Although I’ve been working with, and now for, the team at DAD since April last year, I’d not had a call as a customer with one of our DAD Experts until recently.

I wish I’d not waited so long!

If you’re not familiar with what we’re doing at DAD here’s a quick primer;

At DAD we are building a service that helps you look after your home. Our first product to support that is an iOS app that allows our customers to talk face to face via a video call with one of our home repair Experts. Our DAD Experts are vetern tradesmen and woman who have been vetted by us to ensure that they are experienced in all aspects of home repair and maintenance, qualified in one or more specialities (plumbing / gas / electric / etc) and are friendly and customer focused.

When you call one of our Experts they will help you diagnose what’s wrong in your home, help you make it safe, stop it from getting any worse and then advise on how best to fix it. Some fixes can be done on the call. Some need you to go away and get replacement parts / tools and try fixing it later. Some fixes can only be done by professionals (gas related problems, for example) and we can help arrange that if you’d like.

So far in our early invite trials we’ve helped fix; leaky taps, leaky toilets, broken boilers, broken door handles, a faulty smart thermostat, cold radiators, and even advised on a problematic chimmey. The list goes on.

Back to my call.

We’ve been running the early invite program for a couple of months now and I’ve been watching each video call to learn how our service can get better. Then a few weeks ago I realised that I had a home repair issue that I wasn’t sure how to fix, so I got myself added to the test call list and had a call with one of our new Experts so I could experience a call for myself.

It was amazing. And I’m not just saying that.

Our test App at the time was as clunky as hell, and nothing to be proud of, but the ability to (virtually) invite an expert into my home, and show them my issue and get their direct feedback on it all in a matter of minutes was truely amazing.

My home repair issue is a leaky shower screen that I have in my bathroom. It doesn’t leak every time anyone showers, but it leaks enough to be a minor worry. I have very limited DIY skills, so I wanted to know if the screen could be repaired or if it needed replacing. And, how to replace it if that was the best course of action.

Richard (our Expert) answered all my questions quickly and easily.

Watch the recording of the video below. (Note that Richard wasn’t aware before or during the call that I work for DAD – this was his first call, and I’d not been introduced to him deliberately so he thought I was a normal customer.)

(NB: If you’re watching with headphones in, I should warn you about the off screen cameo made by Richard’s dogs towards the end of the video; they whine and bark, and it’s a bit louder than the rest of the call!)

More about DAD

If you’d like to give DAD a try yourself, you can download our latest iOS app by following the link from the DAD website at https://dad.co. Or you can keep up to date with all the latest developments from DAD on twitter https://twitter.com/dad.

DAD was shut down in 2017 after our corporate investor withdrew our funding.