Get to know me

About me

My practice, experience and my values

Dave has been working in the industry since leaving school in 1989 and immediately working for a joinery business along side his late Father and several other time served bench joiners and site installation carpenters, learning the tricks of the trade the old school way - hands on tools, eyes and ears wide open and trying to be as obedient as any young lad can be… This was the foundation of a career in the building industry and allied trades of almost 40 years so far.

I have worked in many diverse roles from labouring to site management and a host of highly skilled niche trades in between including but not limited to carpentry and joinery, French polishing and specialist hard surface damage repair, I spent many years as a freelance finishing foreman on construction sites across the South East of England working for some of the UK's largest and most well known house builders, progressing to assistant site manager on a large mixed use site in Crawley, West Sussex before being made redundant during a recession 2008 - 2009 and going it alone once again as a freelance multi trader and occasionally as an interim finishing foreman and site manager for smaller high end residential and commercial refurbishment companies in London. Finishing with a bang in 2016 as site manager running a £9.5m commercial refit for a gold bullion dealer in Hatton Garden to return to being in my van, tools loaded up and out on the road doing what I love!

Skip forward to 2026. A complete change of my world, took 18 months away from any work of any kind and nursed my beautiful late mother through terminal cancer, battled severe depression, moved back to my home town of Horsham (well Southwater to be precise) and rebranded myself for a fresh start as Handy Dave to provide my services and vast experience to an ever increasing customer base in our beautiful part of the country, predominantly working in and around the Horsham and Brighton and Hove areas covering the whole of East and West Sussex and beyond.

My moto

Sink or Swim! because no one else will hold you afloat...