Your list, priced before we knock
Tick your jobs off a list of fifty, each one carrying the time it usually takes. The hours and the price add up on the screen, then you take a slot and send a photo of the broken thing. Nobody has to answer a phone for any of it.
- $78
- an hour
- 1 hour
- minimum charge
- 8 to 6
- Monday to Saturday
- 4 days
- to a typical slot
Dean, Maeve or Denny
Whoever prices your list is the one who knocks on the day. Photo ID before anyone steps inside.
- Lic. #000000 (sample)Palmerton home repair licence
- $2M liabilityWorkers comp on all three of us
- Background checkedState check, renewed every January
- 4.9 from 214 reviewsSample rating for this concept
- 3,180 jobs since 2014Average visit, 2 hours 10 minutes
Eight groups, fifty jobs, a time on every one
If it takes one person and fits in a van, it is on the list. The times are what we allow on an ordinary house, not a best case with everything going right.
Doors and windows
7 jobs, 30 to 60 minutes each
The door that only catches in July, the latch that never held, the screen door off its track.
Walls, shelves and mounting
7 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
TVs on drywall or brick, shelves that stay level, and the doorknob hole behind the door.
Taps and drains
6 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Drips, slow drains, a toilet that runs all night, and the seal around the bath.
Switches, sockets and lights
6 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Fixtures, dimmers, a fan on an existing box, motion lights over the drive. Existing circuits only.
Kitchen and bathroom
6 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Cabinet doors hanging crooked, drawers that stick, handles, disposals and backsplash edges.
Furniture and flat pack
5 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Wardrobes, beds, desks, and anchoring the tall things to the wall before a toddler climbs them.
Outside
7 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Fence panels, gates that drag, single-storey gutters, a loose deck board, the outdoor tap.
Odd jobs and safety
6 jobs, 30 to 90 minutes each
Alarms, smart locks, curtain rails, pet doors, grab rails and child latches.
Add up your own visit before you give us your name
Three steps. Tick the jobs, look at the hours, take a slot in the next ten days and attach the photos you have already taken. The price you see is the price on the invoice, and we bill whichever of the hourly, half day or full day rate comes out cheaper for your list.
Tick everything on your list
Fifty jobs, with the time we allow for each one on a normal house. Tick as many as you like. Nothing is sent anywhere until step three.
Nothing ticked yet
What an hour costs, and what a day costs
Six numbers, and none of them move once you have booked. There is no callout fee and no fuel surcharge on any invoice we have ever written.
One hour, $78
The minimum charge. It pays for the drive, the job and the clean up afterwards.
Half day, four hours, $280
Thirty two dollars less than four hours on the clock. The booking form applies it for you.
Full day, eight hours, $520
A hundred and four dollars less than eight hours on the clock. Same person, all day.
Half hours after the first one
Ten minutes over costs you half an hour, never a whole one and never a rounded up day.
Materials at cost plus 10 percent
Receipts stapled to the invoice. Buy the parts yourself and you pay for time only.
No travel charge in the eight towns
Twenty five dollars beyond 25 miles of Palmerton, and we say so before you book.
If we open something up and it turns out not to be a handyman job, you pay for the half hour we were there and we hand you the name of somebody who can finish it.
Nine jobs we turn down, and who to call instead
A handyman who says yes to everything is the one you read about afterwards. This is where we stop, and it is on the website rather than saved for the doorstep.
- Gas, in any formLines, heaters, range hookups. A licensed gas fitter, and we keep two numbers by the phone.
- Panels and new circuitsFixtures, switches, sockets and fans on circuits that already exist are ours. Anything behind the breakers is an electrician’s.
- Pipework inside a wallTaps, traps, valves and seals yes. Water heaters, sewer lines and anything you open a wall for, no.
- Walking a roofWe clear single-storey gutters from a ladder with a spotter. Above that, a roofer with a harness.
- Walls that hold the house upTaking one out needs an engineer’s letter and a general contractor. We are neither of those.
- Asbestos and lead paintIn houses before 1978 we test first and stop if it is positive. Certified abatement only.
- Tree work above head heightNo chainsaws, no ladders into branches. An arborist has the ropes and the right insurance.
- Refrigerant and furnace internalsWe will change a filter and a thermostat. The rest needs an HVAC licence we do not hold.
- Anything needing a permit we cannot pullYou hear that on the phone, not once the wall is open and the deposit is spent.
Eight towns, and the day we are in yours
We keep to one town a day wherever the list allows, so the driving does not land on your invoice. Slot counts below are a sample of a normal week.
Palmerton
Base, 412 Wistar Street
Every working day
6 slots left this week
Halden
12 minutes
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
3 slots left this week
Brightwater
16 minutes
Tuesday, Thursday
2 slots left this week
Osgood Mills
18 minutes
Monday, Thursday
4 slots left this week
Wyatt Springs
21 minutes
Tuesday, Friday
5 slots left this week
Tremont
24 minutes
Wednesday, Saturday
1 slot left this week
Fairholm
27 minutes
Thursday, Saturday
3 slots left this week
Quarryville
31 minutes
Monday, Friday
2 slots left this week
Outside these eight but inside 25 miles of Palmerton, we come on Saturdays and add $25 for the drive. Further than that we will give you the name of somebody closer instead of taking the booking.
What Bev sent us, and her wall two and a half hours later
Bev McAlister in Halden booked six jobs on a Tuesday night and sent three photos with them: a shelf pulling away from two anchors, pictures hung at four different heights, and a socket plate holding on by one screw. The list came to 2 hours 15, which bills as 2.5. She paid $195 and $41 of brackets, anchors and filler.
Four more from the same week, with the hours billed
A door that only caught in July
Osgood Mills
Longer screws into the top hinge to pull the door back into square, then four passes of a plane on the corner that swelled every summer.
45 minutes on the list, billed as one hour$78, no materials
Two cabinet doors and a drawer that had stopped closing
Palmerton
One hinge had torn out of chipboard, so it was glued, dowelled and re-drilled rather than screwed back into the same hole.
1 hour 45 on the list, billed as two hours$156 plus $18 of hinges
A tap that had eaten two washers already
Brightwater
It was never the washer. The cartridge was scored, and the photo she sent let Denny bring the right one in the van.
1 hour 15 on the list, billed as 1.5 hours$117 plus $34 for the cartridge
One fence panel and a gate that dragged on the path
Halden
The gate post had rotted at the base, so it came out, went back in gravel, and the gate swings clear of the slabs now.
Two hours on the list, billed as two hours$156 plus $96 for the panel and hinges
Three of us, and the one who quotes is the one who knocks
Dean Crandall started Hourline in 2014 with a borrowed truck and a whiteboard of prices screwed to the side of it. That whiteboard is the reason this website prices by the hour: he got tired of reading the same forty numbers down the phone. Maeve Spragg joined in 2019 and does the work that has to look like furniture, so trim, tile and anything with a mitre in it. Denny Prieto came in 2023 out of appliance repair, which is why disposals, locks and low-voltage are on the list at all.
- Whoever you book is who arrivesIf they are ill you get a text and a new slot, not a stranger on the step with your list in his hand.
- Two million liability, workers comp on all threeAsk when you book and the certificate comes with your confirmation, before anyone knocks.
- Background checked every JanuaryState check on all three of us, and photo ID on the doorstep before anyone steps inside.
- Boots off, drop cloth down, old parts outWe hoover before we leave and the old parts go with us unless you want to keep them.
Four people, and what their hour actually bought
Sample reviews written for this concept site, each one with the job and the hours that were billed against it.
Six small things had been waiting a year because not one of them was worth a phone call on its own. Ticking them off a list at ten at night and getting a Thursday slot took about four minutes.
Bev McAlister, Halden
Six jobs, 2.5 hours billed
The number on the screen was the number on the invoice. Denny showed me the receipt for the cartridge before he fitted it, which I have never had from a trade before.
Sonny Trupp, Palmerton
One tap, 1.5 hours billed
My list ran long and Maeve came back on the Saturday to finish it. The second visit went on at the hourly rate, not as a fresh minimum charge.
Rennie Talbot, Wyatt Springs
Two visits, six hours billed
I asked about a gas heater and Dean said no on the phone, then gave me two numbers for people who could. That is exactly why I booked the other four things with him.
Weldon Drayton, Quarryville
Four jobs, three hours billed
What happens after you press book
- 1
A text inside the hour
It names the person coming, repeats your list and the price, and gives you a number that reaches a person rather than a queue.
- 2
A two-hour arrival window, texted at 7pm the night before
On the doorstep you get the price again before any tool comes out. If something on the list turns out bigger than the photo showed, you hear it then, not on the invoice.
- 3
Paid at the door
Card, tap or bank transfer. One page: hours in half hours, materials with the receipts attached, tax. No callout fee and no fuel surcharge, because both are already inside the $78.
The eight things people ask before they book
If yours is not here, call (555) 014-4680 between 8am and 6pm and one of the three of us will pick up.
What happens if a job takes longer than the list said?
The times on the list are what we allow, and we hold them unless the job is not what the photo showed. If it is going to run over you hear it before the extra time starts, and you can tell us to stop and rebook. After the first hour everything is billed in half hours, so ten minutes over costs you half an hour and not a whole one.
Is there really a one hour minimum for a ten minute job?
Yes. Seventy eight dollars buys an hour of someone in your house, and we would rather you filled it. If your job is a fifteen minute fix, tick three more things off the list while we are there. Most people find four or five once they read it.
Who buys the materials?
Either of us. We charge cost plus 10 percent and staple the receipts to the invoice, or you buy the parts and pay for time only. Say which you want in the notes when you book. For anything over about $200 of materials we will send you the list first.
Can I add a job once you are already here?
If the next booking allows it, yes, at the same rate in half hours. If it does not, we book it before we leave, usually for the same week. Nobody is going to start something at 5:50pm to make the hour look better.
Do you work evenings, Sundays or emergencies?
No. Eight to six, Monday to Saturday, and the phone goes to voicemail outside that. A burst pipe at midnight needs a plumber on call rather than a handyman, and we would rather tell you that than turn up and make it worse.
What if I need to cancel or move the slot?
Free until 4pm the day before, by text or by phone. After that we only ask for the hour minimum if the van has already left, which it usually has not. Moving a slot to another day in the same week costs nothing at any point.
Are you insured, and can I see the paperwork?
Two million dollars of liability and workers comp on all three of us. Ask in the notes and the certificate arrives with your booking confirmation, before anyone knocks. The licence number sits in the footer of every invoice: Lic. #000000 (sample).
Do you photograph what you found?
Yes, and the photos come with the invoice. That matters most for anything behind a panel or under a sink that you are never going to see again.
If your list will not fit in fifty boxes, describe it instead
Some jobs have no tick box: an odd-shaped cupboard, a landlord’s list before a new tenant, a whole morning of small things in a rental changeover. Send it here and a written price comes back by the next working morning.
- Photos help more than paragraphs, so add up to six
- Landlords and property managers get one invoice a month
- We will say no in the reply if it is one of the nine above
8am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday