Los Angeles County, California
Small handyman jobs in Pasadena
Small handyman jobs in Pasadena, from Craftsman bungalows with plaster walls to the apartments along Lake and Los Robles. A TV going up on plaster, or a gutter full of oak leaves before the rain: tell us what’s on the list and you get a price before any work starts.
The price in writingAgreed before anything is scheduled
One visit, several jobsThe drive costs the same either way
No surprise when we arriveThe number holds unless the wall says otherwise
Across Los Angeles CountyFrom the Valley to the South Bay
What goes on the list
The jobs, and what they look like done
Most visits are several of these at once, and the drive costs the same either way.
Pasadena is two kinds of job. In the bungalows the wall is plaster over wood lath, the doors are original and the house has had a century to settle. In the apartments along Lake, Colorado and Los Robles it is mostly drywall over wood studs, the easy case, and those jobs sit at the low end of the ranges below.
What a Pasadena handyman visit usually covers
These are the jobs that come up here most, with the bands from our TV mounting, door repair, gutter clearing and grab bar pages. A firm price for your own list comes before anything is booked.
- TV on Craftsman plaster and lath$250–$450on a longer plate across two real studs
- Sticking bungalow door adjusted$95–$200hinge and strike before any planing
- Sagging original door rehung$120–$250usually cheaper than a stock slab that won’t fit the opening
- Single-story gutter clear before the oaks drop$150–$275downspouts flushed as well
- Grab bar through old bungalow tile$325–$650cored through the mortar bed to the framing
What is behind the wall in Pasadena
The Craftsman houses in Bungalow Heaven and Garfield Heights are plaster over wood lath, harder and more brittle than drywall, and the lath holds nothing on its own. The original full-size lumber reads badly on a cheap stud finder, so we find the framing before a bracket goes up. Patching that plaster is slower than drywall repair and priced above it, and we say so up front.
Houses from either side of the war are often rock lath under a plaster skim, which looks like drywall until somebody drills into it. The newer podium buildings near the Playhouse District have metal studs, where a drywall anchor is how a mount works loose a year later.
Getting in, and putting it all on one visit
Most bungalow streets have a driveway or a long drive back to a detached garage. Near Old Pasadena and in the apartment blocks it is more often a gated garage, or a freight elevator booked into a window, so tell us which before the day. The ladder and the hammer drill come out once either way, which is why six small jobs on one visit cost far less each than the same six spread over three. In the fall, put the gutters on the same list as the indoor work.
What we leave to other trades in Pasadena
When a job clearly reaches $1,000, or needs a permit, it is work for a licensed contractor, and we tell you so before anything is booked. Here that usually means one of these:
- A new outlet behind the TV, a new circuit, or cloth and knob-and-tube wiring found behind an old fixture, all of which go to an electrician.
- Structural repairs, roofing, or a long run of gutter that needs replacing instead of resealing.
- Sanding or cutting into paint in a pre-1978 bungalow without a certified renovator and containment.
And if the work grows once we’ve seen it, we’ll stop and tell you before going any further.
What to send us from Pasadena
- Your cross streets, since a bungalow off Washington and an apartment on South Lake are different jobs.
- Roughly when the house went up, or what it looks like: Craftsman, postwar, seventies apartment or newer building.
- A photo or two of the wall, the door or the gutter run, added to the form.
Send us the list and you get a clear price before any work starts, and nothing goes ahead until you’ve agreed to it.
Where we work
The rest of Los Angeles County
What the walls are made of changes street by street in this city, and it changes the job.
Send us the list
However long it is. You get a price for the visit before anything is booked.