Retired Golden Valley Firefighter Starts Handyman Business
Every once in a while, things in your home tend to break.
Just ask Marc Berris of New Hope.
“The sliding door is original to the house,” Berris said. :That latch has been a nuisance for the last several years. I’ve tried coming up with a solution to it, not successfully.”
So to fix that sliding door, Berris called in Curtis Smith.
“It’s a quick solution and cheap compared to having a door expert come out and charge them a lot more money,” said Smith, founder of Firefighter Handyman.
Smith may not be a so-called “door expert” but he knows his way around a house.
After all, he spent 18 years working as a Golden Valley firefighter.
“These people in various firefighter services are extremely handy,” Smith said. “They know a lot about construction, they know a lot about how a home works, so that translates really well to them knowing how to do all these handyman jobs.”
You see, Smith isn’t doing this work alone. He’s part of a team of four firefighters who started the business Firefighter Handyman, which provides home repair services around the metro.
“We tend to do the smaller jobs,” Smith said. “It’s the stuff that might be considered DIY.”
Yet not every “do-it-yourself project” is something a homeowner can, well, do themselves.
Curtis Smith, founder of Firefighter Handyman, works to repair a sliding glass door.
Trust Factor
Berris figured that if these firefighters can be trusted with people’s lives, he can trust them with some basic home repairs.
“So for me, it’s a no-brainer, trusting them to come into my home and help me with the problems that I’m not able to remedy myself,” Berris said.
Each Firefighter Handyman service call costs about $100 an hour, and if they can’t fix something, they won’t charge you.
“When it comes to it, we’re not looking to make millions of dollars,” said Smith. “We’re really looking for supporting firefighters in the fire service.”
It’s a worthy cause that will help firefighters, and help homeowners take care of those annoying projects around the house.
“They’ve done work at my home and it’s worked out perfectly,” said Berris.
The company is looking to add staff, so any active duty firefighter who can work 15 to 20 hours a month is welcome to apply.
Firefighter Handyman also plans to donate five percent of its annual net income to organizations that support firefighters.
