Everybody has the list. The door that will not latch. The cracked tile. The shelf still in its box. The gate that drags. The hole behind the bedroom door from the time it swung too hard.
Every one of those is twenty minutes of work. And yet people tell us they rang five places before they found someone who would come.
It is not rudeness, it is arithmetic
Put yourself on the other side of the phone. A builder has a week of work booked. Someone rings about a job that will take half an hour.
That half hour is not half an hour. It is a drive across the metro, a park, a look at the job, the work itself, a clean-up and a drive back. Call it two and a half hours, for a job the customer reasonably expects to cost very little. Meanwhile the booked work sits waiting.
So the small enquiry goes to the bottom of the pile, and the bottom of the pile is where it stays. Nobody is being difficult. The numbers simply do not work.
Why they work for us
Small work is most of what we do, so we route around it properly rather than squeezing it between big jobs. Being based in Byford helps, and so does carrying the sort of materials small jobs actually need rather than having to go and get them.
How to make it cheap
There is a minimum call-out, because the travel costs the same whether the job takes ten minutes or two hours. That single fact is the key to using us well.
Save them up. Write the list on the fridge for a month. Then ring. Six small jobs in one visit costs a fraction of six separate call-outs, and the whole list disappears in an afternoon.
It is also the right approach before a rental inspection, before you sell, or between tenancies — all the small defects in one visit rather than a trade per item.
The sort of thing we mean
Shelves, mirrors and TVs hung. Plasterboard holes patched. Doors adjusted. Tiles replaced. Baths resealed. Gates and fence palings fixed. Flat pack built. Flyscreens replaced. Handrails made safe.
If it is on your list, it is on our list. See small jobs, or just ring and read it out.
General information only. This article is general in nature. It does not take account of your property, your circumstances or current local requirements, and it is not a substitute for an inspection or professional advice. Please consider your own situation before acting on anything here, and get qualified advice where the work involves safety, structure, electrical, gas or plumbing. Kangaroo Building Works accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this information.
