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[aaronjb]

I think this is as good a place to ask as any, and since the other car forum I'm on is frequented by generally younger members, many of whom work in IT, design or some other field that requires a high level of IT skills while this forum seems to have a reasonable proportion of less tech-savvy members.


I remember back when I was self employed (going on 6 years ago now) I saw more work from home users doing ad-hoc PC repairs than I did from SMEs wanting office support/websites/etc..

I'm wondering if there's still a market for that and whether it would be worth sticking an ad in the local paper etc for home PC support in the evenings & weekends to try and make a little extra money so I can get work done on the house more quickly and crack on with other projects about the place..

Especially as recent quotes just to get a bush removed and concrete slab laid down range from £700-1500.. it seems I need more money than I thought for this whole house renovation thing!

Obviously there needs to be enough in it to cover petrol, tax, and losing however many evenings & weekends to it, but six years ago there were people willing to pay £60/hr for callouts to fix there virus-riddled PCs and I'm wondering if the market is still there, or whether a) the recession has well and truly killed that or b) PCs have become so bulletproof nobody needs those kinds of services anymore (unlikely, I know!)..


An ad in the paper isn't that cheap anymore, so I want to be reasonably sure of actually getting some work.. and I just can't figure out whether the market still exists. But I only really have two talents - fixing computers and fixing cars, and one of those two requires laying on my back in a muddy puddle getting covered in oil and slicing my hands to bits..

What say you, gentlefolk of OOF?

[Mysteryman]

Instead of trying to get money to pay people to work on your house, do the work yourself. The end result is the same.

[cem_devecioglu]

I can only talk about here..  :-/

jobwise many that you cant reach/answer in a day but payment-wise (I create this word )  [smiley=thumbdown.gif]   people like things done free, like my neighbours

[bigegg]

I get three or four people a week (tend to be older generation) asking for books on "how to fix a computer".
So I would say "yes" there IS a market for it.
BUT: as it IS the older generation, I doubt the market would bear more than 10-20 quid per hour, including callout.

That's in Wakefield, Yorkshire

How much does PC world charge, now? You'd be competing with them, so that should give you some idea.

[Mysteryman]

I get three or four people a week (tend to be older generation) asking for books on "how to fix a computer".
So I would say "yes" there IS a market for it.
BUT: as it IS the older generation, I doubt the market would bear more than 10-20 quid per hour, including callout.

That's in Wakefield, Yorkshire
How much does PC world charge, now? You'd be competing with them, so that should give you some idea.

I know someone who's quite old in Wakefield.

[aaronjb]

How much does PC world charge, now? You'd be competing with them, so that should give you some idea.

Good point - having just checked, more than I thought they charged! Anywhere between £40 and £80 per 'service' for home callouts.. I think they must have jacked their prices up recently, I'm sure it used to be more like £25.


STMO - as I say, I have two talents Neither of those is injecting cavity wall insulation, building brick walls (at least not if I want them straight and solid!  ) or rewiring a house (OK I could wire the house, but I still have to get it inspected & signed off for part P regs.) There are some things I can (and will) do myself, of course..

[HolyCount]

Rather than fixing the computers I am sure there would be a market for setting up home networks and the like --- "plug and play" isn't generally as straight forward as the makers like to think !

[TheBoy]

I think people are more savvy nowadays, generally, and restore/recovery processes easier. This added to all the people who don't really know what they are doing that has caused so much distrust, which drives down prices. And ultimately, new hardware is so cheap, and has the added advatange it will have Win7 on.

Certainly I do very little now. Now, if you can get contracts with local businesses...  ...but they have SLAs


For freebie ads, seems chipshops and taxi offices allow business cards.

[Entwood]

I set up a small business - Entwood Computers - 7 years ago .. the idea being that when I retired from the RAF that computor business would be my "employment" ....

For the first 3 years it was good, I was building custom systems and repairing a good many others. With trade accounts at a couple of parts places, and a decent reputation localy I was doing OK.

Then things got harder ... it is almost impossible to buy the component parts of a decent spec computor at the same price that the big guys, DELL, Novatech, Ebuyer are selling at, let alone adding something for your time and business overheads. With all the different CPUs and the rate at which new ones appear, a great deal of time needs to be spent researching to ensure compatability of components ... you don't get paid for that ... but if you get it wrong it will cost you.

On the repairs side, DELL is now very strong in the home user market, yet 80% of their componenets are "special" and you can't use generic parts. Many people use laptops and they are a nightmare... every one is different.

I still get called on by folks who know me to recover unbacked up files from crashed systems, replace hard drives / PSUs ... but the days of motherboard upgrades are long gone.. for most home users it is cheaper, in the long run, to buy a complete new system given the warranties they come with.

If I charged the same rate I used to 4 years ago ... £30 an hour, I could probably make £400 a month if I made it known I was back in business.

The money is in Business Services...  fixed price contracts that give 24/7 cover ... but that is a high risk area ...

And regardless of how small/large your business .. the Inland Revenue / Insurance / Bank  all require the same amount of time and effort doing the book keeping....

Personally .. I'm glad I'm out of it TBH ..

[Andy B]

I could've done with someone to have repaired my daughter's Dell laptop last year. It went to a local bloke for repairs to the hinge after she'd finished uni last summer ............ we're still waiting.  I've given him loads of slack but I get the impression he's waiting for me to give up waiting.

[aaronjb]

You all raise good points - thanks

The whole tax thing is something that scares the wotsit out of me, largely because last time I was self employed I ended up in a whole hill of trouble.. granted that was partly because I also set up a Ltd company (now dissolved, thank god) - getting fined by HMRC every quarter is no fun at all.

But realistically, losing 50% to tax, I'd need to clear ~£800 a month for it to really be worthwhile losing a large number of evenings & weekends.. 22hrs of chargeable work is unlikely, I reckon.


BTW - Andy - what model Dell is it? I happen to have a bunch of Dell hinges at home for various models (and they're generally not that hard to swap out) - repairing laptops is a pain, though, because parts are hard to get hold of unless you're a registered service center for the make in question. It's getting that way with desktops, too, as TB says.

Then again, back in the day, most of my work was "I can't connect to the interwebs!", "Yes, that's because 100% of your bandwidth is being eaten up by all the worms, trojans and viruses on your machine, Sir" (I actually saw that - thousands of connections out to bot control networks & keylogger sinks from a single machine..)

Hm. Maybe I'll just sell a kidney.

[Banjax]

Instead of trying to get money to pay people to work on your house, do the work yourself. The end result is the same.

i can't believe I'm saying this but.......I agree with STMO 

laying slabs is a piece of pi$$ if you're patient and prepare the site well 

if you're paying - either know the guys doing it or see some of their work - theres a ton of cowboys who'll happily take money off you for a job that may look good for a week or two 

[cem_devecioglu]

You all raise good points - thanks

The whole tax thing is something that scares the wotsit out of me, largely because last time I was self employed I ended up in a whole hill of trouble.. granted that was partly because I also set up a Ltd company (now dissolved, thank god) - getting fined by HMRC every quarter is no fun at all.

But realistically, losing 50% to tax, I'd need to clear ~£800 a month for it to really be worthwhile losing a large number of evenings & weekends.. 22hrs of chargeable work is unlikely, I reckon.


BTW - Andy - what model Dell is it? I happen to have a bunch of Dell hinges at home for various models (and they're generally not that hard to swap out) - repairing laptops is a pain, though, because parts are hard to get hold of unless you're a registered service center for the make in question. It's getting that way with desktops, too, as TB says.

Then again, back in the day, most of my work was "I can't connect to the interwebs!", "Yes, that's because 100% of your bandwidth is being eaten up by all the worms, trojans and viruses on your machine, Sir" (I actually saw that - thousands of connections out to bot control networks & keylogger sinks from a single machine..)

Hm. Maybe I'll just sell a kidney.

I know you are not serious but time to remind that any infection can easily kill your left kidney, meaning that game is over for you..

[aaronjb]

I laid the slabs for the shed at my flat, tis true .. but I'll need to hire a mini digger and chainsaw to do the job at the house - there's a dirty great bush that needs cutting down and then the roots digging out..

And chainsaws scare the urine out of me. So I at least have to pay someone to do that bit (bush in question is about 4-5' thick, 8-12' tall and 14-16' wide!)

I could probably cut the thing down bit by bit with a saw, but I still don't know how to get the roots out (or at least enough of them that I can kill the remainder so it doesn't just grow through the shed!)


But that still won't get the other jobs done - I wouldn't even know where to start tackling building a garage, for example..

[TheBoy]

You all raise good points - thanks

The whole tax thing is something that scares the wotsit out of me, largely because last time I was self employed I ended up in a whole hill of trouble.. granted that was partly because I also set up a Ltd company (now dissolved, thank god) - getting fined by HMRC every quarter is no fun at all.

But realistically, losing 50% to tax, I'd need to clear ~£800 a month for it to really be worthwhile losing a large number of evenings & weekends.. 22hrs of chargeable work is unlikely, I reckon.


BTW - Andy - what model Dell is it? I happen to have a bunch of Dell hinges at home for various models (and they're generally not that hard to swap out) - repairing laptops is a pain, though, because parts are hard to get hold of unless you're a registered service center for the make in question. It's getting that way with desktops, too, as TB says.

Then again, back in the day, most of my work was "I can't connect to the interwebs!", "Yes, that's because 100% of your bandwidth is being eaten up by all the worms, trojans and viruses on your machine, Sir" (I actually saw that - thousands of connections out to bot control networks & keylogger sinks from a single machine..)

Hm. Maybe I'll just sell a kidney.

There are specialist sites for recovered 2nd hand laptop spares, tend to specialise is specific makes, but google normally finds them. Or Egay.

System boards seem to be the buggers, and generally not cost effective - when a system board costs me £100, plus an hour fitting (inc testing), making it a minimum of £135, its not cost effective for people, buy a new one instead.