Where to find reliable handyman services in Berlin?

Hello emrefxsahin,

Welcome to Expat.com 😀

Your thread is now on the Berlin forum. This should help.

Cheers,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

It is difficult to find any craftsman in Germany, no less an affordable, trustworthy AND reliable one!

The best method is by asking friends and neighbours, whom they could recommend. (And then hope that they have appointments free in the next months ...)

I had BAD experiences with portals like Myhammer and Blauarbeit, so I would NOT recommend them: You find only hopeless ones there, who fail to get any business by the usual means (usually for a reason)!

And as for the cost: 50 - 90 €/hour per person is usual (plus materials and a lump sum of 50 - 100€ for the drive to your place and back). Anyone offering his/her services for much less is desperate or illegal.

If you want furniture put together, some shops/stores do offer that service for an extra fee. You would have to check with them when looking around.

Super difficult in Germany. Referrals from friends are a help but not a guarantee. I own my apartment in a 10 unit building, like a condo type of ownership in the US. By law the house community has to have a Hausverwalter or house manager that organizes things like the insurances etc. They can often recommend workers or businesses. But I had a simple plumbing job last year and it took over 10 months to get someone to fix it after contacting 4 different companies, the first 3 having been recommended by the house manager and a fellow owner in the house. And the people who finally did the work did an ok job but kept going back for the right pieces etc. and I ended up paying double the estimate.

I’m skeptical about online platforms for such workers. Why don’t they have enough work since others have long waiting lists? And not a good idea to have someone from another region show up to do the work since any follow up corrections; (an often occurrence) means them having to return. Hard enough as it is to get local companies to follow up correctly.

Hey emrefxsahin,

I am renovating my house, and also struggled with the same thing.

I started a directory of builders that speak English and are trustworthy.

****

I hope this helps you on your search,

Jake

@SprechenSieEnglisch? A good idea in principle, and since there is no mention on the site of fees (although commercial match-making between craftsmen and customers is big business in Germany!), I will allow the link in your post.

But you should have mentioned that the site only lists a low two-digit number of craftsmen (of only five crafts) in Berlin, the sections for Munich, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Hamburg are empty and other places not even listed as options. So this is of limited use right now. Will it grow and expand to other cities (while still remaining non-commercial)?

Hey emrefxsahin, I am renovating my house, and also struggled with the same thing. I started a directory of builders that speak English and are trustworthy. *** I hope this helps you on your search,Jake - @SprechenSieEnglisch?

Impressum

Datenschutz

AGB

At the bottom of the page is incomplete, thus breaking EU law.

@beppi

It does look like a version of My Hammer, but unfinished, which is never a good idea.

@SimCityAT Thanks for the note.

My own experience with Myhammer and similar websites for finding craftsmen was VERY negative: It seems that the ones active there are only the desperate ones, who fail to find any engagements via the normal channels - and there usually a good reason why (usually incompetence). The prices there, however, are pretty low.