Not your average handyman service

Many people who use our London handyman service for the first time are pleasantly surprised when a well spoken, polite and neatly turned out person turns up to tackle their 'to do' list.

All of our handymen come from professional backgrounds: Don is an Oxford graduate, was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, a government liaison in China, Chairman of a Charity and also has a honours degree in french studies. He picked up most of his handyman knowledge and skills while renovating his own and friends properties. Don has been working as a professional handyman for six years now and is attracted to this job because no two days are the same. Nick graduated from Brunel University with an engineering degree, he worked for KPMG for twenty years as a management consultant, is an avid yachtsman and skippers commercially owned yachts in his spare time. Nick describes himself as semi-retired even though he works a full five day week. The aspect of this job he likes the best is meeting new and interesting people everyday. Robin has been in the building trade working as a Quantity Surveyor for over twenty years, he is an advanced motorcyclists and often takes groups of motorcyclists on guided trips to Europe. His depth of building and technical knowledge is massive and he pursues carpentry projects as a hobby.

It should be obvious from the profiles above that we are no ordinary handyman service, when you book a Silver Saints handyman, you are getting someone who can communicate well, is used to working in high pressure environments, has excellent problem solving skills and have chosen to do this job because they understand the importance of customer service and love DIY. All our handymen have had successful professional careers but have left the confinement of the office behind to pursue a flexible, fun and rewarding career as a mobile professional London handyman.

London Handyman Service

Silver Saints is London's premier handyman service. Our team of handymen can take on a massive range of plumbing, electrical, fitting, fixing or assembling jobs.

We will send you one handyman to take care of your 'to-do' list which may in the past have required various separate tradesman to complete.

As well as taking on general odd-jobs and repairs around both homes and offices, our handymen also undertake more specific and specialised repairs. These include:

Electric shower repairs
Thermostatic shower repairs
Unblocking sinks and toilets
Draught proofing sash windows
Sash cord repair
LCD TV Installations
Driveway Jet washing
Waste disposal repairs
Light fitting repairs
Replacing grout

So whether you have a list of repairs or just one specific task, Silver Saints Handyman Service are the company to call.

To find out more visit our London Handyman website: www.silversaints.com, give us a call on 0207 0999 199 or just drop us an email at fixit@silversaints.co.uk.

The Economic Vibe

You can't turn on the news or pick up a newspaper at the moment without been told another economic statistic which indicates the current state of the economy. Business reporters love to quote repossession rates, the rise and fall in average house prices, unemployment figures and even the amount of new mortgage applications this month compared to last.

Using financial indicators are basically a way to quantify what I describe as the economic vibe. You know, the economic vibe, that's the feeling you get about the state of the economy through conversations with others or your own finances that the economy is doing well or not.

If you and your friends are buying new cars, going on exotic holidays or dabbling in the stock market the vibe is good. If your friends can't sell their cars, are driving to Blackpool for their holidays and lost their shirts in the stock market your economic vibe is bad. All you need to do is turn on the news to hear the latest unemployment figures and your vibe is confirmed.

As a handyman service we have our own non-financial indicators which confirm our vibes about how things are going. We look at the amount of bookings that came in this week versus last, the increase or decrease in the average length of jobs, the percentage of time billed out versus dead time. Lately I've noticed that significantly less people asked us to hang LCD screens for them in February than did in January. This may just be because there were so many good deals to be had on LCD screens in the January sales that everyone who was going to buy a LCD TV did so last month. But it could also indicate that there is less disposable income out there for luxury goods like new 55" Flat Screens. Truthfully, it must be a bit of both, but the vibe I get is not a good one.

My Windolene

If anyone has seen the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' they will remember the ongoing gag throughout the film where the brides father believes that windolene is the cure for almost anything. Including the pimple she gets on her wedding day.

Well for me my windolene is silicone grease also known as plumbers grease. It properties are magical and its uses are endless. Its intended use is on rubber plumbing seals such as push fit connections or o-ring seals but as a London Handyman who takes on a lot more than just plumbing I use it on any rubber, plastic, metal connection that comes in contact with water or needs a good seal. I also use it on sticking sash windows in order to get them to slide freely as well as on the tip of self tapper or wood screws just before I drive them into position. It’s lesser known lubricating uses include:

- Stiff Locks
- Sticking flush valves
- Bicycle chains
- Rusty bolts
- Drill chucks
- Pretty much anything that suffers from friction or needs protection from damp.

Silicone grease has in the past been very difficult to get hold of. It's not the kind of thing that B&Q or Homebase will stock in their plumbing section. In fact most plumber’s merchants in London don't even stock it, which in itself has become an indicator for me on how good a plumbers merchant is. If they have silicone grease on the shelves, by default they must be good.
I'll have to keep you all posted on the additional uses I find for silicone grease, at the moment I'm testing it as a sun screen.

Commenting on another tradesman's work

Silver Saints employs a team of the most experienced handymen in London. But with experience and knowledge comes the ability to quickly spot shoddy workmanship done by other tradesman or handymen. The difficulty is pointing out to the customer that things are not right without sounding like a salesman trying to build up a job.

We went out to draught proof sash windows in a West London last week. When we arrived we found four of the biggest sash windows I have ever seen. On inspection we found that they were under weighted and as a consequence they did not stay open. The sash cords were also way to thin for the weight of the window. It was clear that the person who had last worked on these windows tried to save on materials costs and as a result had left the customer with very poorly functioning sash windows.

The temptation is always to demonstrate your knowledge to the customer by pointing out all the things that the other tradesman had done wrong. But this doesn't really help anyone. Instead we opted for a direct approach. We simply told the customer that the windows were not functioning very well and asked if she wanted us to sort them out and then draught proof them or if she just wanted us to do the draught proofing. We then gave her a price for both options.

She chose to have the repairs carried out to the windows as well as the draught proofing. In the end everyone was happy and we didn't have to slag off any other tradesman.

London Handyman - David Guest

I took a call on Tuesday last week and immediately recognised the caller as David Guest, the wacky yank from last years series of 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here'. I personally find him hilarious. His relationship with the other celebrities and his crazy stories had me in stitches every evening the show was on.

The job we were asked our handyman to do was to hang 300 framed gold 45s on a wall. They all had to be in perfectly aligned rows and columns. There is no getting away from the tediousness of this type of job but using a laser level to mark out a grid does make life allot easier for the handyman.

David was so impressed with the results that he has asked us to come back for a few more hours next week. Hopefully he passes our business card around the celebrity circuit.

It would be nice to be the London handyman service to the stars.

Handyman Service

Silver Saints - London handyman service
Silver Saints - is London's premier handyman service. We employ a team of highly experienced, flexible and trustworthy handymen that travel around on motorbikes carrying out a wide variety of jobs from plumbing and basic electrics to fixing, fitting and hanging stuff.Here are a few examples of the types of jobs we specialise in:- Furniture assembly- Bath screen installation- LCD and Plasma installation- London plumbing service- Toilet unblocking- Sash window repairs- Sash window draught proofing- Picture hanging- Light fitting replacement- Shower repairs- Blind installation- Toilet repairs- Tile and grout cleaning.And many many more...There are practically no home or office maintenance jobs we cant do so why not give our friendly and experienced operations team a call on 0207 0999 199 or visit our london handyman website to book a Silver Saint - London handyman today.

London Handyman Service

Silver Saints is London's premier handyman service.

0207 0999 199
fixit@silversaints.co.uk

We are best described as a team of multi-skilled, experienced and reliable Handymen who travel around London on motorcycles undertaking plumbing, electrics, fixing, fitting, assembling and hanging jobs. In fact we employ the most experience handymen in London.
Friendly, Flexible, Efficient and Trustworthy - these are the words that describe our Silver Saints Handyman Service and these are the words you'll be using when telling your friends about how we showed up on time, did all the jobs on your ‘to do’ list, cleaned up after ourselves and charged you fairly and accurately.

(Read what our customers think about Silver Saints)

Silver Saints has the most experienced Handymen in London. In addition most come from professional backgrounds that include: Engineers, Accountants, Management Consultants, Quantity Surveyors and even a Royal Air Force Pilot. This means that you are getting a person who has great communication skills, copes well under pressure and understands the value of customer relations.We know what it takes to offer great customer service and we strive to leave a satisfied customer 100% of the time. Our dedicated Operations Team, based in Central London, are on call to discuss any jobs you need doing, as well as manage your booking until completion.

That is enough about us! Give us a call or book online and let us concentrate on giving you the Silver Service you deserve. 0207 0999 199

DIY Plumbing ending in tears.

We have had a series of jobs recently were we have been called in to redo plumbing that was done by amateur DIYers. Normally when this happens its because the dodgy plumbing has failed and resulted in a persistent or catastrophic leak.

One of the jobs we were called to last week was because a downstairs neighbour had complained of a leak through their ceiling. It turned out that our customer had recently purchased the house not realising that all the kitchen plumbing had been done by the previous owner himself. What we found was that all the waste pipes were actually running up hill which had resulted in a blockage and the waste water from the dishwasher flowing back up the stand pipe when the dishwasher drained.

In the end we had to pull out all the kitchen cabinets and redo all the kitchen waste plumbing. A full day of work and certainly not what the customer wanted to find out about her new flat.

Special Delivery

Silver Saints is London's premier handyman service. One of the things that makes us different from the other London handyman services is the fact that we will go out of our way to solve our customer's problems.

Over the last few weeks this has lead to us having to source, deliver and fit a few out of the ordinary items. These included:

Porcelain Tiles:
We spent 3 days searching for 1 box of a particualr polished porcelain tile in order to repair a leaking shower without having to re-tile the whole bathroom. After 15 different tile shops and about 100 miles of traveling we managed to source the matching tiles from a specialist tile shop in Kingston.

Electric Shower:
Sourced an unused electric shower matching a customers current faulty shower. This particular model was made obsolete a few years ago. Replacing it with a different model would have meant almost a full days worth of work. We found a like for like replacement on ebay and snapped it up. The job was done in 90 minutes.

Roller Blind Mechanism:
Sounds trivial, but you try find a single replacement part for a roller blind. It took us about two days to source a manufacturer who was willing to sell us a single component.

Tap Aerators:
If you don't know, these are the small mesh filters that you find at the end of tap spouts. We were sent a photo of a tap and asked to source the aerators without any hint of the manufacturers name.

The both are just a few of the dozens of specialist parts we source for our customers every week. Something I know other London handyman services will not do for their customers.

Hanging LCD Screens - Cheap SCART leads

One of the more specialist jobs our London handymen take on is the hanging of LCD TVs. As an added service we also offer a cable concealing service. Where our London handyman will conceal the Scart/HDMI and power cables within a surface mounted trunking or behind the plasterboard wall itself.

One issue that customers don't usually prepare for, is that the cables need to significantly longer than the ones supplied with most TVs if they are to be concealed in any way and still reach the desired accessories or power sockets. So we always ask the customer at the booking stage to ensure that they have sufficiently long cables on-site for us to be able to complete the installation.

I realised on last week, that not only is the length of the cable important but the quality of the SCART lead does affect the picture and sound quality. We arrived at a LCD fitting job in Fulham where the customer had a 5m SCART cable which he wanted concealed in trunking and connected to his sky box. Once we had fitted the TV, and connected the sky box using the 5m SCART cable supplied by the customer, we noticed that the picture quality on the LCD was not very good. We had a 1.5m SCART cable with us and so changed the SCART lead to see if it had any effect. Sure enough the picture quality improved to near perfect. I examined the packaging that the 5m SCART had arrived and noted that it had cost the customer £5.99. This obviously seemed like a bargain at the time. But it was clear that it was the cause of the poor quality picture.

Luckily there was an electrical wholesaler nearby where we managed to get a better quality 3m SCART for around £20. The end result was good and we all learnt that if you are going to spend close to £1000 on an LCD TV, its worth spending £20 on good quality cables.

Suspended Ceiling Repairs

Silver Saints prides itself on been able to solve almost any problem around homes of offices. Often the most important ingredients are experienced handymen and a flexible approach. But some problems also require a bit of research to get right.

We were asked by one of our commercial customers to repair a two large holes in their suspended ceiling having had two air conditioning units removed.

It might have looked like a simple job to them. But suspended ceilings come in a wide variety of styles which are not compatible with each other.

We sent a handyman to site armed with a catalogue showing all the possible varieties of grids and tiles. He has able to match the exact system they had and we ordered the parts we needed.

Once the parts arrived, we were able to completely restore the suspended ceiling in a matter of hours.

Really Really Old Sash Windows

One of the most requested jobs Silver Saints Handyman Service undertakes is the repair of broken sash window cords and spiral sash balances. But our London handy men also get requests to repair sash windows that just aren't in balance and won't stay open. I'm sure we've all experienced the problem, you open a sash window and as soon as you let go of it, it slides closed.

The reason is that the counter weights on either side of the window are not heavy enough to keep the window up. The answer is to add an extra lead weight, called a make weight, to the current window weights.

Our handy man Don, undertook just this job for a media company in Covent Garden last week. The interesting part of this job was that they had a dozen windows which seemed to be over a hundred years old, which still had the original Victorian 2mm thick glass in them. As a result Don had to be extremely careful in the way he handled the windows.

It was amazing to see young creatives sitting at ikea desks with multiple flat screens using the latest the Apple software to edit films and documentaries while starring out a window that is 150 years old.

YouTube

We have recently set up a Silver Saints Youtube chanel which will feature how 2 videos of our london handymen carrying out some of the more common jobs we take on.

We have posted our first video on how to hang a flat screen TV and aim to post a new video each week. Look out for next weeks video on changing sash cords.

Visit our chanel to view our most recent video - How to hang a flat screen TV.

Silver Saints - Londons premier handyman service.

Show Jumping Drain Pipes? (Grey Handyman)

My jobs are advised to me by text and this one said 'change light bulbs and paint drainpipes'. The job was for a regular customer - Caroline - who lives with her family in a large town house in Kensington.

When I arrived the customer wasn't there but I was let in by the gardener; also in the house was a housekeeper and a cleaning woman. I started on changing the light bulbs and after a while Caroline arrived home. After letting her know that there were not enough of a special light bulb that she needed, I asked about which drainpipes needed painting (having earlier looked around the outside of the house to see if any looked in in need of painting and not found any). Caroline showed me some large black drainpipes poking out from under steps leading down to the under street level storage area at the front of the house. She said she wanted them painted, two in red and white stripes in a specific pattern, and two in brown - she explained that they were to be pony jump poles.

When I said that I would go down to bring the poles up to take to the garage for the painting Caroline said 'I'll need to help you as they are very heavy'. We went down the steps to the pipes and I then realised that the three metre long pipes, some 5 inches in diameter, were indeed very heavy as they were made of steel! Caroline then explained that she had lazy pony which she wanted to train to jump. With normal jump poles, the pony simply hit them and knocked them off rather than actually jumping a bit higher to clear them. The steel poles, being very much heavier, would 'encourage' the pony to make the extra effort! I was assured that the pony's legs would be suitably padded to ensure that it wasn't hurt during the training.

Two hours later for new jumping poles were painted and, when dry, ready to take to the stable (in Windsor) for the training to begin. I'm looking forward to an update of the training progress on my next visit.

Hanging flat screen TV's

Hanging flat screen TV's is a job we do all the time, most times one handyman can manage on his own with a little help from the customer to offer the TV up to the bracket once it has been fitted to the wall. For someone with a good knowledge of the types of walls and the different fixings used for each wall hanging a plasma screen should be a simple DIY job but for most of our customers a lack of time and practical experience means they are far more comfortable getting one of our handymen to hang their screen professionally and neatly.

We normally estimate between 1 and 1.5 hours to hang a plasma screen (depending on the size of the screen, type of bracket and type of wall) although very large screens can sometimes take up 2 hours so you should generally be looking at between £60 and £80 + vat. We offer a fixed price for those of our customers who prefer to have peace of mind that they will not be charge anymore than a certain amount.

Our fixed price for LCD screens up 42" is £85+vat and for LCD larger than 42" we charge £100+vat.

If you have spent a fair amount on your new flat screen TV why not give us a call and get one of our handymen to hang it professionally and neatly.

Humor in the world of a London Handyman

Every so often we come across some amusing job requests and I love the fact that our customers are so confident in our service and so at ease with our handymen that they request us to do things like helping them when they have managed get their big toe stuck in the spout of their of bath tap or to open the sugar jar that has been closed too tightly. It is very rewarding to know that our customers rely on us for even the smallest/slightly embarrassing jobs.

Handymen are not without amusing moments themselves. I had a call from a customer who asked if I wouldn’t mind calling the handyman that was currently at her property to ask if he was ok and not injured in anyway. When I enquired if something had happened that he might injure himself the customer went on to explain that the handyman, who was there to fit a sash restrictor to a sash window, had been shown upstairs to the first floor where the sash window was located and then left to get on with the job. The customer went down stairs to find the handyman who she had just left upstairs letting himself in through the ground floor back door. As it turns out the handyman who had to stand on the window ledge to fit the restrictor had slipped, fallen out the window, rolled down the angled roof and landed in the flower bed in the back garden.

Thankfully it was not very high and the tightly packed flower bed provided a nice soft landing. In the end both I and the customer were in stitches when I called back to say that the handyman was perfectly fine aside from a bruised ego.

London Handymen and Their Tools

One of the universal truths about men is they all love power tools! One thing you learn pretty quickly when you use power tools on a regular basis is that price and quality do count.

Given the size of jobs our handymen take on, most lasting between half an hour and half a day, the only power tool they are guaranteed to us on a daily basis is their cordless drills.

After many years of using the XRP Dewalt Cordless 14.4v , we experienced a string of product malfunctions when Dewalt redesigned it in 2007. So we moved to the Makita Lithium Ion 14.4V Combi-Drill, these are fantastic pieces of kit but at £320, these seemed a bit on the expensive side.

We are now moving towards the Makita BHR162RFE 14.4V Lithium-Ion SDS Drill , these aren't sold by screwfix but can be picked up online for around £230. So far we think they are great. Thanks to the Lithium Ion battery they only weigh 2kg and give consistent power throughout the day. Because of its an SDS drill it gets through even the hardest of walls. It is a bit heavy to use for driving in screws, so our handymen also carry a lightweight 9.6v cordless screwdriver.

So the next time your £25 drill you were over excited to get from Argos lets you down, you know what drill to upgrade to. But if you don't want to spend the best part of £250 on a top or the line drill, just give us a call and we'll drill the hole for you.

Not your average London Handyman Service

Many people who use our London handyman service for the first time are pleasantly surprised when a well spoken, polite and neatly turned out person turns up to tackle their 'to do' list.

All of our handymen come from professional backgrounds:

Don is an Oxford graduate, was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, a government liaison in China, Chairman of a Charity and also has a honours degree in french studies. He picked up most of his handyman knowledge and skills while renovating his own and friends properties. Don has been working as a professional handyman for six years now and is attracted to this job because no two days are the same.

Nick graduated from Brunel University with an engineering degree, he worked for KPMG for twenty years as a management consultant, is an avid yachtsman and skippers commercially owned yachts in his spare time. Nick describes himself as semi-retired even though he works a full five day week. The aspect of this job he likes the best is meeting new and interesting people everyday.

Robin has been in the building trade working as a Quantity Surveyor for over twenty years, he is an advanced motorcyclists and often takes groups of motorcyclists on guided trips to Europe. His depth of building and technical knowledge is massive and he pursues carpentry projects as a hobby.

It should be obvious from the profiles above that we are no ordinary handyman service, when you book a Silver Saints handyman, you are getting someone who can communicate well, is used to working in high pressure environments, has excellent problem solving skills and have chosen to do this job because they understand the importance of customer service and love DIY.

All our handymen have had successful professional careers but have left the confinement of the office behind to pursue a flexible, fun and rewarding career as a mobile professional London handyman.

Handyman Services, The Credit Crunch & Falling Property Prices

It seems that you can’t watch the news or open a paper these days without hearing about the ‘credit crunch’ and the related fall in property prices. But are households feeling the pinch just yet or is it only mortgage lenders and estate agents who are struggling, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7385195.stm?

There is no doubt that when property prices are on the rise, homeowners, landlords and developers are all too happy to pour money into their properties. Most companies that are in the property or property services industry have benefitted from a decade of rising property prices and a long period of economic growth. But now that the boom appears to be turning to gloom will London homeowners begin to tighten their belts? Will they still be willing to fork out the best part of £100 an hour for a London plumber or electrician?

Well the answer is that they don’t have to and haven’t had to for about the last seven years. What a lot of people are starting to realise is that they don’t need a specialist plumber to fix a dripping tap or replace a toilet flush, it doesn’t take a qualified electrician to replace a light switch or ceiling rose, why get a carpenter to plane a door? All these small jobs, the kind a good DIY-er would tackle themselves, can be done by a specialist handyman. There are a number of London handyman services, most charge about half the hourly rate of a specialist tradesman.

The only worry about getting a handyman to do the work that is typically associated with specialist trades is over quality of workmanship. There are a lot of handyman services out there, but very few can offer consistently good handymen. Silver Saints only employ handymen with a professional background with a minimum of three years experience within the handyman industry. This means that they can guarantee you will get a handyman that is polite, communicates well and has a wide range of experience and knowledge every time you book.

So as the upside of owning a property becomes less of a sure thing, I think a lot of people are going to start realising the value of handyman services over specialist tradesmen to get all those small plumbing, electrical and carpentry jobs done.