What is the largest category on your current repair list?
Today's Homeowner found 82% of homeowners have at least one outstanding repair.
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Home Repair Scopebook · Polls
Polls: how other homeowners handle the repair list
These polls ask narrow questions the published surveys do not: what is actually on your list, how you prefer to be billed, where your DIY limit sits, and what made you trust a pro. Results appear after you vote and reflect visitors to this site, not a random sample. They are context for your own decisions, not ratings of anyone.
Go to the pollsPoll results by topic
Every poll below is answered by visitors planning handyman services. Results update the moment you vote, one vote per poll per browser, and your own choices stay highlighted so you can compare them with everyone else's. Nothing here is a sales survey; use it to see which trade-offs other homeowners are weighing before you request estimates.
15 polls · newly opened, so every vote shapes the first results · results saved on this device. Vote on any poll you have not answered; your own votes are highlighted.
The repair backlog
How long has the oldest item on your list been waiting?
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How often do you book a handyman for a bundled list?
Fixr finds $130 is the most common handyman minimum charge per visit.
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Which season generates most of your repair items?
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Pricing and billing
How do you prefer a handyman to price a list?
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Who usually buys the fixtures and products for your repairs?
Angi reports a 10–30% markup when the pro sources materials.
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What most often surprised you on a handyman invoice?
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Scope and licensing
When you have an uncertain item, what do you do?
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Have you checked what licensing rules apply to handyman work at your address?
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What caused the last wall damage you had repaired?
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DIY limits
Where is your DIY limit?
Hippo found 58% of DIYers spent more than planned because of mistakes.
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For a single room repaint, what would you do?
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Do you know what your interior walls are made of?
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Choosing a pro
What most earned your trust in the last handyman you hired?
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How much do online reviews influence your hiring decision?
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By the numbers
What the published surveys say
Poll results above are from visitors to this site; these figures come from published research.
82%
of homeowners say at least one area of their home needs repair
Today's Homeowner's 2025 survey found 45% have one or two outstanding items and most intend to address them within six months. The households with four or more items gain the most from one bundled visit.
Today's Homeowner, Home Repair Survey (2025)71%
of homeowners who hired a pro had postponed at least one project
The same Angi pulse found 71% now prioritize preventative maintenance. Deferral is usually about not knowing who to call or what to ask, not about the money.
Angi 2025 Home Spending Pulse (2025)62%
of surveyed homeowners were more worried about maintenance affordability than a year earlier
Angi's 2025 pulse also found 19% chose cheaper materials or services and 23% started work early to beat price rises. A written list with fixed prices is the practical answer to that worry.
Angi 2025 Home Spending Pulse (2025)84.1%
share of owner improvement spending that went to professionals in 2023
JCHS calls this share unprecedented; DIY outlays fell in the same period. Homeowners are choosing to pay for skill and speed on small jobs as well as large ones.
Harvard JCHS, Improving America's Housing 2025 (Key Facts) (2025)The big surveys give the shape of the problem. Today's Homeowner found 82% of homeowners have at least one outstanding repair; Hippo found 83% of homeowners faced unexpected repairs in 2024, and Angi's State of Home Spending report puts average household maintenance spending at $2,041 in 2025. What those surveys cannot tell you is what a person with a list like yours decided to do about it. The most telling polls are the ones on minimum charges and list length, because they show whether bundling small jobs into one visit is how other homeowners keep the per-task cost down.
The polls here are organized around the site's five themes: the repair backlog, pricing and billing, scope and licensing, DIY limits, and how people choose a pro. Vote, read the results, then take what is useful to the calculator and the request form.
What are the polls for?
Calibration against people in the same situation. If most voters with a long list preferred a day rate, that is worth knowing before you ask for hourly. If most voters said the thing that made them trust a pro was a specific written estimate rather than reviews, that changes what you look for. The polls are not statistics and are not presented as such; the site's statistics come from named sources and are attributed in the text.
They are also a check on the site's own advice. Harvard's JCHS data that 84.1% of improvement spending went to pros says hiring is the norm; the polls ask what the hiring actually looked like.
How are the polls organized?
Five categories, with the repair backlog first because it is the site's core theme. Pricing and billing covers hourly versus fixed, minimums, and material supply. Scope and licensing asks whether you have checked the rules and how you handle uncertain items. DIY limits asks where you draw the line. Choosing a pro asks what signals you actually used. Each poll's options are meant to be mutually exclusive; pick the closest.
- Repair backlog: what is on the list and how long it has been there
- Pricing and billing: how you prefer to pay and what surprised you
- Scope and licensing: what you checked and what you routed elsewhere
- DIY limits: what you do yourself and where it went wrong
- Choosing a pro: what earned trust
What have the published surveys already established?
That backlogs are near universal, that minimums punish one-task visits, and that DIY overspend is common. Today's Homeowner found 82% have a repair waiting; Hippo found 58% of DIYers overspent; Fixr found the most common minimum charge is $130, which makes one-task visits expensive. The polls start where those numbers stop, at the level of a single household decision, which is where the general repairs page and the comparisons operate too.
How should you read the results?
As a conversation with other visitors, not as evidence. Sample sizes are small and self-selected. A lopsided result is a prompt to ask why, not a rule. Where a poll result and a published statistic disagree, the statistic wins and the poll tells you something about who visits this site. The about page explains why the site keeps that distinction sharp.
Can you suggest a poll?
Yes, through the contact form with "poll suggestion" in the message. Good suggestions are narrow, neutral, and answerable by anyone who has hired or considered hiring a handyman. Questions that rate specific businesses or ask for prices in a specific city are not added, because the results would be misleading at small sample sizes.
About these polls
Can I vote more than once?
Each poll accepts one vote per visitor, tracked in your browser. Clearing browser data resets it, which is one reason the results are context rather than statistics. Vote once and read the results.
Do the polls collect personal information?
No. A vote records the option chosen and nothing about you. The site does not connect poll votes to estimate requests or to anything else.
Why are there no polls about specific handymen or companies?
Because the site does not verify pros and does not publish ratings, and a poll about a named business would function as one. The polls are about decisions and experiences in general. The reviews page explains how to evaluate a specific pro yourself.
Will the poll results change the site's advice?
They can prompt a review. Published statistics still take precedence; the polls are a small, self-selected sample.
How often are new polls added?
When a question comes up repeatedly in contact-form messages or when a page is updated with new data.
Are the poll options biased toward hiring?
They are written to be neutral and mutually exclusive, and several include a DIY or do-nothing option. If an option set seems to steer, use the contact form to say so; wording is reviewed.
Can I see results without voting?
Results show after you vote so that seeing them does not influence the answer. If you genuinely have no answer to a poll, skip it; the others are independent.
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Service guides
Service guideGeneral Home RepairsGeneral home repairs are the grouped small tasks that keep a house working: sticking doors, loose handrails, failed caulk, cracked trim, wobbly fixtures, weatherstripping, and minor carpentry.
Service guidePainting & DrywallPainting and drywall work through a handyman covers holes, cracks, water-stained sections, corner bead damage, texture matching, and repainting a wall or room once the cause of the damage is handled.
Service guidePlumbing & ElectricalThis scope covers minor plumbing and electrical symptoms a homeowner notices first: a dripping faucet, a running toilet, a slow drain, a dead outlet, a wobbling ceiling fan, a light fixture swap.
Service guideFurniture Assembly & MountingAssembly and mounting covers flat-pack furniture, TV and monitor mounts, floating shelves, mirrors, curtain hardware, and anti-tip anchoring for dressers and bookcases.
Ready to price your handyman services?
Tell us the size, the condition of what is there now, and what you want to change. Home Repair Scopebook passes your request to independent local professionals, who reply with written, no-obligation estimates. The service is free to use.