Before you call anyone: the photos to send

By Eduardo Tinajero · 19 August 2026

A good photograph turns a vague phone call into a real answer. For a lot of the repair work I do, four pictures are enough for me to tell you what is involved and what it costs, without either of us spending an afternoon on a visit that did not need to happen.

The four that do the work

• The wide shot. Stand back and get the whole wall, the whole room, or the whole elevation in frame. This is the one people skip and it is the one that tells me the most — how big the area actually is, what else is going on around it, and whether the problem is isolated or the first one of several.
• The close-up. Right up on the damage, in focus, in the best light you can get. If it is a crack, put something with a known size next to it — a coin, a pencil, your thumb. Scale is impossible to judge otherwise.
• The label. Any model number, serial plate or manufacturer sticker you can find. On fixtures and appliances this is worth more than every other photograph combined.
• The access shot. What is between the front door and the job. Stairs, tight corners, a narrow side gate, the ceiling height, whether there is furniture that has to move. Access changes jobs more than people expect.

Why the model number matters so much

Once I have a model number I can find out what parts exist for it, whether they are still made, and whether they are on a shelf locally or a week away. That is the difference between me arriving with the part in the van and finishing in one visit, and me arriving, identifying it, ordering it, and coming back.

It is one photograph and it routinely saves an entire trip.

What I cannot price from a photograph

Anything where the real question is what is underneath. If a floor is soft underfoot, if a wall is stained from something that leaked, if tile is moving — a picture tells me what the surface looks like, and the surface is not the job. Those I need to come and see, and I would rather say so than give you a number I will have to change.

Same for anything I would need to get above or behind to be sure about, and anything where the scope depends on decisions you have not made yet. That is not a stalling tactic, it is just the honest limit of what a photograph can tell anybody.

How to send them

Attach them to the estimate form on this site, or text them. Send the originals rather than screenshots if you can — a screenshot of a photo loses most of the detail that made the photo useful. And a sentence about when it started and whether it is getting worse is worth as much as a fifth picture.

Related: Home Maintenance & Repairs

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