Why we started this

When he finally arrives, nobody has mentioned a price. The work gets done, the number appears at the end, and you have no idea whether it is fair. A month later the same tap is leaking and the number does not answer.

That is not a shortage of skilled people. Islamabad is full of electricians and plumbers who are very good at their trade. What is missing is everything around them: someone answering the phone, a price agreed before the work, and somebody who stands behind the job afterwards.

That is the whole idea of Pechkas. We are the part around the work.

Who we are

Pechkas is new, and it is small on purpose. It is run by Muhammad Zohaib Khan from Islamabad. There is no office full of people between you and the work: the number on this page is his, the person reading your message is him, and the technician who knocks on your door was checked by him before he was sent anywhere.

That is the whole of it today — F-11, E-11 and G-13, a price agreed before anybody sets off, and 15 days of guarantee on the work afterwards. When there is more to say than that, it will be said here, and it will be true.

Why it is called Pechkas

A pechkas is a screwdriver. Not a specialist's tool — the one that lives in a kitchen drawer, the first thing anybody reaches for when something in the house stops working.

Har pech ka hal means a fix for every screw. In Urdu apech is also a difficulty, a knot, the thing you are stuck on, so the same three words mean a fix for every problem. That is the promise we wanted on the front of the business, and it is a promise about turning up and finishing, not about being clever.

Khara kaam, khara daam is the other half: honest work, honest price. Khara is the word used for gold that is not mixed with anything.

How we are building it

Slowly, and in a small area. We are in F-11, E-11 and G-13 today. We could take bookings across the whole city tomorrow, and every one of them would arrive late with a tired technician who does not know the roads. We would rather be the people who actually turn up in a few sectors than the people who let everyone down everywhere.

Every technician is checked before he takes a job, and we pay them the same day they work. A technician who is treated properly and paid on time behaves differently in your home. That is not charity, it is the whole business model.

What we will not do

• Put made-up reviews on this website. When we have real ones, they will be real.
• Claim numbers we have not earned. We are new, and saying otherwise would be the first lie we told you.
• Take a booking in an area we cannot reach properly.
• Take a commission from a shop for sending you there.