Picture glass and fragile windows.

On Friday I attended a job with one of our handymen that was to change sash cords and re-weight about 6 sash windows. The office was in Piccadilly in a quite and old building that still had the original glass in the sash windows.

In times gone by the glass manufacturing process has changed somewhat and modern glass is far thicker and more robust than the glass used say 50 years ago. This particular building still had the original glass in the sash windows which is 2mm thick (As apposed to 4mm modern glass) and extremely fragile and unfortunately one of the glass panes broke while we were attaching the new sash cord. This is a very rare thing to happen for one of our guys as we always take as much care as possible but these things do happen and the important thing is how we handled the miss hap.

I got on the phone to Seamus in our office and asked him to source a glass cutting shop within walking distance that I could pop along to get a replacement piece of glass and some putty to hold it is place. Five minutes later Seamus had texted me the address of a place nearby and with in thirty minutes I was back at the property with the replacement glass. We obviously did not charge for any of this time and the customer was pleased with how we handled the situation with the minimum amount of stress or inconvenience to her.

Handymaning, You tubing and blogging.

Last week I decided to go out to a job with one of our London handymen to film him hanging a flat screen TV. We have a office camera wich is pretty decent but is no professional video camera so I wasn't sure how the video would turn out given we dont have a tripod to keep our average camera steady. After a bit of basic film editing and some music the video turned out brilliantly and we have decided to post it on YouTube.

I have decided to make a video of a different job each week and post it on our youtube channel as a sort of how 2 guide on some of the more common jobs we do and I cant wait to edit some more videos and stick them up on YouTube. Not only does this give me oppertunity to learn about something I have never done before in basic film editing (although I cant tell you how straight forward it is) but it also allows me to spend the day out of the office learning from one of highly experienced handymen and meeting some of our fantastic customers.

Lastly it also gives me something to Blog about.

Changing Sash or Spiral Balances

A job we come across regularly is changing sash or spiral balances. A sash balance is a modern alternative to a sash cord and made up of a spring inside of a thin pvc tube that is set to a certain tension when fitted to take the weight of the window.

I quite like spiral balances as an alternative to sash cords mainly because once you have fitted sash balances for the first time it becomes a doddle and having sash balances also means that when it comes time to change them it is much quicker, simpler job because you don't have to dismantle the window as much.

Don't get me wrong sash cords are a tried, trusted and effective technology and all of our London handymen can change both sash cords and sash balances.

I'm of the opinion that someone who can change sash cords should also be able to change sash balances. It is generally a very straight forward job and there are even a few video tutorials available on the web that demonstrate how to change sash balances but because they are less common than their sash cord cousins, people (Even some handymen I have heard of) tend to shy away from them and would rather get someone else to do it.

It appears Silver Saints handymen have become somewhat renowned for changing sash balances, just today I had a call from a property renovations company that have never spoken to or used us before that would like us to change the sash balances on three windows at property they are renovating. It turns out we were recommended to them by another company that had heard about us through the web and used us for much the same thing.

I think the only down fall to having sash balances is that they are made to size for each window which means they are not something you can easily source off the shelf. You have to take some measurements of the window and identify what type of glazing the window has and then order the balances online. This means it is two visit job, one to take the measurements and order the sash balances and another to fit the balances. Our handymen have done this many times and can take the measurements and identify the glazing for numerous windows in a matter of minutes so you are normally only looking at paying our minimum half hour charge of £40+vat. Most customers usually get us to do something else while we are there to fill the half hour and once we have the price of the replacement balances we can usually give you fixed price for the job of fitting them.

If you know you have sash balances or even if you are unsure but know your sash window is not working the way it should be why not give us a call on 0207 0999 199and one of our friendly and experienced operation team member will advise on what is required to repair your windows.

Overcoming obstacles

Being a handyman service with handymen that travel around on motorbikes (And one on a bicycle) we are sometimes limited to the things we can carry on our bikes. Our handymen carry a wide range of tools for almost every job you can think of though materials such as timber are difficult, for obvious reasons, to carry on a bike.

This doesn't stop us from doing jobs that require these types of materials as there is almost always a solution to supplying large materials. A good example of this would be supplying and fitting shelves, this is a job we get asked to do quite often and even though our handymen can not carry the shelves on their bikes we can still get the job done by sending a handyman out to you for either for a half hour minimum charge so he can take some measurements, assess what materials are needed and you can get him to do some other jobs while on site to fill the half hour or you can choose our survey and estimate service where we send a handyman to your property to take measurements and asses the job. This visit is charged at £35+vat and can normally be carried out at more flexible hours to accommodate the customer and if you choose to go ahead with the work we will then knock the £35+vat off the final invoice.

The handyman will then source the materials himself or get one of our experienced operations team members to do it and either have the materials delivered to your door by our supplier or have them delivered to our office where our operations team can then arrange a suitable delivery time usually in the evening or on weekends.

It is this dedication to overcoming obstacles that your average handyman service does not have the will or desire to over come that really sets us apart from the rest. I find it personally satisfying over coming these obstacles at the minimum of inconvenience to our customers.

If you are unsure of weather or not the job you want doing is something we do why not give us a call and one of our friendly experienced operations team members will be happy to discuss and even give advice on what the best way to get the job done is.

This is why we call ourselves THE London Handyman Service.

Changing tap washers

Leaky taps are our bread and butter. Solving a dripping tap is the type of job we love and it’s also one of the most common jobs we do. Most taps still operate on a rubber washer system and changing the washer will 9/10 times solve the leak. All of our handymen carry tap washers with them and it normally only takes 20-30min to change the washers on a set of taps (Providing we can easily turn the water off).

There are some more modern taps that we call quarter turn taps which have replaced rubber washer inserts with something called a ceramic disk. In principal these ceramic disks are meant to last much longer than tap washers which in most cases they do but, and there is a big but, they don’t last forever and when they do eventually go they are far harder to replace than your average tap washer. The action of actually changing them if very straight forward, it is the sourcing of the correct ceramic disk that is the hard part. There are literally 1000’s of different size ceramic valves out there and just going to a local plumbers merchants won’t do the trick any more.

Luckily, here at Silver Saints – London’s premier Handyman Service, we have become specialist at sourcing replacement valves for quarter turn taps. Most other plumbing services would suggest replacing the tap entirely but most times this is not necessary. There are two ways we can solve the drip for you, one way is to send us a picture of the tap via email or mobile phone and we can identify the manufacturers of the tap and get a price on replacement ceramic disks from them (We do this for free) or the other way, if you are not confident taking the pics, is we can send one of our friendly and experienced handymen out to have a look at the tap, see if he can identify it and if he can’t then he will send the details and pics of the tap to us here in the office and we can source the parts. This visit will incur our minimum charge of £40+vat for the first half hour.

Ceramic valves usually cost between £20 and £30 per pair depending on the tap and take about 2-3 days to arrive at our office. Once they are here we will give you a call to book in one of our handymen to fit the replacement disks and presto your leaky tap problems are solved.

Leaky taps is not the only plumbing job we do, we also repair leaking showers, faulty electric showers, plumb in washing machines, dishwashers, repair leaky pipes... the list is endless. Why not visit our website and see if the jobs you need doing are something we can do. I can almost guarantee that they are!

Free quotes and estimates.

Do free estimates really exist? I tend not to think so. Many services these days offer free estimates and quotes as a way of getting their foot in the door with potential customers and I can understand why a customer would want more than one quote from a few different service providers but let’s be honest, anyone giving a free quote is always going to factor the cost of that quote into his final quoted price. Sure he may not ultimately get the job but just because you have not paid for his time to quote you does not mean that no one will.

I like the idea of a local tradesman giving free quotes to the area he either lives or trades in because that area is his main source of business and if he provides a good enough service at a reasonable rate and people are serious about getting the work done then free quotes won’t be all that necessary because he is more than likely assured of getting the work.

I think what worries me is larger firms offering free quotes because firstly they can afford it more and that it has now become industry expectation to get a free quote for work meaning that allot of time is spent going out to peoples house or offices and giving free building advice as opposed to visiting a potential customer with a clear idea of what they want doing.

There is also a difference between a builder giving you a quote to add and extension or even re-fit an entire bathroom and a handyman giving you a quote on changing a kitchen tap. Because there is this expectation of free quotes every now and then people question why it is not necessary to come out and see them to give a quote on changing a kitchen tap. After being in this industry for a few years and our handymen having the collective experience of nearly 3 lifetimes of home and office maintenance we can pretty much guarantee that 9 out of 10 times changing a kitchen tap will take no longer than 1 to 1 ½ hours. The key here is that Silver Saints London Handyman Service offer a service that we believe to be the most experienced, reliable and up-front in London so we want to be in a situation that our customers trust us enough to be happy that we are charging them fairly for work that is being done by someone who has done this sort of job many times and will not try and drag things out. Another important part of the service is that our handymen our experienced enough to recognise that if the tap or whatever job we are doing for some reason will not be completed in the time we have estimated over the phone he will tell you before the job goes ahead and you have option of sending him away without charge.

I appreciate there are some jobs that cannot be done without seeing and quoting on first and for this we offer a survey and estimate service which is charged at £35+vat. If you decide to go ahead with the estimate we have given, we will knock the £35+vat off the final invoice. This way you know exactly what you are in for those more complex jobs.

Silver Saints London Handyman Service is here to change your perception of the home and office maintenance industry. Why not give us a call on 0207 0999 199 or visit our website at www.silversaints.com There are not many jobs we can’t do!

Londons best handyman service.

Hi All,

Apparently blogging has become all the rage these days and no self respecting internet user who feels they have something to add or purely wants somewhere share info should be without one. This is my first blog post and I will mainly focus my blogging on recent exciting events and share some of the trials, personal satisfaction and general enjoyment of these events.

I am originally from South Africa and came to London at the tender age of 19 straight after I finished high School and have now been in London for 4 years. For the past 3 years I have been working as the operations manager of London's largest and most successful handyman service but in December the company was sold to a larger less personal and more faceless organisation.

When I originally started as the operations administrator it was only the MD, GM and I with 12 full time handymen on the road. At the time of sale the company had 25 handymen on the road, 5 full time office staff and roughly 8 operating franchises.

The sale came as somewhat of a surprise and the expectation was that the new owners would continue the success garnered through unparalleled customer service and employee job satisfaction. Unfortunately this was not the case and I became concerned that the direction of the new owner was not a direction I felt confident in following. I was not alone in this feeling and both myself and the GM resigned and decided to start our own London handyman service called Silver Saints.

Here at Silver Saints we believe that there are two things that are vital to the success of a service such as ours and these are an extremely high and personal level of customer service and happy, experienced and friendly handymen. Fortunately we have both!

If there are any odd jobs you need doing around your office or home or even if you just want some advice why not give us a call and one of our friendly operation team members (I or Seamus) will be glad to help. You can also visit our website www.silversaints.com which we think is brilliant