Do you want a seasoned master plumber that gets the job done right? Then you should contact Scott’s Half-Price Plumbing in Las Vegas, Nev., where our services are guaranteed. For more than 30 years, our licensed contractors have delivered outstanding results on everything from plumbing repairs to water testing and analysis. Each time you call Scott’s, we deliver: Licensed , Bonded, Insured Professionals 24 Hour Seven Day Emergency Services More than 30 Years of Qualified Experience Nevada License # 77662 And much more . . . Don’t waste your time trying to figure out which plumber can get the job done. Call us today throughout Clark County and get the guaranteed results that only Scott’s Half-Price Plumbing and Repair can provide. No matter who you call, we have the best price in town! Send to a friend Your text message was sent. To opt out at anytime, send the word STOP to YP411 from your mobile phone. To get a help message, send the word HELP to YP411 from your mobile phone.

Send this business listing as a text message to a mobile phone. Scott's 1/2 Price Plumbing Terms: The recipient of this text message may incur charges depending on their wireless carrier. Not all carriers are currently supportedCALL PATER SCHERNTHANNER and you’re likely to catch him on a ladder. Or running a saw. Or putting together furniture from IKEA. Schernthanner is a handyman, or, in his own words, “I consider myself an expert at winging it and fiddling with things that need to be fixed or that look funny and need to be taken care of.” Growing up the son of a contractor and then working as foreman and lead carpenter for various construction companies, Oakland-based Schernthanner now works for himself as a handyman. He’s the guy you call for jobs big and small. For instance, last week he built a driveway gate between two houses in Berkeley. This week he’s replacing window trim on a Berkeley apartment complex. A handyman, by definition, is someone you call when you don’t want to deal with a contractor.

There is no handyman license in California, only a general contractor’s license, and even a handyman needs to have that license if a job is going to be more than $500. If you need something done around your house, whether it’s irrigating your garden or retiling your entryway or installing kitchen cabinets, and you want to take advantage of the skills of a handyman, one place to start looking is the Yellow Pages. Schernthanner, who does most of his advertising online on and free weekly newspapers, says the key thing to look for is experience. “You see a lot of older dudes outthere doing handyman work,” the 35-year-old Schernthanner says. “That’s a good thing. People should also be aware that when you’re looking at an ad, if it says licensed, that’s cool. But if it says bonded, you should know that in California, it’s illegal to advertise that you’re bonded.” Bonding, in case you don’t know, is a form of insurance for contractors. The minimum bond for a contractor is

Not all handymen are licensed contractors, but once they have a license, they must be bonded. You’ll see “licensed and bonded” in a lot of ads, but the Contractor State Licensing Board says that by advertising bonding, the public might be misled that a contractor has more protection than provided by the standard contractor’s bond. Advertising with the word “bonded” can get a contractor’s license suspended.business for sale christiansburg va For Schernthanner, who is in the process of obtaining his license, the best jobs and best clients come from referrals from other clients.handyman services fort wayne “Word of mouth is important in this business because it implies trust, and to be a good handyman, working in people’s homes and around their children, trust is really important,” he says.handyman south bend

The first step once you’ve selected a handyman is securing an estimate. Most handymen do free estimates, but there are things you as a client can do to ensure that the estimate is accurate and that there are no surprises once the work begins. “We need as much information as possible,” Schernthanner says. “It’s a good idea for the client to do some probing. business for sale nuriootpaFor instance, when I was working on the gate in Berkeley, when we started digging, we found a bunch of cement under the dirt that we had to remove. business for sale kunda parkThat added time to the job that wasn’t in the original estimate.”handyman service lancaster Once the handyman is hard at work, there’s a tendency for clients to begin thinking about other things that need to be done around the house.

“Oh, since you’re here would you mind …” is a common refrain. But clients should be aware that a handyman’s livelihood depends on billable hours, so add-ons will cost you. Schernthanner, for instance, charges $40 an hour on average. Pam LaPinto, a San Francisco-based handyperson, charges $35 an hour. “People think of extra things for you to do all the time,” LaPinto says. “Sometimes it makes sense to do things in a certain order, so before work begins, they should discuss as many of the jobs as they can think of with the handyperson. Then we can prioritize and determine, based on time and cost, how we’re going to approach it.” LaPinto, who has her MBA, was working in e-commerce. Her last job was at Oracle, and when she was laid off, she sort of fell into doing handywork. Painting a relative’s house led to another painting job, which led to her own business. “I’ve learned as I’ve gone along, worked with other people, learned from them, taken a lot of classes and done a lot of reading,” she says.

“It’s a continuous learning curve, which I like.” In a field that is predominantly male, LaPinto, 48, says she has yet to encounter a client who considered her gender a liability. “Some clients specifically want a woman,” she says. “Sometimes women feel safer working with another woman or they feel like maybe they’ll be taken less advantage of. I’ve also had male clients who don’t do home repair but maybe they’re a little embarrassed by that and would feel intimidated working with a man. With a woman, they can let their guard down a little.” LaPinto’s favorite jobs involve gardening, but she says she is mostly asked to do painting. In the four years that she has been a handyperson, LaPinto says demand has been constant and that she has no plans to head back into an office. “I enjoy helping people and knowing I make their lives a little better or help them enjoy their homes more or fix something that has been bugging them,” she says.

If you don’t know anyone who can recommend a trusty handyman (or handyperson), you might feel more comfortable going with a company. Owens Corning has a three-year-old handyman division called HOMExperts that does everything from general handyman services (what they call the “honey-do” list) to major contractor work like kitchen remodels, bathroom upgrades and repairing or building decks and fences. Frank Sette, who runs HOMExperts out of Livermore, says his company found that customers seemed to have more bad experiences than good with contractors. “In our research we saw that 81/2 out of 10 people were dissatisfied with their contractor,” Sette says. “Contractors are the second-worst in satisfaction scores behind used-car salesmen. We wanted to do something about that.” HOMExperts operates in 50 of the country’s top markets. In California, they serve the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, the Central Valley, and Southern California, from Los Angeles to San Diego.