Mr. Handyman of S. Orange/Westfield/Scotch Plains & Metuchen

One of the partners (Bruce) gave us the written estimate soon after visiting to view the projects we had in mind. He did charge for this, but offered to estimate at no charge from e-mailed photos. We were very satisfied with his knowledgeable and thorough inspection and felt the fee was appropriate. He was wonderfully prompt in scheduling the services and offered both advice and encouragement for our wanting to perform some prep tasks. The technician (Robert) was consistently on time on each of the four days he worked. He performed the installations in a very professional manner, worked steadily and very skillfully. He was informative, respectful, courteous and always pleasant. He cleaned up the work area after finishing each day. He instructed us as to what he was doing and why, advised us how long to remain off the new floor and advised us of problems that existed and that could be addressed at another time, if we desired to do so. The technician (Robert) was excellent and we have already asked Mr. Handyman to send him to perform additional work in the near future.

I had calls in to several contractors/handymen who didn't get back to me and I was so relieved to find somebody that actually returned phone calls and showed up. They provide a huge list of services so I was glad to know that once they took care of this small job for me I had someone I could call for the rest of the handyman tasks that have been hanging around forever on my to-do list. It was easy to get an appointment, they came when they said they were coming, the cost was right on the estimate, and they left the place clean.

I had used Mr. Handyman for some work around my house so when my elderly mother's live-in companion called with some repairs needed in her bathroom, I called them to help. It was a job that required a couple of days' work because of the tiling, and they could only give an estimate because they had to pull down tiles to see how much sheetrock was water damaged. But they tried to keep the price down wherever possible, saving the tiles to reuse, and only doing what was needed. The whole thing was a little complicated logistically because I arranged it all over the phone from work, with the Mr. Handyman office and the workers who went out there both for the estimate and the job dealing with my elderly (Alzheimer) mother, her companion who had to let them in and show them what was needed, and me on the phone with everyone. But with some patience, it all went well, and the work was done promptly.

From the first phone call, and the estimate, to the install, everything was handled promptly and professionally. Mine is an older house (circa 1946) and the original owner did a lot of his own work with not-so-great results that I am gradually, gradually fixing. The basement windows were cracked and unsealed and when the driveway was paved the windows on that side ended up below grade so they got water and moss (and earthworms and other things). Now I have custom-sized windows, with screens, that open and let some ventilation in, and they don't let any water, bugs or mice in. I took some pictures which I know are unimpressive, I really should have taken some "before".

From beginning to end, the Mr. Handyman team was by far our best contractor experience. Always on time, whether it was the daily work, the initial quote, or even a quick review to make sure we were happy with the finished work. I can't tell you much that is appreciated. Dennis was our daily handyman. He communicated constantly and effectively, and allowed us to move around some of the initial work we asked for once we ran into problems, so that we could stay on budget and on timeline. Initially, we were going to have the team paint as well, but when we ran into delays because of the way the original drop ceiling was mounted, rather than tack on extra days and hours, we decided to paint ourselves. Dennis then worked out a plan to make sure that everything that needed to be done before painting began was done for us. All of his craftsmanship is excellent. He worked efficiently, and always stayed from 8 until 5 p.m., with only a 30 minute lunch. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to have a contractor that doesn't pick and choose their hours, or disappear for a 2 hour lunch. We are extremely happy with the work. Our basement looks like a whole new place, and we even feel more accomplished having had a hand in some of the work. We will hire Mr. Handyman again and again.

Dean Anderson was the technician. He arrived on time, he understood the job and went right to work. He then gave me a report card on my house and he left me a list of what Mr. Handyman can do inside and outside my house in the future. I would use this firm again.

Bruce from Mr. Handyman was great. I had a foyer chandelier installed at my parents' house as a Mother's Day gift. Dave arrived on time and waited outside so that we could "surprise" my parents. The job went smoothly. They paid a ton of attention to details and had a great attitude. This is the 3rd time I've used Mr. Handyman. I definitely plan to use them again.

The tech was personable, agreeable and professional. He worked at a fast pace, yet did a high quality job

It was a good experience. they did very nice good. The clean up at the end could have been a little better. The price was a little steep, but I knew that going into the contract. Very proffessional and on time.

He is wonderful. He discussed what he was going to do. He also gave us the price range.

He did a great job and was very pleasant to work with. Will hire again! Thanks!

I got a call from them shortly after I emailed them. I told them a few of the things I needed repaired. They said I could even add to the list and give it on the day of the appointment. He repaired everything on my list and even suggested alternatives for a couple of the jobs. He was punctual, worked hard all day, and was very professional.

This company is amazing to work with. They've done a variety of work for us from small repairs to large projects such as installing a center island range hood where there never was one as well as sealing our driveway. The range hood installation was a long project that required attention to detail. These guys didn't stop until it was exactly right. Every job they have done exceeded our expectations. The entire team form the managers to the technicians are very professional and easy to communicate with. They answer the phone when you call and follow up to make sure the work that was done is still holding up. These guys are worth every penny, they must the most professional and courteous handyman company we have ever dealt with.

Dean did the work on our house, and I was happy with the results. They are a very professional company to deal with. I would prefer a fixed rate pricing system instead of having to pay an hourly rate, but the overall price for the job was reasonable and I would definitely use them again.

I called for an estimat for some general work to be done in my garage, ie; install shelves and an entry door, which i had already on site....The told me, they only come out to the home , job unscene and price it by the 1/2 hour.... it was way to much money, what she quoted me for the job at hand and overall most jobs u can get a free estimate, so they were not a good fit for me.

Dennis arrived on time and was prepared to get right to work once I showed him what I wanted done, even though neither he nor anyone from his company had seen the job before then. He worked here for two full days without a helper. None of the time was spent shopping, with the result that he didn't sheet rock the walls he framed, but he had enough lumber from the wall he took out, t o frame out what was needed. When I visited the job, several times each day, he tended to talk to me rather than keep working, so I left him alone most of the time. Nevertheless he had a number of good suggestions, a few of which I followed. It was easy to review and plan the work with him. The expense for one skilled worker for two days was ridiculously high, but having read previous reviews for Mr Handyman I was prepared. The hourly rate was fully disclosed in advance. Dennis was pleasant enough, and got me over a hump in my renovation. Later when other workmen followed, much of his work had to be redone and the word "amateurish" was used to describe his work.I would not use him or anyone from "Mr. Handyman" again.

I had used this company in previous years and had a great experience; however, when I called them this time, it seems like the owner has hired incompetent workers to perform services. Firstly a man came out to perform an estimate on the work that needed done and underestimated the job because he did not write down everything that needed to be done. When the second man came out to start the work, he was looking around and the real price of the job began to triple from what they first man had told me. The work that the man began to perform was shoddy and I told him to leave my home because he were not qualified to perform the plumbing and other repairs that needed done. After he left, I wrote a letter to David expressing my dissatisfaction with the poor quality of work that the man had done - he never followed up with me at all.

Bruce and Dean did what they promised. They are true professionals. I would use them again in a heart beat. Mr Handyman of S Orange-Westfield-Scotch Plains "righted" what Mr Handyman of New Brunswick messed up.

Mr. Handyman sent over a team member Jimmy who is extremely knowledgeable. From start to finish, Jimmy was interested in doing the job right! Jimmy had excellent suggestions and genuinely cared about the best job possible. Jimmy worked quickly and with focus. The job cost more than I had hoped but Jimmy replaced the stairs in such a way that this project should never occur again. The owner threw in a couple of discounts that were much appreciated. Overall, this was a positive experience. Any future projects with this company will be contingent on using Jimmy as he "knows his stuff!"

It all started with a storm door in need of repair and a subscription to Angie's List I received as a Christmas present. My very first call to Mr. Handyman was answered, I believe on the 1st ring, by Anne. A VERY good beginning and 1st impression. She voluntarily explained their employee vetting process without me having to ask.....a clear sign to me that this employer is proud of the employees and their skills. I was able to schedule Mr. Landis at a mutually convenient time to repair the storm door. He was a joy. Prompt, personable, skilled, quickly diagnosing the problem, and thorough in every way. During my initial conversation with Anne, I mentioned I had other items needing attention. She recommended I make a list and do a walk through while Mr. Landis was here which worked out perfectly. I e-mailed Anne the list; we e-mailed back and forth a time or 2, but when I had more questions unsuited to e-mail, she graciously agreed to make a phone appointment with me @ 7:30 one morning before I had to start seeing patients... again.. for me, it worked out perfectly and all my questions that could be answered @ that time were handled. Based on the pricing rates contained on the original invoice, which by the way was meticulous, we were very, very close in our cost estimates. Because of my work, I need long lead time to be away from my Clinic and arrange coverage. This first encounter was in Mid-March and I was able to schedule the additional work without difficulty for 2 consecutive days in the beginning of May. The day arrived after a confirmation phone call from Bruce, and so did Michael and Anne.. not only promptly, but early. We did a quick walk-through and they tackled Day 1. They brought a stunning work ethic not often seen these days; self-directed, internally driven, collegial and collaborative; truly mature, experienced and skilled professionals. My first priority was the dining room and as it turned out, it was "bigger than a breadbox" with much more extensive damage from birds nesting under the window a/c unit. Long story short... needed a new a/c unit, new sill, a new window, AND a creative solution to keep out more "nesters". They could have just 'told me that" and left it, but no... not only did we use my iPad to go on line to find the proper size unit recommended in Consumer Reports + the closest location for me to get it, but they also made several calls to find a vendor for the new (not "off the shelf") window, ordered it for me, had it delivered to them, and scheduled a 3rd day for installation. Let me give you another example....the stairway down the basement. I had a "small repair" to the ceiling listed; Anne took one look @ it and said "Oh... this needs to be fixed..." and so not only did she "fix" the ceiling, but stripped the tape from the drywall, scraped, re-taped and spackled it, but after it was dry and before she sanded it, she completely taped off the bottom of the stairs with floor to ceiling plastic drop cloths to protect the clothes stored there and put on 2 coats of paint! Day 2 proceeded apace + a bit more than the 8 hours for each of them. Did I mention that not one single moment of those days was wasted? Tasks were handled concurrently; there was no "disappearing" from the house...pretty much everything they expected to need was brought with them and at hand... no "oops...I have to go out to the truck." They were completely focused, disciplined, diligent multi-taskers and personally delightful to have in my home. Clean-up? meticulous; not a paint drop, not a wood chip; all the trash carefully bagged and taken outside for pick-up and after they vacuumed up the last speck, I'd be willing to say it was cleaner than when they arrived! Day 3 was a week later, again preceded by a confirmation call that the window was in and Mr. Landis would be coming the following morning. Same smooth, expert performance; old window OUT; new window IN including custom cut sill and fitting like a glove; old a/c OUT; new unit in, caulked, pitched perfectly, seams sealed and taped...no more BIRDS! and just in time for those 4, 90+ degree days we had. I could go on, but am running out of superlatives. I've shared my experiences of course, with family and friends, e-mailed fotos of before and after, and snail-mailed the "checklist" of available services not only to others here in NJ, but to Houston, LA and Seattle... even with my patients when they've asked "So how did it go???" This experience was like watching 2 executive chefs, working in concert, seamlessly preparing an elaborate, multicourse meal and having each offering come to the table perfectly prepared, exquisitely plated and ALL AT THE RIGHT TIME! It was amazing............... Just a hint... they are VERY organized and so I'm glad I tried to be as well; made a list, did the walk-through, asked questions, planned ahead, elicited their recommendations and had purchased all the supplies I could to make the work go as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

I still start with what were the pros and then outline the cons ... I will try to be objective and share my experiences with others. I think your experience will depends on the job that you needed to get done. In my case, it did not work as well as expected. Pros: 1) Spoke to Anne (office manager) and David (the owner) on the phone, both were very pleasant and very helpful in scheduling the job and trouble shooting to start the project. For example, David offered to help picking up our door in the morning from Home Depot. 2) Bruce (the other owner, not sure if I got his name right) and Dean (the carpenter) were at Home Depot and picked up the door at the time promised. 3) Dean has decent skills as a carpenter. We have an older house and he was able to salvage frames and put them back together. 4) Through out the process, Anne and David have been communicative and hearing my concerns and it does appear that they do the best they claim they could. For example, they did honor the Angieslist coupons. And they did reduce the rate of second helper as David has promised. David also waived the second day charge for the hour used for Dean shopping at Home Depot. They also trimmed down the price wherever they could, unfortunately still over the estimate by way over $1200 (doubled the original estimate). 5) They offer one year warrantee for the job they do. Not sure how I can use it, but when I needed it I will know if this policy works. May have to update on this one. Cons: 1) There were many fees tagged onto the project that were not clearly stated from the beginning. For example, there is a Van stock fee $12 everytime they pick up something for you at Home Depot. And in addition I was charged with van use fee $15 and disposal fee of $75. It is probably a good idea to have your clients know about these fees before they sign you up for the job. They may not be a factor, but I think customers would like to know. 2) I was charged close to $500 for additional materials purchased to install my door. But I was not provided any itemized receipt for what the materials were purchased and what they were used for. There were clearly plenty materials left over. On day one, sheets of plywood were taken away and never returned the next time they showed up to complete the work. Other carpenters / contractors that I worked with always provided receipts without me having to ask them and they always return extra materials so I could get the credit back from Home Depot. Not sure why Mr. Handyman doesn't do it. 3) Although Anne and David listened to my concerns, they really could not do much to fix them. Much is due to their rigid and hefty hourly rate structure. For example, David original quote was $1000 and Ann was around $1200, so I thought the worst case scenario would be $1200 or little over. I did shop around before hiring them and the very professional door installer will do the job anywhere ranging from $1200 up to $2000. My problem was with timing and also $1000 to $1200 estimate is in the ball park. 4) The job started on a Friday and they did not "finished" the job until Monday, because they had other jobs to attended to on Saturday. The original quote was one day, front door job really should get done in one day. 5) I put a quotation around "finished" because the frames for the door were installed, but they were left unfinished. Not painted or stained. Some nails were protruding, not many .. just a few .. enough to be noticed. I don't think it is a reflection of Dean's work, he spent 2 days on a job that was rapidly pricing out of control, so I think at the end, he was rushing to finish because we all realize this project's budget was growing out of control. I have worked with different excellent carpenters before. Perhaps Dean's inability to perform his job fully was restricted by time. Additional example was that there was damaged dry walls around the door frame caused while enlarging the opening. This is common for any jobs, what is uncommon is that Dean did not repair them. Again, that would cost additional $100 an hour just to do small jobs like that. 6) If I had hire a professional door installer, they would have framed, painted, stained and repair all the damaged dry walls and done it in one day with a few guys. Perhaps, my job is just a wrong job for Mr. Handyman. But I think it is for Mr. Handyman to know what they can do and what they can't and provide that information to their clients. I ended up spending additional days and $ to get my door frames painted and stained. Still have to repair the damaged dry walls. 7) The most shocking thing to me was that today, Bruce (the co-owner) got into my fenced in yard and let himself in to pick up the extra wood studs left from job weeks ago. There were around 14 of wood studs left and I was either going to return them to Home depot for credit or use them for my basement work. Perhaps this an innocent mistake (or oversight) by Bruce for going into my property without notice and get a permission (especially having to do with removing items that belong to us). I went out and asked him what was he doing, he replied that he just wanted to take the wood studs (this is 3 weeks later) with him that he have them in his truck already. An advice to Mr. Handyman, please do not go to your clients or ex-clients' houses without proper notice and permission (like a phone call or ring their door bell to get permission would be legally correct) and remove anything from their property. Because I wasn't sure how long before we will embark our basement work and I would hate to see good lumber go to waste, although Bruce did offer to put the wood studs back, I told him he could take them but just give me refunds for them. I also requested for the itemized receipts, he told me that they don't give receipts for their jobs. Anyway, he left without confirming whether he will give credits back or give me a copy of the receipts. Summary: In general, they are responsive. Again, David and Anne gave me the impression that they do care about their clients. Dean is capable and I do feel that they do try to listen and work things out with their clients every step of the way. However, a good business is to provide dependability and provide fair accurate pricing from the beginning to the end, so the client doesn't have to worry about over budgeting every hour and needed to stay alert for a simple project such as a door installation. Also, I thought the unanticipated fees need to be disclosed before hand and hefty hour rates may need to be adjustred in order for them to serve their clients better. They also should give their clients receipts for all materials purchased and credits back for any unused materials. Also, I never had a contractor that would come back to my house to pick up anything without proper notice and permission during and/or after a job. This is not only just a case of about taking materials without permission, this also has to do with the fact that any home owner can feel violated and feel unsafe for any un-permitted visits, especially to removing items from their home, by anyone, period! Although we have security system protection, this gives me a motivation to put up additional surveillance system. I wish I had better experience with Mr. Handyman, because I picked to work with them due to their fairly good reviews on the Angieslist.

We were very pleased with the job from start to finish! My calls were returned promptly and Karl did a great job in addition to advising and accessing some of the additional work we will be doing in the future. He came ready to do the job, went out for materials, and got right to work! Thanks David and Karl!

They said without even looking at my deck that it would cost $150 for the first hour.

The person I spoke with over the phone told me the hourly rates, and based on my description of the repairs he gave me an estimate of how long he thought the job should take (this turned out to be pretty accurate). The actual work was done by Dean. There was a delay to start due to a personal emergency, but the office called promptly and kept me informed. After that everything went smoothly. There was one downspout which needed a part he did not have, so I paid for the work that was done that day. Dean returned two days later to finish the remaining work.

Greg was very nice, professional & knowledgable. Greg replaced a faucet and made some adjustments to a radiator for me in a rental property that I have all work was done within the hour. The tenants and myself are happy with the work performed and will use the company again as there are several things on the property that require attention.