Doesn’t it seem like getting your house fixed is a lot more frustrating than getting just about anything else fixed? Why is that?
Let’s compare this to getting a car fixed. When you’ve got car problems, you know exactly where to go – a car mechanic, or businesses that specialize in things like mufflers, transmissions, tires, or body work. And while you might wonder whether they replaced more parts or charged you for more time than they should have, they’re not going to try to convince you to throw out your old car and buy a brand new one from them at a much greater expense. They couldn’t do that if they wanted to because they have no showroom, no relationship with car manufacturers, and while they may clean-up nicely, they’re not car salesmen — they may not even use deodorant or own a suit.
Now let’s do this for home repairs. Let’s assume you’ve got 3 of the most common repairs we run into – a door that won’t stay closed because you never hear that final reassuring “click” of the latch, a stained and peeling area on your family room ceiling from a leak above that you’re trying not to think might be coming from a toilet (i.e. “yuk”), and disintegrated, discolored caulking around your shower or tub.
Now quickly, I’ll give you 60 seconds. Name the folks you might call to fix these. The door – would that be a carpenter? Can you name one other than Geppetto and Jesus? OK, maybe that one was tough, so let’s try that water leak that’s damaged your ceiling. The only plumbers that come to mind are brothers Mario and Luigi from Nintendo, and you have doubts whether they, after fixing the leak, wouldn’t just dash off to their next world without repairing the drywall on the ceiling. And when you think about the caulking job you’re COMPLETELY stuck, having exhausted your supply of top-of-mind storybook personalities, saviors, and digital animated characters.
No problem, you think. I’ll just Google for folks who fix houses. That’s when you’ll learn that NOBODY wants to FIX houses. Sure, they’d be glad to gut and replace everything in your kitchens and bathrooms. They want to replace your entire roof and all of your siding. They want to build you a new deck. During Queen Becky’s reign, she wanted to replace all your damaged floors with carpet or tile. And when they DO fix things it’s generally in one specific area that’s so specialized, like electrical or plumbing work, they’ll often leave you with even MORE things to fix, like the holes they cut in your walls to make their repairs.
The fact is that most in the industry want to do “remodeling” and “home improvement,” not fix stuff, and that’s for a variety of reasons. Bigger jobs means more materials they can mark-up to make additional profits. Bigger jobs require fewer office overhead expenses than a collection of smaller jobs because there’s less scheduling and fewer customer service interactions. And although it might seem counter-intuitive, bigger jobs in which everything is replaced require a less skilled workforce – there’s a whole lot less creative problem-solving required when all the parts you’re working with are new than when you’re trying to make repairs fit-in with surrounding older stuff.
When I said above that NOBODY wants to fix houses, what I really meant to say was nobody but Fix St Louis. How would you know this?
Uh, did you notice that “Fix” is our first name?
Do you know of anyone else but Fix St Louis who says out loud they PREFER small jobs to big jobs? Yeah, some might say “no job is too small.” See the difference?
Do you know of anyone else but Fix St Louis that, at time of agreement, provides FIRM work dates that don’t float based upon our workload and convenience, so you can place these dates in your calendar and schedule around them? Really, how much date juggling would you want to put into a job as small as getting that “click” back when a door is closed?
Also notice Fix St Louis offers one-stop-shopping for repairs. So anything we start we can finish, so you don’t have to chase down another contractor before we come or after we leave – one who also doesn’t really want to fix anything.
So, next time you need something repaired in your home, don’t call folks who won’t be happy unless they up-sell you into a much larger replacement job you don’t need. Call us small-minded people here at Fix St Louis. We’re fixing the fixing business.
Dr Steve
Fix St Louis