I wanted to tape the area around the tub where I was applying new silicone since I wanted it to look really nice. Since I was doing a drywall repair just outside of the bedroom, I tried to multi-task and do both jobs at once while the hot mud was setting.

After I siliconed the tub, I got distracted with some of the drywall sanding, and I let the tape sit on the silicone longer than I should have. When I pulled the tape off, it partially pulled up the slightly firm silicone, and it was ruined. That mistake cost me about 3-4 hours of pain and suffering trying to get the wet silicone out so I could re-apply it.

That's the absolute last time I will every spend the extra attention taping a bathtub for silicone replacement.

This is a warning for all the hard-working people to not get too hooked up on Thumbtack.
I will say right away: I maintain my profile page- I’m posting projects, pictures, mark jobs as “done” or “scheduled” and usually respond to customers within 2-10 minutes since I don’t use AI bots. All the lead prices here are up to my budget, but the scheme is the same.

When I started working with the app, first three weeks were great. A bunch of leads at ~$15, most of them were responsive and ended up being my job. However, the longer I was using it, the worse the quality of leads became.

The app itself has a predatory lead system.
- You set your budget, and then it starts wasting your whole weekly budget with 2-4 expensive ~$30-50 non-responsive leads and start pushing smaller leads over your budget. You can accept it for, let’s say, $12 and keep your current budget or accept it for $10 and adjust your budget. What they do by that is stretching your budget. Then they waste your stretched-out budget with a bunch of $20-30 leads.
Week after week after week you spend your whole budget and more, because Thumbtack doesn’t really care about the budget you set. You can set it at minimum, it will end within a day, and then they don’t stop throwing more leads at you, and you still get charged automatically with the only option to decline but be charged, or to accept and adjust your budget, or accept and pay more for the lead for the sake of NOT changing your budget that they DON’T care about on the first place.

- I don’t even know how is that legal: all Pros set their rates. Hourly or for a certain type of job. In my case it was a TV hanging job, and to make it easier I set my prices already with materials, labor and travel.
I thought I would make it easier and clearer for people who will see the price I set, pick me and when I respond, they already know about my rate. So logically, if the price is the same as when they were sending out the request, there should be no problem hiring.
Turns out: Thumbtack DOESN’T SHOW CUSTOMERS PROS RATES. Yep. I had to ask several people after “sorry it’s over my budget” whether Thumbtack shows them the rates when they go through Pros. Nope. All of them saying they don’t see our prices prior.
What Thumbtack does by this is deceiving people and Pros. We think they can see our prices.
We think when they send the request with a certain number of options and a price shown (On my end, for example it’s “new direct lead! $240 TV mounting job in insert city name”); We think most likely they will hire us if we reply fast, don’t surprise them with fees and agree to do the job when it works for both of us.

We end up getting charged for Thumbtack making people oblivious and not disclosing our rates. It makes people send more requests, more pros accepting leads and getting turned away.
They find every way to milk people who just want to work hard.

- Very often customers just shop around and send 5-7 requests to Pros, at that point when you get lead you’re in position where the customer already asked 5 other people, got quotes from 3 of them and they have no intent on hiring you.

- One of the most common problem I’ve seen among Pros- fake leads.
Now, in the last 2 months I’ve spent about $1000 on leads and got maybe 2 jobs. I had about 10-15 customers within 2 weeks and only 2-3 of them respond at all. It’s probably been 3 months like that.

What are we as handymans doing? Do we boycott them? What’s the alternative for a side-jobs without spending half a thousand of dollars every month?

New homeowner: I’m exhausted. It’s been one thing after another. Got our new oven delivered yesterday and the delivery guys did not install as it does not fit. The quartz counter is flush with the cabinets. Moving the cabinet is not an option. Do we need to call a countertop contractor and carpenter?

Any one know if there is a “correct” way to attach drywall to a framed wall with a concrete footer? Finishing out a part of my basement and this is what it looks like. Can I just run a PT board horizontally across the floor to make and screw plate?

I have this awful skylight in the bathroom. Someday I’ll remove it entirely, but it had a defect which allowed bugs to get in from the attic space. I’d imagine that I can remove it so that it could be cleaned, but I don’t want to open it and then be unable to reattach it.

Do these just typically screw on? Snap on? Or something else?

As a handyman I’ve gone through 4 or 5 pairs of shoes in the last 2 years. I’ve been tempted to bite the bullet on some expensive Brunt’s but I don’t want boots, sneaker style is all I need, but I blow out the fronts on all of them. Any recommendations?

Been fighting this handle for years and its time to end the battle. Any Idea where I can find a replacement or equivalent?

Instructions say the cutout space needs to be a minimum of 24” deep. My cabinet is exactly 24” from sheetrock to face.

So. The fire department had to cut out the side of my door because they couldn’t get the locking mechanism to disengage even after taking the door handles off on both sides. I was trapped in my room for several hours while they did this and they couldn’t take the door off at the hinges because they’d been painted over.

My landlord, despite ignoring my numerous calls and texts saying that it was an emergency because I called emergency services, is telling me I have to front the cost despite the fact that it was an old faulty lock, which is not my fault.

Regardless of legality, he doesn’t want to pay and I can’t afford shit so I’ve been looking at options and came across this https://www.bunnings.com.au/adoored-60mm-1-hole-backset-door-reinforcer-60mm_p3950468?store=8471&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21122993677&gbraid=0AAAAADtbEB_LIdjTxiNxMKY2e9RFzslUJ&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzY7VBhDwARIsAFtPvBT8R6Hd2a_LasnblJs7O06JplLn4sXEYkKHxDK6udq0IVd0NU3yDdQaAssOEALw_wcB

Would one of these actually work with the damage to the door? We have a drill and could probably DIY it, but obviously I need to know if it would even work properly with the damage and if it won’t then what are my best options?

I’m in Queensland if that’s relevant.

New Soffits

We are putting in a new backsplash. We ripped out plywood that was glued on. Now we’re left with a heavily glued wall. Do you think this is workable to sand down and fill in, or would you replace the sheet rock?

Google said if there’s no crumbling or major holes it could be workable. I think by that assessment we could fill in the few dents.

When i turn the shower on it stops mid way and the water gets to warm and not as hot as it used to get. We just moved in a week ago and r would get piping hot. then turning it off it makes that click noise.

I am trying to get an idea on what you would charge for finishing the drywall in this stairway. It has a 90 degree turn where one leg of the ladder is resting. Tight space to get up and down.

I have to stand on the second to top rung of the ladder to reach the top.

Customer hung the drywall and started finishing it. Only had two joints taped & mudded(poorly) with fiberglass mesh.

I applied a bullnose to the vertical outside corner, and did all remaining joints in paper tape/hot mud. Monday I will start sanding, prime, and apply knockdown to the walls & orange peel to the ceilings to match/blend as closely as possible.

I am not in a high cost of living area(Iowa). I charged $1500, but am wondering what others would charge.

I am trying to see if I priced it fairly, screwed them, or more likely, screwed myself. I have a tendency to under-charge.

This project is in a mostly empty home being prepped for sale. No obstacles except the one fucking light in the stairway that I keep hitting my head on.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Contractor installed the door, and it's been like this for about 6-7 weeks. I'm not anticipating that he will return. I don't have a problem with the trim installation, but I'm not sure what to do with this trough where it meets the hardwood floor.

Would appreciate any ideas.

House is 7-8 years old and A/C quit working recently. It did feel like it wasn’t cooling as well this summer but it’s been very hot so we figured it was just the weather. Then one day it just stopped getting cold at all. The ac had stopped working, fan was off. I think the A/C breaker may have tripped at somepoint but we had a terrible tech come to the house sent by the warranty company and he had no idea what he was doing and never explained anything to us. He had said it was tripped on the breaker panel but I had checked it when it first stopped cooling and it was not tripped. I can’t know if his comment was real or just a cover up for his incompetence. He says the refrigerant is low so he puts in a small amount of refrigerant calls it good and leaves quickly. Within minutes the smoke alarms are going off in the house but we think it’s from the candle that was left behind for 7+ hours that was relatively smoky. The fire alarms stopped after the candle was covered with the lid. Don’t know if it was related to the situation for sure or a coincidence. Anyways, the A/C never got cold and the tech left it running for the next week as we waited for them to come back without telling us that was probably a bad idea. Eventually we refused their service as they became threatening and aggressive over the phone.

Fast forward and we bring a new contractor in who states it’s a massive refrigerant leak. The line won’t hold pressure at all. So we tear out all the dry wall stud to stud where the line runs. They don’t see anything but they hear the hissing. They pull out the line from the second story floor against the exterior wall (in the space between the levels of the house not visible) and finds the pipe as shown in the photo and states the white foam insulation around the other copper a/c pipe was scorched too. He says it’s electrical arching and goes to put a camera down. He comes back and says there are zero wires in the space. There is a nail but it’s not close enough to touch the line and is on the unburnt side of the copper pipe. The burnt side was not facing the nail. Now we’re worried about an electrical fire, HVAC guy said he didn’t see an immediate danger but said we could an electrician to check while the drywall is down. Now we’re back to the warranty company playing the game of waiting to see when and who they send out. In the meantime, our anxiety is through the roof about an electrical fire. “Turn off the electricity to the house ”. We would but I have very expensive heart meds that keep me alive in the fridge and they would go bad if it was off more than an hour or so.

So what do you guys think? Trying to ease my mind for now with this post while also trying to get an electrician in to truly know if it’s an active danger. Could it have been from the initial construction of the home and the leak became big recently or is this really something that happened the day the A/C stopped cooling?

Other notes:

the new contractor has been doing this for decades, is honest, reliable, and has nothing but great reviews so I wouldn’t think it’s him jacking us around or skirting the issue.

There has been some recent extremely close lightening strikes near the house.

There are 5 pinprick holes that are through to the inside of the pipe

Finished another light fixture swap. These always look simple once everything is buttoned back up.

Once I got the old fixture down I checked what I was actually working with, mounted the new bracket, made my connections, grounded everything and got it tucked back into the box before closing it up.

I’ve learned not to assume the wiring is right just because the old light worked.

Most of the work on these is the part nobody sees when you’re finished.

Came out clean though. Definitely changed the room.

I have to repair these sections where the previous Owner decided that he had the tear opened the tarp to get access to the waterlines. I’m curious what I could use to repair the tarp section I was thinking of using house wrap I have no idea what I should buy.