Many people ask online about handyman for minor breakdowns, cleaning & housework services or professional crew which can perform an apartment renovation. Of course, we are looking for people with positive feedback, professional experience and the best price. Good news here: there are few places which can be used for finding such professionals. If you do not have an apartment yet, but you look for one, I recommend to have a look on my previous article, about renting an apartment – just click here. And now, as usual, bulleted list of content below:
- Where can I get the best quality / price services?
- Electrician, plumber or maybe renovation – how to request a quote for your job?
- What is the estimate price of most common services?
- Emergency calls – outage of gas, heating, electricity or water
- Tauron services
Where can I get the best quality / price services?
I will start quickly with giving you proper idea about this process. I managed to find 3x separate portals which allow you to find proper service providers. All 3x of them are gathering experience about specific professions, as well as their feedback after “the job is done” from other users. Users, who finished cooperation with them. Also, in case of construction workers, of specialist who are performing “Finishing works”, you may find a picture from their previous projects. You may also check company information and validate, if it is not, for example “scummer”. Knowledge about previous experience of our “professional” or “handyman” gives us clear overview about his or her approach to the customer, manual skills or real “hands on” experience.
It is especially important, if you are planning serious renovation or if you look for someone who can for example install air conditioning in your place. These are expensive processes, so you want to have it done properly and do not waste your money, right? Portals below work on the similar way as in case of Clicktrans, which allows you to request for a quote of your transport. For example, in case of removal or transport of any bigger items as cars or pallets with goods. Click here to open article about transport in a new tab. But in this case, you would be able to request a quote for services which you require and get results almost immediately. I will explain it in detail in a next part of this article. Below names of portals.
Electrician, plumber or maybe renovation in Poland?
All type of the renovation services, housework’s and chores can be outsourced. Below I am presenting translated list of most popular things requested via Oferteo, to give you an overview, how many services might be checked or delivered there.
So how exactly does this work? Let’s take an example. In case, that I would need a help of a tiler for my kitchen floor, I would gather as much information about “the job” as possible. Square meters of a floor where tiles have to be replaced (or placed), the type of a tiles, which I want to use and the time when I would like to start with renovation. As I have this data, I open one of the portals mentioned above and choose proper categorization for my job. Finishing “requesting a quote” triggers informing companies that meet your requirements. The companies interested about your job will submit offers to you. This process is free of charge and without any obligation from your side. You pay nothing for it. In this case, mentioned companies are charged by portals for giving them the possibility to find potential customer.
From this moment, you will start getting quotes from potentially interested companies. You can check each profile, in result validate experience and feedback of specialist who reacted on your offer. But there is one thing here, related with price. How can you check, if specialist who you chose, does not inflate the price?
What is the estimate price of most common services in Poland?
I will come back to my example with tiles. Actually, a gres tiles (stoneware). KB.pl (Kalkulator Budowlany) gives you opportunity to check current price of specific services. Just go to the Price List (Cennik) and choose proper category, so you can check what is the average price of specific service per square meter, with or without material (if applicable) and net or gross (without and with tax). Prices are sorted city wise provided in alphabetical order and divided in to Voivodeships (województwa). Having in my mind, the approximate square meters of a kitchen floor (10 m2), and taking into the consideration average price in Kraków, 133 zł brutto per square meter, I would expect a cost around 1330 zł brutto, of course without material. Keep in your mind, that you can always negotiate the price, and the example above is just a reference for you, what should be the maximum brutto price which you should have expect in case of specific service.
Emergency calls – outage of gas, heating, electricity or water
Except regular malfunction of household appliances, you might have as well problems in general with electricity, gas, water, or sewers. If any of mentioned media will cause an outage, you are eligible to get a help from technical emergency, so people who are supporting issues with delivery of all media mentioned above. However, there is one thing which you need to know. You can’t call them in any kind of a case. So for example, the technician from “electricity emergency” will not come to you in order to fix your laptop or hair dryer. But you should call them, and they will show up, if the malfunction affects your house or the whole district.
Below you can find the most important numbers for technical emergencies. Once again, remember about the impact and scope of malfunction – these emergency numbers, as the name say, supposed to be used in case of a real emergencies.
- Electricity emergency – 991
- Gas emergency – 992
- District heating emergency – 993
- Plumbing emergency – 994
Tauron services
One more thing which may help you if you want to have a technician available 24h/7. Tauron offers packages for electricity and gas together with mentioned technicians. Of course it is not for free, since you need to sign 3 years contract with them, but still – such technician seems to be a really good option, especially if you normally need to call handyman for fixing your equipment pretty often. I listed below, scope of a repairs, which Tauron offers for signing a contract with them:
- a service technician will repair audio and video devices and household appliances
- an electrician will remove the failure of the electrical system
- a gas service technician will take care of heating and gas repairs
- the glazier will take care of the broken glass in the window
- the locksmith will replace the lock
- the plumber will fix the dripping tap
- an air conditioning technician will take care of the air conditioning
- an IT specialist will repair your computer
If you are interested about this offer, just click here to read more and get details.
Summary
That is all, as we talk about finding services of handyman for minor failures and specialist for big jobs. Let me know what is your experience with technicians, but also if you have any other ideas about finding proper specialists. This might be good “a piece of the story” 😊
Would you like to read more publications about “Home” on my blog? Click here. You can also get to main “Table of content“, which is available here. Do you want to stay in touch and get updates about new posts? Subscribe now.
7 Comments
Ilona · 11/03/2021 at 16:53
What a terrific article Mateusz! Thank you.
I wished I had read it in 2017 when we were doing a flat renovation in Warsaw. It went well but at a cost.
Look forward to more of your articles – perhaps on “how to buy a house” in Poland?
Thank you. Please keep educating us expats and foreigners.
Mateusz · 16/03/2021 at 20:50
Hi Ilona – thank you for your comment. I am happy that someone can use this knowledge. “How to buy a house” and “most common DIY stores” plus advice about way for getting additional bonuses, are on my “to do” list. I need to say honestly, that buying a house only, will be material for 2 or 3 separate articles 😉
Barry Reynolds · 07/04/2021 at 11:40
Very interesting and helpful!
Thank you
Baz · 24/04/2021 at 16:56
really useful,
Sascha · 28/08/2022 at 14:52
Very useful, thank you for this article!
One service I seem to be missing from websites like oferto and the like: Energy advisors, isn’t there such a thing in Poland?
We live in a rented house that has a gas consumption that’s easily multiplied by 2-4x compared to similar houses in the neighborhood while we are still freezing in winter. Landlord isn’t really much help here as he always says it’s the same he’s paying and “gas is expensive in Poland” (with the upcoming raises I don’t want to imagine how much more that’s gonna be…). I already installed smart sensors and timers at each heater in the house, which reduced the gas consumption marginally in winter.
I’d really like to have an independent (paid!) advisor that could pinpoint the weak points in the house and give us some guidance for further talks with the landlord. Do you know where to find these?
Thanks!
Mateusz · 29/08/2022 at 15:32
Hello Sacha – these things exist, and we call them Thermovisual research (Badania Termowizyjne). I also paid for such examination before I bought my own house. Here you will have a link to one of the example specialist, who I found in google. It is not my personal recommendation – this is actually the first company which I found in google, when I typed it “Badania Termowizyjne”. I hope it helps.
https://pewnylokal.pl/lp/badanie-termowizyjne.php
Energy bills - Electricity - Make Life Smart.pl · 25/03/2021 at 16:09
[…] Remember that you have the right to choose your electric energy provider and the type of the tariff. Once again, I will provide you link to my favorite types of a websites: search engines and comparison portals. In this case, it is about Rachuneo, which allows you to compare all available offers in your area, on the base of your zip code. I advise to find proper provider and contact him directly, via his website. As you choose subscription for longer period (2-3 years), I strongly recommend thinking about additional specialist who should be included into such contract. I described it already in my previous post – click here. […]