Why is this?
Says who? A home repair person is just that.
Now, If I come to remodel your kitchen as XYZ Kitchen, Inc., I am likely a contractor who might do part of the work, and contract out parts to electricians, cabinet makers and plumbers.
I am a contractor at this point. Big jobs usually require a contractor.
Little jobs, like a gutter cleaning, or patching a hole in a wall: Handyman or general repair. Don’t usually know these folks as contractors. Can they be a contractor? Sure.
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What is a “home repairman”? Never heard of it.
I think you need to provide more info before a meaningful answer can be given.
ETA: Of course, construction got hit hard in the last few years, so maybe: Great Recession => Contractor = handyman.
Guy who remodels your kitchen or finishes your basement/garage and so on. I see that one advertisement attached to this thread is for “Local bathroom contractors”.
It’s not true that only those who contract out the work are called contractors, and most of the contractors I’ve encountered do not contract anything out. But there could be something to Philster’s suggestion, and the term might be a distinction between these mid-level repairmen and smaller-time specialists.
“Contractor” by itself is almost meaningless: all it means is someone you’ve contracted (hired) to do work.
There are “general contractors” who tend to be project managers. They often hire “subcontractors” which might include carpenters, electricians, mechanical contractors (plumbers, HVAC, steamfitters, sheet metal workers, etc.), tile workers, all kinds of others. And, of course, you can hire those types of specialists directly, which would make them simply contractors to you.
Contractors that work on homes are just one type of contractor. There are government contractors and contractors for private companies as well. It usually means that you do project based work and aren’t a permanent employee of the entity you are providing a service to. There are military contractors, software contractors, etc. Home repair and construction contractors are one type of those but not the only one.
I originally thought you were referring to the difference between a “contractor” and an “employee”, but given your example, I think the answer you’re looking for is “because ‘contractor’ makes them sound more professional than ‘handyman’”.
But you had a contract with them–an agreed price for a given scope of work, before the work was done. The other way to do it is for the repairman to simply bill you for all his time spent and all his materials used, after the job is done; that’s typical for small service calls but for larger projects customers usually want to know in advance.
Because in order to do the work you need to be licensed and that licensing board refers to contractors. In my area this license is called a CCB license.
Stands for Construction Contractors Board.
And you need that CCB contractor’s license even if you are a one man handyman and do no sub-contracting. A handyman IS a contractor, needs the CCB license, or you are dealing with someone who is skirting the law.
I used the following terms:
usually
likely
Can they be a contractor? Sure.
There are no absolutes here. It depends on who you hire and the type of role they play. A contractor might take work cleaning gutters and not sub-contract any work. The some company/person might install windows. They might do the whole job one day, because they can, and on another site they might need to sub-contract some work to a carpenter or siding specialist.
A local handy man (acting often as an independent contractor) might do everything.
So… it depends.
To work for someone on repairing or remodeling their home you are required to have a contractors licience for any work over $200 (I believe that is the limit).
I believe CAlifornia has a handyman contractor licience for unskilled or semi skilled work.
Yep, you need some kind of contractors license to do almost any work on someone else’s home for pay. Quote from the Oregon site.
It depends on the state. Some states have pretty tough exams to get a contractor license. In some states, anybody with a hammer and a pickup truck can call himself a contractor.
The licensing part consists mainly of telling the contractor/licensee what they need to do to keep from getting sued. It isn’t really a knowledge test about construction, it is a ‘do you know your obligations?’ test.
The state wants its fee and for you to be bonded (so you can be sued if needed) and that is about it. I know several ‘anybody with a hammer and a pickup truck’ types, but they paid the fee and got the license.
The other guys with licenses are real quick to turn in any handyman with out a CCB number.
As spark240 was getting at: technically, anybody you hire to do anything whatsoever is a contractor. You either have a verbal or written agreement to pay for work performed, either of which would be considered a ‘contract’ should it come to lawsuits. It’s a nitpick, of course. Most people think of contractors as larger entities performing larger scopes of work. As a former contract administrator, I don’t observe that distinction, and I don’t do verbal agreements. It just makes things much clearer between the parties involved.
And there are plenty of in-betweens. In WA, for example, there’s no exam but the law requires that you register as a contractor and provide proof of insurance and bonding.