Workmanship Guarantee
A workmanship guarantee is a promise that your own labor will hold up for a set period after the job. It covers what you did, not the materials, and not damage from someone else.
What it means
A workmanship guarantee needs three things to actually mean something: a stated period, a clear scope, and named exclusions. The period is how long you’re on the hook — a common one runs from six months to two years, depending on the trade. The scope says which part of the job it covers: your labor and installation, not necessarily the materials the client supplied, or a part that failed on its own.
Exclusions are what keep a guarantee from quietly turning into a promise against everything, forever. Wear and tear isn’t a defect. Misuse isn’t a defect. Work someone else did after you finished isn’t your defect either. Write these down once, in the terms you send with every quote, and a callback stops being a guessing game about who’s on the hook.
You guarantee your plumbing work for 12 months. Eight months later, a joint you fitted starts leaking. You go back and fix it free — it’s inside the period, and it’s your work. A tap the client fitted themselves, leaking the same week, isn’t covered.
Promising to “stand behind the work” with no period and no scope written down anywhere — which sounds generous until a client calls two years later about a problem that might not even be yours, with nothing on paper to settle it either way.
General information, not legal or tax advice — rates and rules vary by place; check yours. See our terms for the full version of this note.
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