Need to book a drain cleaner

Outside of the regular family chores, sometimes you need help with more specific jobs that need to be done.  This could be getting a drain cleaner in when water is gushing out of a leaky pipe.  Or a handyman when you have no idea why the washing machine has stopped working.  Or a pest inspector when you hear little footsteps at night walking around in the roof.  The list is long of what can go wrong in your home that needs someone else to come and fix it.  And they usually are available during hours that suit them, not you.

This often means your only option is to schedule them coming to your house on a Monday to Friday between 9am to 5pm.  However, this is often when you are supposed to be at work.  If you can do these jobs yourself, lucky you!

If you’re not so handy, here are some tips that can minimise the juggle

1. Build little jobs up where practical:

  • Schedule them all on a day where you can work from home.  As you are not spending an hour or two commuting to and from work, it is possible to still put in a good day’s work.  This is despite being constantly interrupted by tradespeople coming and going throughout the day
  • For those of you who are in a job that does not allow you to work from home, the same concept can work.  You still schedule all tradespeople on the one day.  However, you organise it in the school holidays on a day where you have already planned to be at home with your kids
  • With some juggling, this approach can also include those jobs you need to do outside the home.  This covers odd jobs like putting your car in for a service

2. Some jobs can’t wait to be piled up and need to be actioned urgently. For those, my husband and I see which of us can work from home while the tradesperson comes.  If that is not going to work for us, we try and schedule the earliest appointment for the day.  We then go into work late and work later, as sometimes the last appointment of the day can get pushed out to the next day.

3. Find reliable tradespeople.  Making time for tradespeople usually inconveniences your work in some way. Therefore, finding someone who will come to your home at an agreed time and day is critical.  A no-show means you need to start the same process from scratch. I’ve found word of mouth is still the best way to do this:

  • Over the past few years several websites have popped up where people in a particular city can give reviews on whether their tradespeople were good or bad and if they were reliable or not. I’ve used www.womo.com.au to read reviews from others of who are the reliable tradespeople in my area
  • When your friends or family they rave about their painter / builder / plumber / whoever, ask if you can get their contact details. It’s always good to have reliable people’s details on file for when you need them
How you do deal with fitting tradespeople in around your work?
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