So you want to know what it takes to be a handy man? A handyman must is to have very good hand/eye coordination, and you must have some commonsense. By common sense I mean if you are changing out a bathroom faucet and you start loosening the supply lines with out securing the water, you are going to get very wet. Commonsense, dont play around with electricty when it is live, you will shock the hell out of yourself or worse. Wear gloves and proper safety equipment when handling hazardous chemicals.
It takes a lot of knowledge in many different trades to be a true handyman. Sometimes you could know how to fix everything around the house but not know anything about Heating, ventilation and refrigeration. A Handyman must be able to complete small tasks around the house, here are some jobs a handyman should be able to complete.
Working on hvac systems, like checking the condenser for proper refrigerent levels, changing an air filter, cleaning dirty coils on an air handler, soldering copper piping together. Recovering refrigent, handling electrical issues with air conditioning systems. Lighting pilot valves on water heaters, replacing electrical and gas type water heaters.
A handy man must also be fluent in plumbing problems and how to fix pipe leaks, stop a toilet from running constantly, change out a kitchen sink and faucet. Replacing a dishwasher withiout flooding the entire house.
Another big part of a handymans duties is painting walls, baseboards, making drywall repairs. It could be replacing a front door, changing out a lockset, installing a bug sweep or putting weatherstripping around an entire doorframe.
Theres hundreds of different tasks that a handyman could run into, so how could one person learn all of this stuff ? They do offer trade schools for Plumbing, HVAC classes and all that but that would take forever to get through.
What I would recommend is to get your HVAC certification. To be HVAC certified you dont really need to know all that much about HVAC, you just have to know about recovering refrigerent and how dangerous cfc's are to the atmosphere. Basically just studying a book and then you will have to past 4 sifferent tests that are 25 questions each. Once you pass the test then you will be certified to handle refrigents and people will want to hire you.
Once you get that certificaton I would try to get a job at an aprtment complex preferrably and older one. If the complex is old then you know there will be a lot of work to do and you will learn alot of stuff. One thing that sucks is you will have to go on emergency call every once in a while.
Working at an apartment complex for a couple of years wont make you a handyman right off the bat but it will open doors of oppurtunity for you everywhere.
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