A handyman performs a range of repairs and maintenance tasks at residential and commercial properties. They often work for service companies that specialise in property maintenance and may travel between facilities in a particular region. A handyman can also choose to work for a single facility, such as a hotel, hospital or office block. In the latter case, they would typically report into a maintenance manager or general supervisor.
As a handyman, you could be responsible for electrical and plumbing Handyman Geraldton repair work, furniture assembly, painting, gardening or carpentry, among other duties. You could also help with a security upgrade by installing alarm systems and access control systems at a business. Some handymen have specialised skills, for example in plumbing, which they can apply to specific projects such as unclogging drains or fixing toilets.
You don’t need formal qualifications to become a handyman, but you can improve your prospects by completing an intermediate property maintenance apprenticeship or an advanced apprenticeship in a trade like carpentry or building systems engineering. These courses combine practical training with coursework.
PHIL DUNNING
Phil was born in Cossack and has spent 23 years at OneSteel, first in the store, then truck driving and out on the road as a sales rep. He’s now in Geraldton, where he’s working at Abrolhos Steel, and says it’s the perfect place to live thanks to its beach culture and sunshine. He spends his spare time fishing and playing lawn bowls. He’s also a fan of motorbike riding and is an A Grade water polo player for the B52’s.
A gardener is a person who cultivates plants for food, flowers or aesthetic enjoyment. Gardeners may be amateurs with a small suburban flower or vegetable garden, or they may be professional landscapers working on the grounds of a large estate. Gardeners often have specific design or cultivation goals, which they work toward in the form of a plan. Gardeners use a variety of methods to accomplish their objectives, from organic fertilizer to biological pest control.
A dry seed in the hand looks insignificant, but when pressed into warm, rich soil and given water and sunshine, a green sprout pushes its way up through the earth to the sunlight, and a garden is born. It is the gardener’s job to nurture this new growth into a beautiful or productive plant. This process is the beginning of a lifetime’s passion for gardening.
The beginning gardener soon learns that the garden soil is a complex mixture of mineral particles from the breakdown of rocks and other substances and the remains of decayed organisms. It also contains organic materials, such as animal manure, humus, and compost from the heaping of rotted plant material. The ideal garden soil is a mixture of clay and sand with the proper acidity or alkalinity to accommodate the needs of the plants to be grown there. Gardeners must continually amend the soil as it erodes, becomes compacted or loses its ability to retain moisture.