The Eighteen Hour Playset: A Lesson In Estimating Humility

If there is one thing that I am learning very quickly as a handyman it is that estimating can be very difficult. With that being said it can be easier with the help of AI; I enter the product I am assembling and the LLM gives me an estimated time. It is one of the main ways in which I use technology and AI to help improve my business. It is very helpful, when I listen to it. When I think that I am better than what the LLM tells me the suggested time is, I lose… I learned this lesson the hard way. 

I was contacted by a customer to assemble a child’s playset in West Henrietta, NY a suburb of Rochester, NY, so I entered into the LLM “how long should it take an experienced handyman to assemble (child’s playset)”. The LLM said 12 hours with two people a single person alone should be able to do it in around 16 hours, but it would be best to dedicate an entire weekend to the project. I did not take its advice, feeling confident I told the customer that I would give them my full day rate of $525 and that it should take me about 8 hours.

I assumed that things like the wall panels or tube slide sections would come fully assembled… They did not. Everything needed to be assembled, hardware that was shown and listed in the assembly instructions were not included. Needless to say I did not complete the job in one day, much less one trip. The job required three trips to the customers house and about 18 hours to fully assemble the entire play set. 

I learned my lesson the hard way, but that is exactly the phase of growing a business that I am in-the learning phase. Humility would have helped me a lot when I was in this situation, but so would experience and the only way I can get the experience is by showing up and doing the work. Yes, there will be more mistakes like this, there will be underquoting, there will be plenty of going over my expected times as I gain experience as a handyman and business owner. As a drunk man once said “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.” 

Written By: Ian Clayton- Owner and principal technician at MacLeod’s Handyman Services