So I made a quick $20 today. Anyone try to make this a business?


 
Joe Anshien

Joe Anshien

TVWBB Platinum Member
There was a post on Nextdoor from a guy with a brand new Broil King grill he was gifted and could not get working. People offered lots of suggestions and I offered to come over for $20 to successfully diagnose or fix his problem, or it was free. He wrote me and I went over. I brought my tools, batteries, propane tank, and a regulator. I got there and the igniter sparked fine - no gas. The tank was full. He had tried 3 regulators and even had a new manifold from Broil King. I popped the regulator off the tank, no pop or gas smell. I got my tank out of the car, hooked it up, and the grill fired right up. I told him he had a bad Amerigas gas tank and to go and return or exchange it. He had been struggling with the gill for months.

I did one other house call a year or so ago and the guy had the battery in the igniter wrong. I asked for $20 he gave me $40 (it was a very nice house).

Has anyone tried to have a grill repair business? If so, did it work out? How would you charge and for what? What would you do if their grills need parts, come home order them, and then go back and install. There is no way to stock parts for so many grills out there.

Just pondering. Maybe we can save a bunch of grills from the landfill if there were people willing to go out and fix peoples grills?
 
Sounds like a pretty legit "side hustle", Joe. But in this day and age I'd be insured up to my eyeballs in case the customer blew himself up and the ambulance chasers came calling.
 
Brad Olson said:
Sounds like a pretty legit "side hustle", Joe. But in this day and age I'd be insured up to my eyeballs in case the customer blew himself up and the ambulance chasers came calling.
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Never even thought of the "liability angle". Would the same apply to the grills we flip? If we are just replacing igniters, burners, flavorizers, and maybe cleaning, I don't see much of a case. Maybe just blame it on the manufactures;-)
 
That's a good question about flipped grills. I think it'd probably come down to the aggrieved party having to prove that you were at fault, but I'm no lawyer.
 
I found that it cost more to do a house call than it would be to sell the person a repaired grill.
I suppose you could offer a tuneup service with a basic cleaning for maybe $99 then up charge to replace parts.
 
The "liability angle" is what business liability insurance is for. I had to carry some when I was doing software contract work. It wasn't that expensive, but then I was charging a lot more than $20 per repair. Might be more expensive for a business dealing with flammable gas.

$20 for the odd "help a neighbor out" job sounds okay, but as a going business concern I wouldn't start my car for that little money. Most home service businesses either charge a minimum of $50 or more, or start the clock when they begin driving to your home, often charging $125/hr.

As for the general idea, it sounds like it has merit. The question is whether there are enough people out there willing to pay for repairs and/or operational instruction rather than just throwing the grill out and buying another one. I'd suggest offering grill assembly at a reasonable price just to get your name out there and business cards distributed to potential customers.
 
Probably not a ton of money in it but would be a good way to stay busy and make people happy.
 
If you are that concerned about liability, and I agree, it’s a legitimate concern, you could register in your county as an LLC.
Easy enough to do and let’s you sleep at night.
 
Joe -- around here there's a couple of mobile/house call grill businesses that seem to have a good business. There's probably some in your area too.

The bread and butter service is grill cleaning, but maintenance and repair are offered too. Deep clean, tune up, repairs, annual service, maybe grill assembly.

You could do the standard Weber cart grills, but I bet there'd be some good $$$ if you targeted the high end built in outdoor kitchen grills -- those folks can't easily run down to Lowes every couple years to buy a new grill. Probably easy to market as well -- if you could get recommended as the guy to call by the main grill dealers in your area.

Probably pretty seasonal, but maybe you could spend the winter in your garage doing rehab/flips and major repairs? Would be easy to market your "bespoke" "vintage" "classic" restored grills on the website of your grill service business. Or maybe you offer a high touch "restoration" service to folks that want to completely rehab their Dad's old redhead woody?

Liability should not be a big deal. Form the business as an entity (LLC or corporation), then get some business insurance. Simple and cheap to do.
 
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One more thing concerning liability. If it's really a concern for you, I'd strongly recommend consulting a lawyer who specializes in business law. There's a lot of advice being slung here in this regard but I don't get the sense that any of it, including mine, is coming from anyone who can speak with true authority on the topic. Find somebody who is an authority and get their advice.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
around here there's a couple of mobile/house call grill businesses that seem to have a good business. There's probably some in your area too.

The bread and butter service is grill cleaning, but maintenance and repair are offered too. Deep clean, tune up, repairs, annual service, maybe grill assembly.
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I remember seeing one of those a few years ago, and they also offer service.

tvwbb.com

A neat idea

I saw this in one of the pop up ads on the site, and I thought why didn't I think of that. http://www.thebbqcleaner.com/ Tim
tvwbb.com tvwbb.com
 
One more thing concerning liability. If it's really a concern for you, I'd strongly recommend consulting a lawyer who specializes in business law.

You should always definitely consult a real lawyer in person rather than rely on the internet board. But, the liability concern is fairly common and has many common solutions. At least that's what my law school prof told me in corporations law class....

: )
 
So a woman from Nextdoor.com contacted me from my previous post and asked me to come look at her grill, as it was not getting hot enough. I gave her a price of $30 and went out. She was about 15 minutes away. She had a 3 burner Spirit and I saw right away she had the burner knobs on, but tank off. I instructed her on keeping all knobs off then turning on the tank and everything was fine. I then noticed that the grease tray was in backwards and grease was draining on the tank instead of the cup (boyfriend did it). I pulled it out the back, gave it a scraping, and showed her it goes in from the front, and gave her some grilling tips. She was very happy and said she would spread the word if anyone needed grill work. Total R/T 45 minutes. Not too shabby
 
Joe Anshien said:
So a woman from Nextdoor.com contacted me from my previous post and asked me to come look at her grill, as it was not getting hot enough. I gave her a price of $30 and went out. She was about 15 minutes away. She had a 3 burner Spirit and I saw right away she had the burner knobs on, but tank off. I instructed her on keeping all knobs off then turning on the tank and everything was fine. I then noticed that the grease tray was in backwards and grease was draining on the tank instead of the cup (boyfriend did it). I pulled it out the back, gave it a scraping, and showed her it goes in from the front, and gave her some grilling tips. She was very happy and said she would spread the word if anyone needed grill work. Total R/T 45 minutes. Not too shabby
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Hey, if you could count on all your calls being that quick and easy...
 
Steve Hoch said:
Hey, if you could count on all your calls being that quick and easy...
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Probably not but so far I have had battery in igniter wrong, bad propane tank, and starting with valves open. The woman today mentioned that there is really no one to come out and do grill work. I may put something official on Nextdoor just for fun.
 
Sounds like kind of a fun “relatively simple” tool kit and a very rewarding gig. I get diagnostic phone calls from friends about “Whats wrong” or the local version of the “Butterball Hotline” for some turkey grillers in my circle.
I think it’s just nice to be able to help out, $20.00 house call? Pretty cheap, one of the liquor stores does house calls if you have a tap problem, tackle box with spare gaskets and an extra tap, they used to do it for a beer! It was kind of fun, they had been known to bring an extra keg “just in case”.
 
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