[AnthonyMouse]

> Seemingly he can do every trade. He's under the building doing plumbing or electric one day. Landscaping the next.

Doing this is basically illegal in modern day. The requirements to get even one trade license, much less more than one, are set up to make it uneconomical unless that trade is your full-time profession. Who can justify doing a multi-year full-time apprenticeship in each trade when they expect to spend 85% of their time mowing lawns and painting decks and other things that aren't that trade?

There are still people who do it, of course, but then you're stymied by their inability to lawfully advertise their services.

[lostapathy]

The other trouble is that every handyman thinks they have a great handle on everything but have at least one blind spot where they do really, really stupid stuff.

[cucumber3732842]

More often it's just that the situation changes with time.

Like someone will work with existing shared neutral aluminum circuit spaghetti because that seemed right when the scope was narrow. Maybe they're just throwing an outlet on the opposite side of the wall for someone's CPAP machine. Maybe they're actively avoiding putting it on the bedroom circuit because of which window the A/C goes in. Then the scope grows, circumstances change and the specialized solution is no longer optimal.

Then the next owner shows up and has to troubleshoot something and between hindsight and the smug know-it-alls on /r/everytrade (seriously, the internet is great at driving off people with wisdom and experience) they pronounce the prior guy to have been an idiot.

[AnthonyMouse]

It seems like you misspelled "human" there.

A large number of people can't afford contractor rates, so the alternative to the handyman is doing the work themselves. Who is more likely to screw it up, the person who does it once a month but not every day, or the person who does it once in their whole life?

[lostapathy]

Honestly, I'd debate this.

The problem is the "handyperson" may "know" (but not actually) and do what they think they know. When I encounter the same task, I don't know I stop and try to learn the right way first. So there's a good chance the homeowner is actually on a better path.

A lot of the handypeople you hire, kinda by nature of being under-the-radar, also end up intentionally cutting corners where "it doesn't matter" because savings are a priority for their customers, and it can go too far. I, on the other hand, at least know I'm not trying to cheap out on my own work just because my last customers were broke and I'm conditioned to working in that mode.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The problem is the "handyperson" may "know" (but not actually) and do what they think they know. When I encounter the same task, I don't know I stop and try to learn the right way first. So there's a good chance the homeowner is actually on a better path.

Maybe that's true for diligent technical people, but they're not the majority. The average person is going to watch a YouTube video, run out of free time and wing it.

> A lot of the handypeople you hire, kinda by nature of being under-the-radar, also end up intentionally cutting corners where "it doesn't matter" because savings are a priority for their customers, and it can go too far.

This is just humans again. Plenty of people willing to skimp out on something, even when it's for themselves, when it means saving time or money. Especially the people short on time or money.

> I, on the other hand, at least know I'm not trying to cheap out on my own work just because my last customers were broke and I'm conditioned to working in that mode.

This is the argument for doing it yourself when you have the time and wherewithal to do it yourself. It's not an argument for pressuring people to do it themselves when they don't have the time and wherewithal by making the only other lawful alternative be the one they can't afford.

[rascul]

Licenses aren't always required in all areas. But there seem to be fewer of those areas than there used to be.

[bigstrat2003]

I'm sure it varies from location to location, but my handyman has said that the line here is modifying existing infrastructure versus installing new stuff. The former is fine without a license, the latter not. Thankfully, I've never yet needed him to do work that falls in the latter bucket.

[halostatue]

There's a fine line between large modifications to existing infrastructure and "new stuff". You need a handyman you can trust in order to know the difference.

It also depends on your insurance situation. If I'm doing renovations, my house insurance company will not honour my insurance if the work is being done by a contractor without knowing the insurance status of the contractor.

One thing to consider is whether there is a reasonably-priced "emergency contractor" service to which you can subscribe. Enercare in Toronto offers plumbing protection for $21/mo and electrical protection for $16/mo. Service calls — 24 hour service calls — are included and covered in the plan, and labour for fixing the problem is included. We've had multiple cases where we've needed to call a plumber out to look at issues and it would have cost ~$200 to get them in the door and more than $400 by time the work was done. We've also used them for discounted plumbing work (15% off labour and most parts) in the past when we didn't have a different contractor for something we needed done.

[xphos]

Honestly the most shocking think i learned when moving to Massachusetts was that only licenced trade people can request to have work done inspected. This was insane to me. Why would towns not want amature work not to be inspected. It wasn't illegal for a homeowner with poor experience to electrical, gas, HVAC, without a inspection... It was wild, I understand know its like this because its basically impossible to get certified in trades without it being your full time job and scares people from doing stuff on their own. But I think its also really damaging to society because people who don't know what they are doing will still do things and it shows in houses in Massachusetts which have incorrect wiring, bad plumbing, unlevel floors. Its because we overly protect the trade from handyman.

[duskdozer]

Oh, wow. So if you buy a house and find some sketchy looking work later on, would you have to find a pro to even call in an inspection, and would they even do that without getting some commitment to fix it if something's wrong?