Terms of service

Metro General Services is a service plan-based concierge contractor specializing in maintenance and home improvement services for residential properties, licensed as a Class “C” contractor in Virginia (DPOR #2705183173).

Customers wishing to retain our services may do so through one of two Service Programs:

Handyman On Call (HOC): A recurring service program geared to regular maintenance and cleaning of exterior features of your home, although you may use this service for any non-recurring maintenance related work.

Handyman On Demand (HOD): A service program for non-recurring or low frequency recurring service needs.

For an easy to read summary of our service plans, click here

Handyman On Call – Scheduled Service Plans

How The Plan Works: Typical maintenance services such as gutter cleaning, house washing, and other recurring maintenance are billed at a fixed price regardless of actual time on site servicing a building.
That means you are paying for a block of time set aside for your home, which may not all be used, because your service call is being treated as if you are a new maintenance task. If you are getting services done on a regular basis, as recurring service calls, those tasks typically take less time to complete, but you are still paying for the service as if it is being done for the first time.

It can get even more costly when you must search for different contractors for every different project for your home. One company to clean windows, one to clean your gutters, one to wash your house, one for carpentry, one for painting, and the list goes on. Each one of those contractors usually has a minimum charge, may have diagnostic fees, add-on services, etc.

Handyman On Call puts an end to that headache. One company to do all your basic maintenance needs. No add-ons or hidden fees. Labor time is charged only while we are on-site working. If we need to diagnose your problem it is billed at the same time rate used to fix the problem, no exorbitant separate diagnostic fees. You only pay our normal man hour rate for the specific type of task from the moment we arrive to the moment we leave.

We supply all materials, which we sell to you at a mark-up to cover off-site labor and expenses related to acquiring and delivering them, but unlike other companies you can purchase some materials yourself and have them on-site ready for us to use, saving on mark-up costs.

We even set-up your schedule for recurring services based on your home’s needs so you don’t have to call us for the basic needs like gutter cleaning, house washing, window cleaning, and we can adjust your schedule as you want.
How To Activate Your Plan: You purchase a labor time bundle of 10-man-hours. You can buy as many time bundles as you need. They are good for the year they are purchased, and any unused time will expire at the end of the year, if you choose not to renew your plan.

How To Renew Your Plan: Purchase at least one 10-man-hour time bundle every January 1^st. As a bonus when you renew, you get 2 additional man-hours added to each time bundle purchased in January, up toa maximum 12 additional man-hours. When we invoice your Handyman On Call plan for renew on January 1st each year, it will include the same number of time bundles you purchased during the previous year, excluding time bundles purchased for any special projects. You may request an adjustment to renewal invoices until December 30.

What Your Time Bundle Covers: The time covers labor for basic recurring maintenance like gutter cleaning, house washing, carpentry, painting, and labor for other recurring or non-recurring services we may provide. Part of “labor” also includes supplying all needed equipment and tools that are owned by the company, paying the workers on site, covering operational costs for the business, but DOES NOT include consumable materials or sundries or specialized tools the company must rent.
How You Receive Services: We create a service schedule for your recurring maintenance needs, up to 4 scheduled visits per year for every 10-man-hour time bundle you purchase. Each of these service calls allow for up to 30 minutes of uninterrupted travel time to your location. You may also contact us to schedule non-recurring service calls for on-demand service needs.
Role Based Time Billing: Service Time is charged from your time bundle, based on the following criteria:
- Length of time on site: We use GPS tracking software to track how long we spend at each service location. This constitutes total Site Time and becomes the basis for billing against your man hours.
- Number of service technicians on site: Typically, 1 or 2 for most recurring services, more than two are typically used for larger recurring projects such as installing Christmas Lights or for larger non-recurring projects.
- The Role Each Person Fills on site: Each person on site is there to fulfill a role needed to complete the task for that service call and the time billing is based on the roles assigned to the service call. Typically, the roles are Supervising Technician, Technician, Junior Technician, Helper.
  - Supervising Technician: Bills at 1.5 man-hours for every hour of Site Time. This role is used when 3 or more people are on site and the project requires the Contractor to supervise the work OR if the Contractor is performing a task alone that is normally handled by a larger team.
  - Technician: Bills at 1 man-hour per hour of Site Time. This is the most common role as it is used for all one- or two-man teams for any service call not requiring a Supervising Technician. There is always a technician on site regardless of the task. They are the primary person with the skills to perform the tasks in your service call, and act as the supervisor of all other team members on site.
  - Junior Technician: This role is used if second technician is needed for a service call team of 2 or more, they are a Junior Technician and bill at 0.75 man-hour for every hour of Site Time. This role is a skilled support role.
  - Helper: is an unskilled support role, typically use to support a team with unskilled labor needs. This role bills at 0.50 man-hours per hour of Site time.

These criteria are used to calculate your man-hour billed time for each service call.

The most common team for recurring maintenance work is a 2-man team of Technician and Helper, however a 2-man team of Technician and Junior Technician is required for any work with ladder climbing involved, require any team member working on a roof or in a crawlspace. If any of these tasks are performed by the Contractor alone, he is treated as a Supervising Technician for billing purposes.

Material Costs: Materials (caulk, paint, lumber, cleaning chemicals, etc.) are billed separately from your service plan payments.
Rollover: Unused time rolls over to the next year, but only if you renew your service agreement.
Tracking: We use invoices to track your payments, the time you use, and material charges.

Payment and Pricing

Pricing: Each bundle of 10-man-hours of costs $800
Annual Renewal: Time bundles must be purchased every January 1st to keep your plan active. The minimum purchase is one 10-hour bundle for the purpose of renewal.
Bonus Man-Hours Rate (January Only):
- The first six 10-man-hour bundles purchased from January 1^st until January 31^st receive a bonus time of 2 man-hours for each bundle purchased, for a maximum bonus of 12 man-hours.
Buying Additional Time: When you have 2 or less man-hours remaining in your time bundle you will be required to renew your bundle with an additional 10 man-hours if your next service call will exceed the remaining time in your bundle. If you have a payment on file, you will be charged for the renewed time automatically as long as you have scheduled service calls remaining.
Rollover Requirement: You must purchase at least one 10-hour time bundle in January each year to receive credit for any rollover time from the previous year. All time bundles expire at the end of the calendar year and are then converted to rollover time. If you fail to renew your remaining time will be converted over to Handyman On Demand man-hours (this typically reduces the total roll-over man-hours by 25%)

Service Calls and Time Tracking

Tracking Invoices: Before each service call, you will receive a $0.00 tracking invoice. This is updated after the service to reflect the exact time used and work done.
Service Time Calculations: Service Time is calculated in 15-minute increments to determine your Service Time for billing purposes, based on total Site Time which is rounded to the nearest 15 minutes.
Team Size: For safety, you cannot request fewer team members. The standard team is two people unless noted on the invoice.
Service Call Limits: You are allowed a total of 4 service calls per 10-hour bundle you purchase.
Travel Time: Up to 30 minutes of uninterrupted travel time to your location is included for each of your 4 scheduled service calls. We are considered on-site once 30 minutes of travel time has been reached regardless of travel or road conditions if no deliberate stops have been made by the team to interrupt the travel time to your location.

Special Project Billing

About Special Projects: Service Calls for non-recurring tasks that require more than 10 man-hours to complete are considered Special Projects. The most common special projects we handle are deck refurbishments, extensive fiber/wood based siding repairs, full house exterior painting, but any project that requires extensive time beyond the time bundle.
How We Price Special Projects: Typically, we begin with an estimate. There are two types of estimates we prepare for special projects:
- Fixed Estimate: Fixed estimates are used for projects where all conditional factors are known, related to the project. Painting a house is an example of a project where all factors are known. If the estimate is fixed, it means that we expect the project to be completed with no overruns in material or labor, so the price we quote is the price you will pay.
- Expandable Estimate: For projects such as a deck refurbishment or siding repair, we are typically uncovering an underlying substructure that may need additional repairs beyond the basic refurbishment you requested in order to complete the special project. In such cases where all conditions are not fully known, we classify your estimate as expandable. This means that the estimate is considered fixed UNLESS a condition is found that must be repaired before the requested work can continue. We will issue another estimate for the specific repairs for you to approve. We typically try to avoid issuing expandable estimates by doing a full inspection of the project site, but site conditions may not allow for a full examination.
Invoicing for the Special Project: Your labor costs will be expressed in Time bundles if we are tracking time for an expandable estimate, and we will track man-hours daily for the purposes of billing labor. Upon completion of an expandible estimate project any unused man-hours will remain available for other project or recurring service calls.
Fixed Estimate Projects are invoice as presented in the estimate. No labor is tracked, as the total price is fixed, even if we experience labor or material overruns.

Fixed Estimate Projects are prepaid in full at the time of scheduling, which is typically 30 days prior to the start date.

Expandible Estimate projects require that the required time bundles be purchased at the time of scheduling, materials must be paid in full 10 days before the project starts.

Scheduling A Special Project: We have limited days set aside for special projects, typically during lull times between scheduled service calls. Late June through August are typically the time we schedule special projects. If you approve your estimate, we will set a tentative project start date. 40 days before the tentative start date, if we find that we can schedule the project start on that date an proforma invoice will be issued for the project so you can make the required payment to lock in your start date.

Material Costs

Supplying Materials: We supply materials for all tasks which require materials to complete the task. We bill you for any materials we supply, including consumables, special tool rentals, and sundries.
Service Fees – Any fee related to off-site labor are billed when that offsite labor is complete.
Advance Billing: Any material purchase or pre-paid fees in excess of $50 or any non-returnable material purchase of any value will be billed and charged in advance. Additional materials needed to complete the service call will result in a new invoice.
Mark-up: All materials, dumping fees, delivery fees and other service-based fees related to off-site labor are subject to our standard 40% margin over our cost.
If we need to interrupt on-site work to obtain materials from a nearby vendor, labor time used to acquire materials, including travel time, will be billed as a part of the materials charge as if it was a standard delivery fee from that vendor, and all roles offsite time will not count towards site time labor.

Automatic Scheduled Services

Unless you tell us otherwise, we automatically perform the following services, using your time bundle (and billing materials separately):

Gutter Cleaning: February/March, May/June, September/October, November/December.
Pressure Washing:
- Standard Schedule: March/April and September/October.
- Alternative: If requested, we can schedule for June/July, after spring pollen, if delicate plants are not a concern.
- Includes: House, patios, decks, and concrete walkways. We will also clean outdoor furniture and wooden fencing, as long as their condition allows for high pressure cleaning, unless you request that we do not do these
Carpentry and Painting: January, April/May, August-October. This covers small repairs and painting to prevent water damage.
Christmas Lights: You must opt-in for this service when you sign up.
- Installation: November/December.
- Removal/Repacking: January (usually after January 6th).
- Other Lights: We can also schedule lights for St. Patrick’s Day, Independence Day (June/July), and Halloween.

July Blackout: No scheduled services are performed in July, except for overflow pressure washing or Independence Day lights.
Requests: You can request changes to scheduled services or on-demand service calls via e-mail, fax, or by texting the business phone number.

Handyman on Demand Service Plan

This plan is for clients who prefer to request service calls at their convenience. It behaves just like the Handyman On Call except for the following differences:

Time is purchased in 12 man-hour bundles. These manhours remain until used, there is no rollover of time as they do not expire.
We do not schedule service calls until you request service, this includes any recurring services such as gutter cleaning ort house washing. You can request to schedule your whole year of services with specific times and dates subject availability of requested dates. You must have sufficient labor time on account to cover your requested schedule.
The price for the first 12 manhour time bundle purchased in any given year is $1500. Subsequent time bundle purchased during the same year are $1440 each. If your first-time bundle for any given year is purchased in January, you do receive 2 bonus hours which do expire at the end of the year and are used last.

Renewing, Cancelling, or Changing Service

Cancellation/Refunds: You can cancel your Handyman On Call at any time, but no refunds will be issued for unused time. Unused time will be converted to Handyman On Demand Plan time
Increasing Bundles: You may increase your time bundle purchase in January if you anticipate larger projects.

Warranty

General Work: All work is guaranteed for 30 days from the completion date, unless stated otherwise in writing. Any issues reported within 30 days will receive one follow-up fix at no labor charge.
New Construction (Decks/Fencing): These carry a warranty of one year from the date of completion, provided payment has been received in full.

Privacy Policy

Your personal information will not be sold to any 3rd parties, nor used for any purpose outside of providing services and information to for the purpose of doing business as a client.