Describe the symptom, not the fix
The most common mistake in a job request is skipping ahead to the solution. "I need a new tap" is a decision; "the kitchen mixer drips constantly and the handle has gone stiff" is information. The second gets you a provider who can tell you whether it needs a cartridge or a replacement, and price accordingly.
This matters most in the diagnostic trades. An electrician reading "the kitchen sockets die when the kettle goes on" already has a shortlist of causes before they arrive. An electrician reading "I need a socket fixed" is quoting blind, and will either pad the price to cover the unknown or re-quote on arrival.
Photographs beat descriptions, almost always
One photo does more for the accuracy of an offer than a paragraph of careful writing. It settles the model, the fitting, the access, the state of the surrounding surfaces and the scale of the job all at once.
Take two if you can: one close enough to show the thing, and one far enough back to show what surrounds it. The wide shot is the one people forget, and it is the one that tells a provider whether they can reach the work.
For anything with a brand on it — an appliance, an air conditioner, a phone — photograph the model sticker. It is usually inside the door, behind the drawer, or on the back.
Say where you are, precisely
Help24 posts a job to a neighbourhood rather than a city, and that is deliberate. A provider who takes a job two hours away across Nairobi traffic is a provider who arrives late, leaves early, or does not come at all.
In Mombasa this is sharper still, because the water divides the city. A job in Likoni and a fundi in Bamburi are separated by the ferry, and neither of you wants to discover that on the day.
Put the constraints in the post, not in the conversation
Anything that limits when or how the work can happen belongs in the original post. Providers price around constraints; they do not price around surprises.
- The floor you are on, and whether there is a working lift
- Estate or building rules — gate sign-in, restricted working hours, a lift that must be booked
- Whether you rent, and whether a landlord has to approve the work
- Whether there is power and water on site
- Days or times that genuinely do not work for you
Be honest about urgency
Marking everything urgent costs you money and credibility. Urgency is a real price factor — somebody dropping their evening to come out is charging for their evening — and a request marked urgent that then waits three days for a reply teaches providers not to believe the label.
Post the genuinely urgent things as urgent: water running that you cannot stop, no power, a door that will not lock, a car stranded somewhere it cannot stay. Everything else is better posted as flexible, where you will usually get a better price for waiting a day.
Say who is buying the materials
This is the single most common source of disagreement after a job is done, and it takes one sentence to prevent. Either the provider buys the parts and includes them in the quote, or you buy them and they quote labour only. Both are normal.
If you already have the tap, the paint, the tiles or the part, say so in the post. It changes the number and it changes who answers.
What not to put in
Leave out your exact house number, your gate code and anything else that identifies your home precisely — the neighbourhood is enough for people to decide whether they can take the job, and the detail can go to the person you actually choose.
Leave out your phone number too. Messaging runs through Help24 until you have agreed a job, which is what keeps a record of what was agreed if anything later goes wrong.
A worked example
Weak: "Need a plumber urgently."
Better: "Kitchen sink in a ground-floor flat in Bamburi is not draining — water sits in the basin and drains very slowly over about an hour. Nothing under the sink is leaking. Photo attached of the trap. Mains water, flat is occupied, any time this week works. Happy for you to buy whatever parts are needed."
The second one takes forty seconds longer to write and is the difference between guesses and quotes.