Property maintenance solution provider, Help me Fix, has revealed that homeowners can avoid a costly call-out charge for maintenance problems around the home in 81% of cases, by having a short video call with a qualified tradesperson.

Home maintenance issues can be expensive to fix, especially if they require a qualified tradesperson to be called out. In some cases, homeowners can expect to pay between £100-£120 for a callout charge alone. Further adding to homeowner frustration is the fact that some maintenance problems can take an awfully long time to diagnose and fix.

However, new data released by Help me Fix reveals that 81% of home maintenance issues can be successfully triaged via a video call with a qualified tradesperson, with the average call taking less than six minutes, completely negating the need for a callout in the first place.

The maintenance issues that are most likely to be sorted via a video call are those relating to heating, electrical and appliances, according to the data from Help me Fix. Overall, across all applicable trades, a video call can resolve or diagnose the issue in 81% of cases.

A short video chat has been shown to address 92% of drainage-related issues, 88% of plumbing issues, and 83% of electrical issues.

As for speed of solution, the maintenance issues which have proven to be diagnosed the fastest via a video call are those related to roofing, windows, or damp and mould, each of which take an average of 2min30s or less.

The issues that take the longest to solve are those related to heating, but even these take less than seven minutes before a solution or prevention is found.

Ettan Bazil, CEO and Founder of Help me Fix said:

“With the cost of living crisis that we’re all enduring at the moment, many homeowners might be tempted to ignore maintenance issues, or at least bear with them until financial concerns start to ease.

But this doesn’t have to be the case. Instead of letting problems remain unattended and risk becoming more severe and more expensive to fix, the progression of technology had made it easy for them to be resolved, or at least triaged, in the most affordable way possible.

Plus, in those awful cases of emergency when a leaking pipe risks flooding a home, or the boiler conks out on Christmas eve, video calls can provide a rapid solution to the problem instead of having to wait for hours for a professional to attend in person to.”