Fair questions
32 questions on one page. What home management actually is, what our membership covers, what it costs, who turns up at your door, and what happens to your house while you're away.
The category itself, and the three services it gets confused with.
Home management is a single professional service that takes responsibility for a home you actually live in. It plans the maintenance, hires and oversees the trades who do the work, keeps the record of every system, cost and warranty, and answers for the result.
The shortest version: it is what a property manager does for a landlord, done instead for an owner who lives in the house.
We manage your home. You get a plan for the year and a portal that holds the whole record. When something needs doing, we scope it, get quotes from trades we have vetted, then book the work, oversee it and handle the billing. The trades do the work. We make sure it gets done properly.
In practice it means you stop being the person who has to remember, chase, compare and check. You approve the work, and you read the summary afterwards.
A property manager works for a landlord and looks after tenants: finding renters, collecting rent, enforcing the lease. A home manager works for an owner who lives in the house, and looks after the house itself. Its maintenance plan, its trades, its record and its costs. Different client, different job, and no tenants anywhere in it.
Dumeau does not manage rentals or tenants. If that is what you need, we will say so on the call.
No. A handyman does a job you have already identified and hired for. Home management is the layer above that: working out what the house needs and when, finding and vetting who should do it, comparing the quotes, overseeing the work and keeping the record. The trade work itself goes to independent licensed trades, not to us.
Where you would rather we carried out a small job ourselves we can, at our published $120 an hour. That is the exception, though, and it is never how we make our living.
No. A home warranty is an insurance-style product. You pay a premium, and when a covered item fails you file a claim against a list of covered parts. Dumeau is not insurance, sells no policy, and has no claim process. We plan the work, manage the trades and keep the record, and you approve every cost before it is spent.
The other difference is timing. A warranty is a way of paying for a failure after it happens. A plan is a way of seeing what is coming: the systems serviced on schedule, and the expensive replacements forecast years out with a figure beside each one, so you can budget for them instead of being surprised by them.
No, and we are careful about this one. Home inspection is a licensed activity in Alberta, so Dumeau does not carry out inspections and never presents its own observations as inspection findings. What we do is document your home's systems, their age and where each one sits in its service life, and plan the maintenance around that.
Where a real inspection is the right answer, whether you are buying, selling, or worried about the structure, we will tell you so and bring in an independent licensed inspector.
Who turns up, who does the work, and what happens when it goes wrong.
No. Repairs and trade work go to independent licensed professionals we vet and manage, and that is deliberate. Our job is the planning, the management and the quality check, which keeps us on your side of the table. The person checking the work is never the person who sold it to you.
For a small job you would simply rather we did ourselves, we can, at our published $120 an hour, quoted before we start. Anything that requires a trade certification always goes to the certified trade.
Jeremy or Jess. Dumeau is two people and a vetted bench of local trades, so the person who walks your home is the person who plans it, books the work and answers your messages. There is no call centre, no dispatcher, and no account manager you have never met.
It is also why we take on a limited number of homes. Knowing a house properly is the whole service, and it does not scale by hiring a queue.
Yes, Dumeau is licensed and insured. So is every trade who comes to your home, and we check that before anyone is dispatched rather than once when they joined our bench.
Every trade we send to your home carries current insurance, the trade certification their work requires, and clearance with WCB. We check all three before they are dispatched, not once when they joined.
Beyond the paperwork, we choose trades who work the way we do: people who turn up when they said they would, do honest work at a fair price, explain what they found, and stand behind it afterwards. When we put our name on a job, we are accountable for it, so we only send trades we would trust in our own home. A trade who lets a member down does not stay on our bench.
We take it up with the trade and see it through, and it costs you nothing extra. Putting a job right is part of the coordination fee you have already paid. It is not a new engagement, and we do not bill a second fee to fix something that should have been right the first time.
That is the practical difference between hiring a contractor yourself and having someone manage them. The awkward phone call is ours to make.
Yes, and please do tell us about them. If you have a plumber you trust or a lawn crew you have used for years, we will work with them, book them and manage the job exactly as we would with one of ours. We will ask them for the same insurance and certification paperwork we ask of everyone, because that part is not optional.
The one thing to note is that we can only stand behind work we coordinate. If you would rather deal with a trade directly yourself, that work is yours to manage, and it sits outside what Dumeau is accountable for. We don't think that's the most efficient way to run a home, and we would rather manage every trade on your behalf, but we are happy to work around your preferences.
Your home, your call. We are managing the work, not selling you a roster.
Yes. Every request, quote and completed job is documented in your Dumeau portal, and no work goes ahead without your approval. You see the scope, the cost and what we would recommend before anything is booked, and the photographs, the invoice and any warranty afterwards.
You can open all of it any day, from anywhere, without having to ask us for it.
A limited number, and that is a deliberate constraint rather than a sales line. Dumeau is two people and a vetted bench of local trades, and the service only works if we genuinely know each house: its systems, its quirks, and what was done to it last spring.
Practically, it means we take homes on through a conversation rather than a sign-up form. If we ever don't have the capacity to look after yours properly, we will say so rather than take the fee.
What you get for the monthly fee, what sits outside it, and how long you're tied in.
Everything to do with managing your home: a maintenance plan built for your house and kept current, seasonal work scheduled before the season turns, trades sourced and vetted and quotes prepared for your approval, weekly Travel Watch while you are away, one point of contact for everything to do with your home, an after-hours line, monthly planning check-ins, and the portal that holds the whole record.
The cost of the trade work itself. Third-party trade and service costs are billed to you through Dumeau at the contractor's cost plus a flat 15% coordination fee, and every one of them is quoted and approved by you before the job starts. There is no work you did not sign off on.
The other thing outside the monthly fee is our own time, at $120 an hour: for a task you would rather we did ourselves than book a trade, or for actively planning, coordinating, or handling issues on work you have approved. Those are the only two additional charges outside the membership itself.
There's no clock on your membership, no per-visit charge, and no allowance to run down. What it covers is the ordinary management of your home, as reasonably required, and we'd rather you asked us early and often because that is what makes the whole thing work.
If something you ask for falls outside that, we don't quietly put it on a bill. We tell you, we quote it, and you decide whether to go ahead. You'll never see a charge for work you didn't approve first.
No long-term commitment. Membership is month to month, there is no notice period, and you can cancel anytime. It simply runs to the end of the period you have already paid for. There is no setup fee to write off and no annual contract to buy your way out of.
You do sign a member agreement, which sets out what we do, what you approve and how your information is handled. It is sent to you electronically after the walkthrough, to read in your own time.
Often it is the best time to start. A new house has warranty periods that expire on dates nobody remembers, builder deficiencies worth chasing while they are still someone else's problem, and a full set of systems whose service lives all began on the same day. They tend to come due together, years out, unless somebody is planning for it.
Sometimes the answer is no, though. If what you actually want is one job done and nothing after it, tell us on the call and we will say so. We would rather do that than sell you a membership you do not need.
Three published numbers, and where each one starts.
$500 a month for the proactive management of your home: the planning, oversight, walkthroughs and check-ins, however often your home needs them. When a trade does the work, it's their cost plus a flat 15%, with no minimum, quoted and approved before it goes ahead. Our own time is $120 an hour, whether you'd rather we did a job ourselves or we're actively planning, coordinating, or handling issues on work you've approved. Everyday management, advice, and fixing a trade's mistake are always included. One invoice.
There are three published numbers and no others. Nothing appears on a bill that you have not approved in advance.
Finding and vetting the trades and getting you quotes is part of your membership, so you're never charged for a quote, even on work you decide against. The 15% coordination fee applies once a job goes ahead, and it covers running that job: booking and scheduling it, handling the billing, and standing behind it if something isn't right. It's a flat 15% of the contractor's cost, with no minimum and no second number attached to it, quoted in your estimate before anything starts.
Because the fee only applies to work that proceeds, shopping a job around that you then decide not to do costs you nothing. And if a job isn't right, putting it right is part of the fee you have already paid, never an extra charge.
The monthly fee doesn't move with how much work you approve, which is the whole point of charging for management rather than depending on jobs.
No, and please do get in touch. Call us, email us, ask a question, ask what we make of a quote you have been given, ask us to look into a noise or arrange something. All of that is the membership, however often you do it.
So is the management itself: the planning, the walkthroughs, and the monthly check-ins. None of it reaches a bill.
The hourly rate is for our own hands-on time: carrying out a task you would rather we did than a trade, or actively planning, coordinating, or handling issues on a scope of work you have already approved. Once you approve a scope, we get on and manage it on your behalf rather than stopping to ask permission at every step, and that time is billed at $120 an hour. Fixing a trade's mistake is never billed.
No. There is no joining fee, no activation charge and no minimum term to sign up for. Building your maintenance plan, your systems inventory and your home record is part of getting started, and it is covered by your membership.
The one thing to know is that your first monthly fee is due when you start, on day one. That first month is when we do the heavy lifting of walking your home, documenting every system and building your plan, so the fee covers the membership from the outset rather than a separate onboarding charge tacked on top.
Access, travel, winter, and what the after-hours line is and isn't.
Not necessarily. Our preference is that you provide physical access to your home, whether that is you being there or a pre-authorized key or code you have set up, and we will help you arrange whatever suits you, a lockbox, a smart lock, or a code given straight to the trade, at no extra charge.
If you would rather Dumeau were there in person to let a trade in on your behalf, take a delivery, or wait out a service window, we are glad to, at our published $120 an hour and agreed in advance.
However you choose, and the access stays under your control. Most people use a lockbox or a smart lock they can revoke at any time. Some give a code straight to the trade for the day. We will help you set up whichever suits you, and we will never need more access than the job in front of us requires.
If you would rather we held a key or a code for you, we can, but that is a separate written custody arrangement that you can cancel at any time. It is not something that happens by default. Entry codes are never kept in the portal: our systems have no field to store them.
When you travel, your home doesn't stop needing eyes on it. Travel Watch is included with membership. We check the house every week you're away, whether that's a fortnight or a full winter, and file a report to your portal after every visit with photographs and the date and time we were there. It is included with membership, however long the trip.
Each report says what we checked and when, with photographs and the date and time we were there. If your policy asks for a home to be checked on a schedule while it sits empty, that record is yours to give your insurer.
Most of winter is decided in October. Before the season turns we would have the furnace serviced, the humidifier set, the eavestroughs cleared, the exterior taps shut off and drained and the sump pump tested. We would also have booked whoever handles your snow before the first fall rather than during it.
Through the winter it is the things that go wrong here specifically. Ice damming at the eaves, a frozen hose bib, a furnace that quits on the coldest night of the year, and drainage that has to work properly the week it all melts. Knowing which of those your house is prone to is most of the job.
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Dumeau is not an emergency service. For a fire, a gas leak, or a flood in progress, call 911 or your utility first, and never wait for us.
What we do have is an after-hours line for the urgent things that cannot wait until morning. A furnace out in January, water where water should not be, a door that will not lock. We start working the problem, reaching the right trade and telling you what we are seeing, so you are not the one hunting for a number at midnight.
What happens between sending a note and the plan being live.
We strive to respond as quickly as possible. Reach out however is most convenient for you, by the form on our website, phone, email, or text, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
Your note comes to the two of us directly. There is no call centre and no queue it sits in, and if it is time-sensitive, say so and we will move it up.
No. The walkthrough and the conversation are free, and there is no obligation at the end of them. We come to you, go through the house, and talk about what you would like off your plate.
If we are not the right fit for your home, we will tell you so on the day, and we will happily point you to whoever is.
We walk your home properly and document it. Every system, its make and model, its age, and where it sits in its service life. That becomes your systems inventory, and capturing it is our job, not yours. Nobody paying a monthly fee should be typing twenty-eight appliances into a form.
From that inventory we build your maintenance plan and your cost forecast, book whatever the season needs, and hand you the portal with all of it already in place. Then we execute the plan, and check in with you monthly at a minimum to review where things stand and make any updates the plan needs.
St. Albert, Alberta, and that is where we are rooted. We know the local trades, we know what this climate does to a house, and we are never far from your home.
We look after homes in St. Albert, Sturgeon County, and the surrounding area, and being close enough to get there quickly matters more to us than which town you are in. So if you are nearby, send us your address and ask. We will tell you straight away whether we can reach you, and we would rather say yes than have you assume the answer is no.
Everything included, the three published prices, and who it isn't for.
Read on →Click through every screen a member sees. No sign-up.
Read on →Ask it. We'll answer honestly, whether or not it ends with you joining.
Read on →How we vet, how jobs are assigned, and what it costs to join are all on the partner page.
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