The Guild of Handymen’s ‘Find a Handyman’ tool works better than Freeindex’s search. If you check, you will notice that any partial postcodes entered on Freeindex merely finds which location that postcode belongs to and then a does a location search based on the Royal Mail’s location database.
This might be great if you’re a sorting office but people want to find things local to them and such a system doesn’t work …and I’m beginning to think Google rely on the same flawed system. For example, in 1974 Sutton Coldfield (where I live) became part of Birmingham. It is still however a separate postal district and therein lies the problem.
So Freeindex (and also Google) don’t think Sutton Coldfield is actually in Birmingham and hence will return results only for Birmingham or Sutton but never both. This gives the strange result that Freeindex and Google will both find a business 12 miles from me which happens also to be in Sutton Coldfield but not show one merely 3 miles away which is in Birmingham (just as Sutton Coldfield is in Birmingham).
Do you think I can get anyone to take notice of this? Yeah right!
At least the Guild’s system returns all the nearest handymen radiating from an actual postcode. But it’s nice to be ahead of Google!
Monthly Archives: February 2013
Better than Freeindex
Some things are best left to dry.
As handymen we use a variety of things for different jobs. With the greatest of care sometimes things can go where they shouldn’t but in many cases it can make matters worse to try and clean up straight away.
Examples:
Silicone and some other sealants.
If a ‘worm’ falls off the gun onto carpet especially, cover it (say with a small pot or aerosol cap) so it wont get trodden in and after it has cured in a couple of hours or so you can just pick it up and throw it away.
Also with sealant, if it goes badly wrong you can be better off leaving it to dry, then cutting it away with a sharp blade and starting again.
Wallpaper paste (and also paint) on windows
Almost everyone gets paste on the windows when papering but cleaning it off straight away just smears it everywhere. Once dry a scraper (the sort that has a Stanley knife blade) will fetch it cleanly off with no bother and also works for paint.
Expanding foam
This is a tricky one but like silicone small splashes onto carpet are often better left to dry when they will scratch off. A sharp blade can also help scrape it from the carpet once dry.
WARNING: Not all things are better left to dry.
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