How to Keep Track of Tradespeople — Ratings, Reviews, and When You Last Used Them

Everyone's been there. The boiler breaks down, you need a plumber, and you vaguely remember using someone decent a couple of years ago. But who were they? Were they actually good, or are you confusing them with the one who left a mess in the kitchen?

Phone contacts are useless for this. You've got "Dave Plumber" saved from 2023 with no context. No idea when you last called him, what the job was, or whether you'd use him again. You end up back on Google searching "plumber near me" and taking a gamble on someone new.

The real problem isn't finding tradespeople

Finding a plumber, electrician, or handyman isn't hard. Every town has dozens. The problem is remembering which ones were worth using again — and which ones weren't.

The details that matter aren't the kind you save in a phone contact:

• When did you last use them?
• What was the job?
• Were they on time? Was the work good?
• Would you recommend them to someone else?
• Have they been consistently good, or was it a one-off?

This is the kind of thing you think you'll remember but don't. Especially when it's been two years and you've used three different electricians in the meantime.

What actually works

The trick is to log it at the time. Not in a spreadsheet you'll forget about. Not in the Notes app between your shopping list and that recipe you saved in 2021. Somewhere purpose-built, where the information is structured and easy to find later.

Here's what you need for each tradesperson:

• Basic details — name, company, phone, email, service type
• A personal review — your honest opinion in your own words
• Usage history — a log of every time you used them, with the date, a star rating, and a note about what the job was
• An overall rating — ideally calculated from your usage history, not just a gut feeling from the last visit

Why individual ratings matter more than an overall score

If you use a plumber 20 times and one job is bad, that's a 4.75-star tradesperson with one off day. You'd still use them again without thinking twice.

But if you've only used someone twice and one of those was a disaster, that's a 2.5-star average. Very different picture. The pattern matters more than any single rating.

This is why logging each visit separately is more useful than giving someone a single overall score. You can see the trend. Consistently good? Keep using them. Getting worse? Time to find someone new.

How Kepthouse handles this

Kepthouse is a free Android app for managing your home — tasks, warranties, subscriptions, and service contacts. The contacts feature was designed specifically for this problem.

For every tradesperson you add, you can:

• Log each visit with a date, star rating (1–5), and notes about the job
• See the average rating calculated automatically from all your logged visits
• Override the rating manually if you disagree with the average — with a toggle to switch between "Average" and "Manual"
• Write a personal review — your overall thoughts, separate from individual visit notes
• See "last used" on the card — so you know at a glance who you haven't called in a while

The contact cards in the list show the star rating (average or manual) and when you last used them. No need to tap into each contact to remember who's who.

The 30-second habit that saves you hours

When the tradesperson leaves, take 30 seconds:

1. Open their contact in Kepthouse
2. Tap Add Usage
3. Pick today's date, give them a star rating, write a line about the job
4. Done

Next time you need them — or need to decide between two plumbers — the information is right there. No guessing, no Googling, no "I think Dave was the good one?"

It's not just about tradespeople

The same contact system works for any service provider related to your home: cleaners, gardeners, pest control, locksmiths, tree surgeons, window cleaners, chimney sweeps. Anyone you might use more than once and want to remember whether they were worth it.

You can also link contacts to tasks — so the plumber is linked to the annual boiler service, and the electrician is linked to the rewiring job. Everything connected, everything findable.