Al the Handyman

This is my favorite handyman. He’s knowledgable, and does the job right. I had Al and his guys install a bunch of trim at my house and they hit some snags when installing. He’s was careful to call me and explain the problems before proceeding which I appreciated. End result was satisfaction. One thing to note is he’s no the most affordable handyman in town. However in this field you get what you pay for…

Al is an absolute Godsend. I’ve been a homeowner for only a month and someone kicked in my back door on a Tuesday afternoon. I made an appointment with a 24 hour door replacement company and was under the impression they’d fix my door right away. However, when he gave an estimate the next morning he said it’d be at least a week! My door was only nailed shut with two boards and I couldn’t wait that long. I found Al on Angie’s list and gave him a call. He said he could have someone out that afternoon which was AMAZING. I occasionally steer away from the best rated companies because they tend to charge more but this was not the case; he has over 100 reviews and an A rating. I was also able to save money by picking up the materials myself at Home Depot. Al and I sat on the phone while looking at Lowe’s and Home Depot online to make sure they had the right door in stock. He was knowledgeable without even looking at my door and told me exactly what I needed; he even knew the measurements just by knowing it was a right-​handed door!
Paul arrived at my house within an hour to do the work. He looked at the area and gave me a list of extra things to pick up just in case they were needed (they weren’t which is great). He confirmed the type of door I needed and removed my old one while I was picking up the new one. He installed a stronger strike plate and installed 4″ screws to make the door harder to kick in (that I purchased separately). Afterwards, he swept the area and helped move my wine hutch back into place. I’m VERY pleased with my door selection, installation experience, and quality of work. The estimate Al gave me ($ 375 standard installation including old door disposal + the cost of a door of my choice) was spot on when he easily could have charged an emergency fee or not trusted me to pick up the materials myself. This wasn’t a situaion that I could afford to shop around and I’m so thankful I didn’t need to. I highly recommend this company!

Al was great for the simple projects that I had him do: he responded quickly to my phone call, fit me in the same day, completed my projects in a timely manner, and didn’t grossly overcharge me. In my (admittedly) limited experience with contractors, that seems like a pretty great deal.
A few weeks ago, I had Al hang some shelves and repair some cabinetry trim that had come loose. He did both jobs well in a reasonable amount of time and charged me by the quarter-​hour (rather than the standard half-​hour). He was pleasant to talk to while he completed my projects, if a bit on the chatty side. He even took a look, free of charge, at a plumbing problem I had and recommended a good repair outfit to help me.
Al does charge a $ 50 service call fee on top of his hourly rate; he was upfront with my about the rates, so I wasn’t surprised, but do be aware of the service fee when comparing quotes from other contractors.
I’ll use Al’s services again in the future, but only when I have enough items on the «honey-​do» list to justify the service call fee.

I had placed a call to Al the Handyman services Wednesday Nov.24 to get an estimate on some roof tiles I need done on my house. Al himself answered the call. He seemed pleasant and had scheduled to fit me in on Monday, Nov 29^th from 12pm to 1pm. I thought that was quite quick and convenient seeing as it was going to be during my lunch hour.
Monday came I drove home from work and waited till about 12:30. No call, no show. I called Al and apparently he had forgotten. It appeared he was driving, he pulled over and looked at his schedule and he noticed I was written down for 12 – 1.
He mentioned he received an emergency service call and would be at my house by 1:00pm. I waited and waited and waited till 1:30pm no call, no Al. Was quite dissapointed. I have yet to recieve a call from him to this date. If you want unreliable services then Al is your man.

Don’t Risk It!
I’m sure this outfit is capable of doing decent work under perfect circumstances. I didn’t get that. I see that others here didn’t either. When the conflict came up, he sounded good… we’ll take care of it… no problem… and then it came to «can I get that payment now.» So, taking him at his word, I paid. Well, the story changed soon after that.
So… here is the background. He left a «crew» at my house with no one as a supervisor. One guy was ok, seemed to know what he was doing for himself, but then the other guy was totally unskilled and, of course, neither of those guys were able to supervise the work. So, I asked them to start on the simplest task — change the two leaking outdoor water spigots. They managed to do one, and they managed to twist the copper pipe on the other — inside of the brick wall, and never did even get the spigot removed. And this was right after I told them to be careful. They tried to muscle the spigot off of a copper pipe, without even using a second wrench on the backing nut that was on the pipe connection. Twisted that thing so it was pointing almost perfectly sideways, when it was straight down when they started.
Back to the work being performed at my house on that first day. The skilled guy spent the morning disconnecting the kitchen sink that I was having them replace, while the other guy spent the rest of the morning staring at a ceiling fan that I asked him to hang. Didn’t even have to put it together as it had been in another room that I replaced already. And, yes… it was another replacement, so all of the mounting hardware was in place too. Al had explained the work to him prior to leaving that morning… all he had to do was to attach the mounting pole to the fan with 2 bolts, hang it up in the ball socket and attach 3 wires that I’d already identified and mapped out for him. NO KIDDING — He spent 2 full hours just staring at this thing like a deer in the headlights. I was about pull my hair out. Talking to Al about it, he begins saying crazy excuses for this. «It is an older fan so it takes longer.» WHAT??? OK, so the fan may be 10 years old. Has ceiling fan technology changed that much? Does it require a good staring at to make it work??? Insanity. Trouble is, he would say things like this with confidence — Like he really believed it. So anyway. The fan works. I could have done it in 10 minutes.
Now… to the kitchen sink. Yes… the one that the skilled guy spent 2.5 hours disconnecting. Al came back and actually supervised the installation of the new sink that I’d bought. Spent a lot of time getting the drains right, so they don’t leak. I didn’t think to check the faucets. I have the main faucet for tap water and another from a filter that is attached to the cabinet under the sink. Yes, I’m sure you guessed by now… they both leaked. The filtered water faucet was just a small spout with a simple lever to use it. Hard to mess that up. Well, if you stretch that little hose so tight that you can play a note on it, it will pull out of its connector. The faucet hole for it was a little further away from the filter itself. I checked on the drains a few days later and saw that leak. I guess it was too much for him to do to remove those 2 screws that held the filter on the cabinet and move it a couple of inches. Oh well… I was able to do that. Just a little damage from the big wet spot on the pressed wood cabinet bottom.
What about the tap water faucet? Could not be bad, right? Well… if you put it back together with all of the pieces that you took out of it, that would be true. But, if you leave out a big rubber washer, it will probably leak too. Sure enough, they were able to prove that one too.
Well, I’m preparing my house for sale. I want everything to be really nice. I had 2 bi-​fold doors to put on a closet and half bath that were added to the house previously. Al did these himself. Seemed to do it well, finished it pretty quickly, certainly a reasonable time. Took a closer look when I was painting them a week later or so — they weren’t straight. Had different sized gaps between the door and the frame at the top and bottom. I was able to adjust this and make it right. Should have been that way when Al left.
After dealing with the lies and fantasies for excuses for bad work, I ended up with a really bad experience with Al the Handyman. I can look past mistakes when they are admitted and corrected. But not this. I will never call this one again. I’d hired Al because I had a lot to do. My Bad!
If you need a handyman, call one that you know you are getting the person with the skills at your house — NOT someone who will drop off a flunky and then try to cover it up later. Better yet, google it & do what you can yourself.
If you need a plumber, hire a real plumber. Check my reviews. That one fixed Al’s work and I had him do a big job later that was perfect. A real craftsman and for a better rate!

Does this plumber make my butt look sore? Because I feel like I just got… piped.
Problem was the shower in the guest bathroom. Couldn’t get a comfortable warm water mix. Hot? Check. Cold? Check. Warm? No check. My shower knob’s a little wiggy too, but I can still get a pretty decent mix — not perfect, but decent. The guest bathroom is only a problem since my little sister moved in and started complaining.
So I called Al the Handyman.
I left a message Monday evening and he called back first thing Tuesday morning. Rockin’. I explained my warm water problem (or lack thereof) and he offered to drop by later that afternoon. Perfect– except that I was in San Antonio for the day on business. I suggested Wednesday, he said he’d be there at 3pm. Still rockin’. Then my girlfriend calls me at 3pm, pulls me out of a meeting, says there’s a guy there to fix a leak, not sure if she should let him in. Um… not so much rockin’ anymore. The first of several miscommunications to follow.
Al arrived early for the Wednesday appointment with an intern/​trainee in tow. He did call first to make sure arriving early that was okay, which it was, he even warned me his intern might show up first. Very thoughtful. When they arrived, I demonstrated my shower problem. Easy fix, he said. 20 minutes max. The knob was supposed to pull out, that was the problem. It was supposed to pull out but it didn’t. What I had was a broken pull out. He just needed to replace the stem. $ 20 at Lowe’s. His intern would even go pick it up. But since I was paying for the full hour service call and I wanted to get my money’s worth, I figured what the hell, why not get my shower knob fixed as well. he checked it out. Same problem, he said — another broken pull out. So off his intern went, off Al went, and then the intern returned half an hour later and replaced both stems.
So aside from some minor miscommunications, all is well at this point. Until I check the knob in my shower, which doesn’t pull out.
«Um. I thought it was going to pull out — wasn’t that the problem?»
«Oh no,» the intern says, «it’s not a pullout. Al thought it was a pull out at first, but it’s not.»
«Ok, so what’s different about my shower knob now that you’ve replaced the stem?»
«Nothing,» he says.
«Ok, so why did you replace it?»
«You said you wanted it replaced.»
«Um. I said I wanted it replaced if it was supposed to pull out, because that’s what Al told me. Why would I want the stem replaced if it wasn’t broken?»
«I don’t know,» he says.
Wrong answer.
«Let’s check the one in the guest bath,» he says. So we check the one in the guest bath. It doesn’t pull out, either, which is fine though, because now it works — warm water mix! Somebody’s sister was going to stop complaining.
«So you’re really going to charge me for replacing something that didn’t need to be replaced?»
He’s just the intern, he reminds me. So I tell him to call Al. He calls Al. I ask Al why they replaced the stem that wasn’t broken if it’s not a broken pull out like he told me.
He says, «Because you asked me to.»
«Yeah, because you said it was broken. Because you said it was a pull out and it didn’t pull out.»
«It’s not a pull out.»
«Yes, I understand that, but that’s what you told me.»
«Well, it was going to fail eventually.»
«Um. yeah, well, everything’s going to fail eventually. It worked like it was, it wasn’t broken, I didn’t need a new one, I only asked you to replace it because you said it was broken.»
«Yeah,» he says, «I thought that was weird.»
Yeah, Al didn’t care. He charged me for it anyway.
So did he fix my problem? Yes. Did he fix another problem that wasn’t a problem and charge me for it anyway? Yes. Will I call Al again? No.

One of the most painful jobs for a homeowner is serving as general contractor on basic home repair stuff. Finding a handyman to do it is really helpful.
I have had Al’s team clean windows /​windowsills, hang lights, repair drywall, paint, concrete, fix a door, etc. They can do it all and charge a reasonable by the hour price. Some of his guys are more experienced that the others, but he generally does a good job of getting the right crew together to get a good job done.

Wow, we have sure had our share of bad handymen over the years – flaky, just average, you name it. Al has his STUFF TOGETHER! He was easy to work with, very organized and has an excellent crew. They are all very good and work together well. They painted our nursery, fixed lights (including minor electrical stuff) and are coming back to do some additional work soon. I can’t say enough about them. Maybe they are a little pricier, but trust me, you don’t want to skimp on a handymen. You get what you pay for!