Never
Anything on gas
Not the boiler, not the hob, not the pipe it sits on, not "just moving it a foot". It is a licensed trade and we are not it.
Ring Halloran Plumbing & Heating · Fairview
Next free half-day: Thursday morning
The list on the fridge. Gone by lunchtime.
Ferris does the jobs that are too small to bother a trade with and too annoying to keep looking at. Shelves, a dripping tap, the door that has never shut properly since you moved in. Tick them off below and you will know the price before you ring us.
17Years in Millbrook
2 hrArrival window
1 hrMinimum charge
The list
Tick what you need. The price works itself out.
These are the twenty things we get asked for most, with how long each one honestly takes. Tick yours and the total adds up as you go — and it charges you whichever of our three rates comes out cheapest, which is what we would do at the door anyway.
Turning up
The whole reputation of this trade is one question
Everybody in it says they are reliable. Nobody says what they mean by it, so here it is written down, numbered, and the same for every job we take.
Terms of turning up
Ferris Handyman Co. · Millbrook
No. 0155
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You get a two-hour window, the day before
Not "Tuesday". Not "morning". A text the evening before with a two-hour window and the name of whoever is coming.
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If we are going to be late you hear it before the window ends
Not after. The person running late is the one who texts you, and they tell you the new time rather than "shortly".
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More than thirty minutes late without that text, the first hour is free
It has cost us four hours in seventeen years. We would rather keep it that way than be the firm that turns this into a paragraph of conditions.
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We carry the boring things
Screws, rawlplugs, washers, sealant, filler, batteries, felt pads. The commonest reason a small job needs a second visit is a two-dollar part, and a second visit costs you an hour.
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The packaging and the old one go with us
Flat-pack cardboard, the dead tap, the broken panel. You should not be left with a job finished and a hallway full of box.
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If it turns out to be a ten-minute job, you pay for ten minutes
Above the one-hour minimum we bill in half hours, and we round down. Nobody has ever been charged four hours here for a job that took three and a quarter.
Most of these have been on the list for over a year.
That is the thing we have learned in seventeen years of this. It is almost never that the job is hard, or that the money is the problem — it is that nobody wants to ring a stranger up about a dripping tap and be made to feel like they are wasting his morning. You are not. It is the morning.
What we don’t do
A handyman who says yes to everything is the one to worry about
These six are off the list, permanently, and we would rather you knew before you rang than after we had turned up. Where we can, we will tell you who to ring instead — they are people we work next to and would use ourselves.
Never
Notifiable electrical work
New circuits, consumer units, anything inside a bathroom zone. We will swap a socket face or a light fitting like for like, and that is where it stops.
Ring Kade Electric Co. · Rowan
Never
Roofs above one storey
Single-storey gutters and a shed roof, yes. Anything that wants a scaffold or a roof ladder is a different trade with different insurance.
Ring Vance Roofing Co. · Bellwood
Never
Anything that might be asbestos
Textured ceiling coating, old garage sheeting, some floor tiles. We stop, we do not drill it or sand it, and we tell you who tests it.
We will give you a tester · same day
Never
Anything structural
Taking a wall out, cutting into a joist, propping anything. If a job turns out to be structural halfway through, we stop and you are not charged for the rest of the slot.
Ring Bexley Build Co. · Kingsley
Never
Tree work of any kind
A chainsaw above head height is a trade with its own qualification and its own insurance, and a branch over a neighbour’s roof is somebody else’s afternoon. We will clear what has already come down.
We will give you a name · two we trust
And if we get there and it is one of these, there is no charge. Not a call-out, not a half hour, nothing. We would rather lose the morning than be the reason somebody paid a handyman to look at a gas leak.
The crew
Three of us. You are told which one before we arrive.
Not a network, not a directory, not somebody we found this morning. If you book us twice you will probably get the same person, and if you ask for one of them by name you will get them — it just might be next week.
Ray Ferris
Started it in 2009Was a joiner for twenty years before this and still does the doors, because he cannot watch anybody else plane one. Takes the calls in the evening, which is why somebody actually picks up.
Ollie Pike
Nine years hereDoes most of the taps, waste and washing machines, and is the one to ask for if the job is in a flat with awkward access. Will tell you if something is not worth fixing, which has cost us money and won us customers.
Nadia Rusk
Four years hereCame from cabinet-making, so the flat-pack and the fitted stuff goes to her and it comes out square. Runs the Saturday list, which is the one that books up first.
Reviews
What Millbrook says
I sent the list from this website at eleven at night and had a window by nine the next morning. Nine things, one morning, and four of them had been on that list since we moved in three years ago.
Two other firms would not quote for one tap. Ferris came for the hour, did the tap in twenty minutes, then asked if there was anything else while he was here and fixed the loo as well. Still an hour.
Booked them for a bathroom extractor and it turned out to need a new circuit. He told me in five minutes, would not take anything for coming out, and wrote down who to call. Then came back the week after for the rest of the list.
Questions
The ones we get asked
Is my job too small to bother you with?
No, and it is the question we are asked most, which tells you how many people never ring. There is a one-hour minimum, so the honest advice is to save the small things up and have them all done in one visit — that is exactly what the list at the top of this page is for.
Do you charge for the first hour if the job takes ten minutes?
Yes — the hour is the minimum and it pays for getting there. But we will use the rest of it. If the tap takes twenty minutes we will ask what else is on the list, and most people get two or three more things done inside the same hour.
Do you supply the materials?
We carry the consumables — screws, plugs, sealant, washers, filler — and those are in the rate. Anything with a model number is better bought by you, because you get to choose it and you are not paying our markup. Tell us what you have bought and we will tell you if it will fit.
Are you insured?
Two million public liability, and the certificate goes in the van and to your email if you ask. If somebody in this trade hesitates when you ask this, that is your answer.
Can I just give you a list and let you get on with it?
That is the way most of our work comes in. Send the list, we will tell you honestly whether it is an hour, a half day or a day, and whether any of it is on the "we don't do that" list. Then you can leave a key with a neighbour if you would rather not be in.
How far do you go?
Millbrook, Bellwood, Ashgate, Rowan and Kingsley. We will come to Hartley for a half day or more. Beyond that we will say no rather than take the booking and be late to it.
Book
Send the list. We will send back a window.
If you ticked things at the top of the page they are already in the box. Add anything we have missed — there is no wrong way to describe a job, and "the thing in the bathroom that makes a noise" is a perfectly good start.
Ray picks up, most evenings until eight(313) 555-0155
Answered the same dayhello@ferrishandyman.example
The yard · not a shop, ring firstUnit 4, Sowerby Yard, Millbrook
On the toolsMon–Fri 8–5 · Sat 8–1
Send your list
Five fields, no obligation, and a window back the same day.
Got it — a window comes back today.
If it is urgent, ring (313) 555-0155 and Ray will pick up.