The Home Healer

It took a while to schedule the appointment but, once it was scheduled, he arrived on time. My kitchen faucet is quite old and was leaking quite a bit. It wasn't a really tricky job, but the parts took a while to find and there was a lot of corrosion in the mechanism. Ted cleaned it up as well as he could, replaced the bad parts and there is no leak now. At some point I plan to remodel the kitchen and at that time I will replace the fixture, but I don't want to do that until I am ready. Ted is a very nice guy and I will probably be calling him again in the future when I need more handyman work.

Even though our Angie's List membership expired just prior to the service Ted used our cellphones to keep in touch and didn't just assume we were flakes, I appreciate that. He kept us informed when the previous job took a little longer. He did a great job with the repairs and we can't wait to have him back for some other jobs. We gave him a small tip so the bill was less than $200. We found his labor rate equitable and his work top notch.

We had a good experience with Ted the first time so we had him back to do the bathroom sinks. He is coming back to replace a shower and toilet. He is a very nice guy, an efficient worker and reasonably priced.

I liked him as a person, and I trusted him. He seemed to be an honest person. There was even one time in September when I was gone, and I gave him the key and he came inside to work. The only thing I didn't really like is that he has a store and he has two jobs. So he only came over between some things for two or three hours. So it took much longer to get those things done because he didn't stay the full day. Sometimes I can get a better deal when the person stays at work all day. I think his price was a little more expensive than some others. The fact that he couldn't work the full day; I made three or four hours available for him. I wanted to be flexible for him because I did appreciate him helping me, but to me it was a little bit of a negative thing. I probably would use him again in the future.

Everything turned out great. He showed up on time and did everything perfectly. I was very happy with the results.

See the comments in services performed.

Provider arrived on time, was polite and provided a quote for services discussed. The provider is a nice guy, obviously has experience in handyman work, but we had to request for the quote to be sent via email, remind him to add one of the projects we had already discussed during the visit, and the end pricing did not work for our budget so we went with another provider.

We had a mysterious leak in the kithcen wall of our rental house. Which started with a bulge just under the paint surface, then ran down the wall. Ted was quick to respond. After some exploration he determined and explained his approach which entailed cutting a hole thru the sheet rock in the ceiling. He found and repaired the leak, then patched both holes quite nicely. This is an old house (1910) and so is much of the plumbing. We were concerned that a heavy handed plumber might disturb the plumbing further down the line but Ted was familiar with working on older homes and did his best to work with care. The work was done efficientyl, quickly and affordably. You can't ask for more then that.

He was looking at the one that I had to fix and he recommended that I replace it and he purchased it for me. Including the purchase of the unit, I spent around $312. He was just easy to trust. He was very calm and honest. His price was reasonable. He was easy to work with. He will do a small job, which is nice. He will charge a reasonable amount for a small job. I had no complications with him.

Ted handled all of the tasks with ease. In one afternoon he put my house back in order. Great service with a very pleasant "can-do" attitude.

I felt like my experience with him was very good; he was extremely personable and very nice. I thought he had a great deal of integrity and he asked for money up front to buy the doors but he was an absolutely stand up guy about it. The work he did was excellent.

It was very nice working with Ted. He arrived on time and performed excellent work. He had various screws and materials in his tool box that came in handy. He has a lot of experience working in art galleries and that was very helpful with the type of work I needed done. There was a little miscommunication with the hourly rate I was quoted, but everything turned out ok. I will definitely work with him again and will recommend him to friends.

UPDATE from member in reponse to provider comments 9/13/10: Following up on the report dated 9/7/10 and response from "The Home Healer." In my initial contact with "Home Healer" I specifically told him that the inspection we had done on our house had a small list of repairs including the installation of interior and exterior GFCI outlets, replacing a nonworking GFCI in the garage, putting a box around loose wires in the crawl space and replacing roof vent boots and a leaking crawl space vent. I told him there were 2 exterior outlets, the kitchen area and 3 bathrooms that would take at least one each in addition to repairing the garage GFCI. He suggested he may have to go through walls to ground them, which alarmed me. So I contacted an electrician who said a home built in 1980 would present a simple case of replacing the outlets with GFCI units and would take 1-1.5 hours or 2 at the most, garanteed. When Ted called back to schedule a time, I decided to let Ted do the work, despite my misgivings, because he could do the other non electrical items on the inspection list, and since we had both educated ourselves that going through walls would not be necessary. He should have come with supplies. I did tell Ted I was really not satisfied with billing us for over 6.5 hours to install seven GFCI outlets and a single electrical box in the crawlspace (no wood work/sheet rock to deal with) before just writing the check at the end of day. Ted had the opportunity to ammend the bill and did not. It was really dispointing because I had hired Ted 3-4 previous times for various handyman jobs and all of his previous work work was really well done. My take-away on this experience is always get a firm bid and insist on pre-approval of any unanticipated overages.

I couldn't recommend Ted more. He made my move into an old house go smoothly by identifing problems before they bit me. And he built an apsolutely beautiful chicken coop from scratch without plans.

Bad first impression, won't go any further.

Based upon my past experiences with Ted, I have gladly recommended him to my clients who were preparing their home for sale. His promptness in scheduling, punctuality and skills were an invaluable help to them. In one day he completed everything on the list and helped to transform this property. The following day we were able to stage the property and within 24 hours there was a full-price offer with no contingencies. We couldn't have done it without Ted!

I told the handyman that I needed work on my home to be done either on the 21st or 22nd of December. he said that he could do the work on the 22nd and so we agreed that he would do work on the 22nd. I took a half day off of work in order to be home to let him in. He did not call and did not come to my home on the agreed date. After waiting, I eventually decided to call him to find out why he didn't show as he said he would and he told me that he had too much other work to do that day and could do it another day....I reminded him that I had to have the work done by the 22nd, and he said he forgot about that....so I ended up not getting anything done by my due date and he wasted a half days work of pay because I took a half day off from work...he was unreliable, and a terrible listener.

If other work come up again The Home Healer will be first to be called.

Ted has been an absolute blessing to us. We have a number of rental homes in Vancouver and have had horrible experiences finding reliable and honest contractor/handyman service providers. From the minute we contacted Ted, this has been a different experience. He has been prompt in communication, completely professional, thorough, intuitive and fair. We have had him work on three houses so far, and have an entire list of other jobs we're hoping he will complete for us. Now that we know someone like him exsists...we're not letting go! We just can't thank you enough, Ted.

Ted was not able to make our first appointment, but we were able to set up another time very quickly. He was professional and did a great job. I will definitely call Ted again, as projects come up.

Ted Newton came to my house to look over the job and give me an estimate. Other potential contractors did not visit the project but just gave me an estimate over the phone and their prices were higher. I scheduled the job with Ted but it was raining that day, so Ted postponed the work by a week. He started the job on 6/17/09 and completed it on 6/18/09. Ted did the job to my specifications and left the work site clean when he was finished.

Although Ted could not take on our project, he spent extra time advising us on how to proceed. His advise helped us find a contractor that was better fit for our project. We have other projects coming up in the future, and we will be definitely calling him.

Ted was very friendly and professional. He came to do the work within a few days of calling him. He did a very good job.

He cut too much off of the doors and left a hole in the back of them, and he tried to leave without telling me he messed up. So he bought a whole new door and fixed it for me. He did do a good job on my front door and replacing lights. But it took a few hours longer than it seems it should have. He was also being paid fifty dollars an hour.

Ted was great! Prompt, congenial and a pleasure to work with.