find in Suffolk, but they are honest and they reflect the standard of work and the lack of comebacks. The cheapest quote rarely turns out to be the cheapest job in the long run.

The kind of customer I tend to work for

Most of my regular customers are private homeowners, retired couples, families and small landlords across Suffolk. I do a fair bit of work for property managers and lettings agents, particularly on changeover repairs and small refits between tenancies. I look after several Suffolk holiday lets where the owner needs a reliable point of contact for repairs between guests. And I do a lot of repeat work for older customers and those who simply prefer to deal with one trustworthy person rather than a different stranger every time.

What unites them is straightforward: they want the job done properly, charged fairly and explained honestly. That’s what I aim to deliver, every time, on every job, in every Suffolk town I work in. Email me with a job and we’ll go from there.