CEO of Checkatrade, Mike Fairman, said, “Our tradespeople have shown great resilience over this challenging period and are committed to safely carrying out home improvement and repair jobs following Government guidelines. Checkatrade has worked directly with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to share additional guidance for trade members and homeowners to help everyone stay as safe as possible. For example, we encourage our tradespeople to use video calls for advice and quotes, and recommend you keep in touch with your tradesperson to talk through the work in advance and agree how to reduce risks.

“As we continue to spend more time at home, homeowners will be wanting to also invest time and money into making them as comfortable as they can be and as a result, we’re seeing uplifts in searches for tradespeople to carry out home improvements in the winter months bucking the trend of previous years.”

The measures that homeowners are encouraged to undertake when carrying out home improvements and maintenance work include:

·        Keep in touch: Regular contact with your tradesperson in advance of any home visit is important – to talk through details of the work and to agree how risks can be reduced

·        Keep it digital: Checkatrade is encouraging tradespeople to embrace video calling for advice and quotes, whenever that is possible

·        Keep it clean: Clean surfaces around the working area and in ‘high traffic’ areas such as door handles with disinfectant before, during and after work is carried out

·        Keep a distance: Avoid too much face-to-face contact with those working in your home and keep children or pets in other rooms whenever possible