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Fountain Connects You with a Home Improvement Expert in 5 Minutes


iOS: Nothing is worse than making multiple trips to the hardware store because you had to learn from your mistakes the hard way. For $5 per question, Fountain connects you with experts via video chat to answer your questions about your home and garden.

Imagine having a question about a leaking faucet or creaking floors and instead of scouring the internet for solutions, or referencing how-to books, you can open an app on your phone (iOS only for now), ask your question, and in 5 minutes or less you'll be connected with a plumber, contractor or other home improvement expert. This is the promise of Fountain, which launches this week in beta.

From our iPhone 4S (a dated but good real world test), we opened the app and asked "How do I fix my leaking kitchen faucet?" The app was initially tripped up by the word faucet (it auto-corrected to fossett), which is strange since it's such a common household word. After we typed in the correct spelling, however, we were immediately presented with 8 plumbing experts and the first to answer our call was William C., in under 2 minutes. We caught him at home watching a football game but he immediately turned the TV off and was ready to help answer our question. William is a Master Plumber based on Arkansas with over 10 years of experience, so he's well qualified to answer any question we could throw at him.

The video came through clear and by switching to the front facing camera we could give William a first-person view of our issue and get an immediate response. A service call like this from a local plumber could cost you $45-$65 per hour and you'll have to spend time waiting for an appointment. Fountain, on the other hand, will cost $5 a question and will buy you a block of time: about 15 minutes for Gardening and Plumbing advice, 12 minutes for Appliance repair, and 10 minutes for Interior Design. If you need more time, it goes in $5 increments.

Fountain launches today in private beta, and is free during the beta period. We've obtained 2,000 invites for our readers to try it out before it launches to the public. To gain access to the beta, click the link below.

Fountain Beta