The jobs to turn down

In this article

Saying yes is the instinct that builds this trade and the one that ends it. This page is the list worth being deliberate about.

Pre-1978 houses, and the six square feet

The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule has been federal law since 2010 and it applies to anyone paid to disturb paint in housing built before 1978. Not just painters. Not just big jobs. You, on a Tuesday, sanding a door frame.

The thresholds are the part to memorise:

• 6 square feet or less of interior paint, per room — minor repair, exempt from the work practice requirements.
• 20 square feet or less on the exterior, per project — same.
• Above that, you need to be an EPA‑certified firm with a certified renovator on site, using contained work practices. The renovator credential is an eight‑hour course.
• Window replacement and demolition are never exempt. Not at one square foot. This is the trap, because “can you swap this window” is a routine ask.
• A certified renovator can test the paint with an EPA‑recognised kit, and a negative result takes the job out of the rule. Note who is allowed to do that test.

Six square feet is a rectangle roughly two feet by three. Scraping a windowsill and its surround will exceed it. So the honest position for a handyman working in older housing is either take the eight‑hour course and get the firm certified, or genuinely decline paint disturbance in pre‑1978 homes — and know which you have chosen rather than finding out afterwards.

The wider version of this rule, for whole‑house work, is in how to price a painting job.

The work you legally cannot take

Covered in full in how to start a handyman business, and worth restating in one line because it belongs on any list of jobs to turn down: electrical, plumbing, HVAC, gas, roofing and structural work need the specific trade licence in nearly every state, at any price. And the dollar threshold that governs everything else is per job and includes materials.

Turning these down does not mean losing the customer. It means saying “that one needs a licensed electrician — I’ll get Mike to ring you today”, and staying the person who arranges the work.

The jobs that quietly lose money

The job	Why it costs you	What to do instead
Under your minimum	The drive costs the same whether the job is $40 or $400.	Hold the minimum. Offer to bundle it with something else on the list.
The long drive for a short job	Two hours of your day for forty minutes of work.	Take it only if it is near existing work, or price the travel openly.
Somebody else’s botched work	You inherit the whole thing the moment you touch it, including the parts you cannot see.	Look first, quote hourly, and write down what you are not responsible for.
Fixed price on work you have never done	You are guessing, and the guess is binding once accepted.	Hourly, or decline. See what to do when you have underquoted.
Customer‑supplied materials	Wrong part, wrong size, no warranty, and the failure is somehow yours.	Supply it yourself, or agree in writing that the material is their risk.
“While you’re here” that keeps growing	Good instinct, unpriced. Three of them turn a two‑hour visit into a day.	Say yes and say the number. The bundling is profitable; the silence is not.

The customers to turn down

Rarer, and more damaging than any single bad job.

• The one who negotiated hard before you started. They will negotiate again at the end, when you have already done the work.
• The one who tells you what the last three people did wrong. Occasionally true. Usually you are number four.
• The one who wants it done without a permit where a permit is required. Their house, your licence.
• The one who will not let you see it first. “It’s only a small job, just come” means they know it is not.
• The one who has not paid for the last visit. Never take a second job from an unpaid customer — see chasing an invoice without losing the customer.

How to say no without losing them

This matters more here than in any other trade, because the person you are refusing has a list and will ring about the next thing.

Refuse the job, keep the customer, and end on a question. Three sentences, and you leave with work rather than without it.

What to stop doing

• Disturbing paint in an old house without knowing where the six square feet sits. The rule does not care that the job was small or that you did not know.
• Replacing windows in pre‑1978 housing uncertified. There is no size exemption for that job.
• Taking the job because refusing feels rude. Refusing a job is not refusing a person.
• Fixing what someone else broke without looking first.
• Quoting fixed on the unknown.
• Breaking your minimum “just this once”. That is the moment it stops being a minimum.

Sources

Checked in August 2026. The RRP rule is federal and applies everywhere; some states run their own authorised programme with additional requirements.

• EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting Program for contractors — who must be certified and what the work practices are.
• 40 CFR Part 745, Subpart E — the regulation itself, including the minor repair and maintenance thresholds and the window replacement carve‑out.
• EPA rules index — for state‑authorised programmes, which is where the requirements can be stricter than federal.
• The money‑losing job list and the refusal script are ours, built from how this trade actually runs. Test the minimum‑charge argument against your own numbers using the handyman price calculator.