"Like Kwik-Fit, but for houses"

That's how Bruce Greig, the founder of 0800handyman, likes to describe his business.

"Companies like Kwik-Fit have transformed the car maintenance industry so that people can now have simple problems fixed on their cars, for a set price, and by someone who is polite and friendly and trustworthy."

0800handyman is doing the same for the home maintenance industry. Before 0800handyman, it was very difficult and expensive to get someone to fit a set of taps, or put up a new wall light, or put up a few new tiles in your bathroom. You either had to do it yourself, or pay someone the best part of £100 an hour to do it for you (and they would often turn up late, try and charge you for things you don't want and drink all your tea).

Bruce Greig worked in the City until an experience with rude, over-charging plumbers made him leave and set up 0800handyman (originally called RedJacks).

"I literally spent three days waiting for various plumbers to come and fit a new sink in my kitchen. The only one who eventually turned up (late) wanted to charge an extortionate amount and insisted on replacing the existing (brand-new) pipework. In the end, I just bought some bits of copper from B&Q and did it myself. I realised that if I could do a job like this, there were probably many similar jobs that didn't have to be done by a specialist tradesmen, but could be done by a smart, flexible handyman. So I resolved to set up a business which would offer better service, and lower prices, than I had experienced".

That was in June 2001. About eighteen months later, the business attracted the attention of Jim Zockoll, the founder of the Dyno-Rod drain cleaning business. Jim saw the potential for the business to expand nationwide and decided to invest in the RedJacks (as it was called then) and offer the support of his group of companies to help with the expansion.

At the same time, we decided to change the name from RedJacks to 0800handyman to make it clearer what service we are offering. This re-naming took place in May 2003.

Since then we have steadily expanded our core London business, and have expanded our geographic coverage through a number of franchisees who operate the 0800handyman service under licence in their areas.

We now employ nearly forty handymen across the whole business, and have an office of five full-time staff.