Welcome handy simmers to the ultimate guide of the sims 4 handiness skill. It’s a common, base game skill that can be really useful for your sim to gain. I hope you find this post helpful!
What is the Handiness skill in the Sims 4?
As expected the Sims 4 is filled with the annoyances of life such as appliances breaking in your home. When repairing them, sims gain the handiness skill. You may not know how much the skill actually allows you to do from repairing objects to upgrading objects to crafting furniture. This post will cover all of them! With each skill level gained, more options become available to your sims. Everything is listed in the table below.
Handiness Skill Levels (What You Unlock At Each Level)
| Level | Unlocked Perks |
|---|---|
| 1 | Salvage parts from piles of junk Repair broken objects |
| 2 | New Upgrade: Basic upgrades on plumbing objects New Craftable: Furniture New Social Interaction: Talk about Handiness New Items: Upgrade parts |
| 3 | Introduces chance to find rare parts New Craftable: More sculpture options |
| 4 | New Upgrade: Advanced upgrades on plumbing objects New Craftable: End tables |
| 5 | Lower chance of electrocution New Upgrade: Basic upgrades on kitchen objects New Craftable: Large sculptures New Social Interaction: Brag about Handiness |
| 6 | Find rare electronic parts from salvaging New Craftable: Dining tables and chairs |
| 7 | Upgrade plumbing objects twice as fast New Upgrade: Advanced upgrades on kitchen objects |
| 8 | New Upgrade: Basic upgrades on electronic objects New Craftable: Instrument (only if level 8 at playing that instrument) |
| 9 | New Upgrade: Advanced upgrades on electronic objects New Craftable: Tubs |
| 10 | Always find rare parts from salvaging Upgrade kitchen objects twice as fast New Craftable: Toilets New Social Interaction: Mentor other sims in handiness |
How to Gain the Handiness Skill in the Sims 4
There are several ways to increase your sim’s handiness skill level, which I’ve listed below. Refer to the next section for tips on increasing the handiness skill more quickly.
- Repair Objects
- Click on any appliance that is broken (it will be obvious when they are!) and select the option to repair.
- Upgrade Objects
- All appliances and plumbing objects can be upgraded. More upgrade options will become available as you level up the skill. Your sim will need upgrade parts in their inventory for this action, so make sure to purchase them via a computer or “salvage for parts” on rubbish piles that appear after you’ve repaired an object.
- Woodworking
- Purchase the Woodworking Table from buy mode for 750 simoleons. Your sim can immediately start crafting as there is no need for any upgrade parts or bits and pieces to craft objects.
- Read Handiness Skill Book
- Purchase a Handiness Skill Book by clicking on any bookcase (or computer) and selecting the “buy a book” option. To quickly find the book you want I recommend filtering to only show “Skill” books via the dropdown menu.
- Purchase the volume appropriate for the level of handiness skill that your Sim has: Vol. 1 (Beginner) for levels 1 to 3, Vol. 2 (Intermediate) for levels 4 to 6, and Vol. 3 (Advanced) for levels 7 to 9.
- Craft Friendship Bracelets (Growing Together)
- Purchase the BFF Super-Duper Friendship Kit from buy mode for 30 simoleons. Then, simply click on the kit and get your sim to craft any bracelet. Sims of all ages can do this and will gain significant handiness skill when they do.
- Attend a Handiness Skill Class (Discover University)
- Use the phone to “Sit in on Skill Class” for 250 simoleons. This option can be found under the Business category on your sim’s phone. Your sim will then disappear into a rabbit hole for a few hours and increase their handiness skill whilst in the abyss.
- Enrol in a Handiness Elective Course at University (Discover University)
- When enrolling in a new term of university, select a handiness course from the electives dropdown menu. There may not be one on offer every term, so you might have to wait until the next term. Your sim will gain the handiness skill by doing their homework for the course.
How to Gain the Handiness Skill Faster
5 methods to increase the speed of handiness skill gain:
- Be focussed whilst repairing or upgrading objects and when woodworking
- Be mentored by a sim who has maxed out the handiness skill
- Find out how to cheat the handiness skill to the max. here or later on in this post!
- Purchase “Handiness Boost” Club Perk (Get Together)
- Join or create a club and then purchase the Handiness Boost club perk for 400 club points. This will cause faster handiness skill gain during active club gatherings.
- Live in a micro home, tiny house (Tiny Living)
- If your sim lives on a tiny home residential lot and their home has a maximum of 32 tiles, then they live in a micro home and will benefit from increasing their handiness skill at double the normal speed. This is very helpful for all skill gain!
- Have helpful traits and environment characteristics for faster skill building or increased focussed moodlets.
Below are all the things that you can do to optimise your sim for handiness skill gain:
How to Become Focussed
Here’s a list of actions that will give your Sim the focused moodlet:
- “Ponder Moves” action on the chess table
- All interactions with the telescope or observatory
- Being in the same room as an object that has an emotional aura enabled (focus decor) such as a Mathematical Diagram which has a +4 aura
- “Study” action on a fossil
- Listen to focus music
- “View Focused Work” action on “mathematical diagram” painting
- Eat a cerebrerry, which can be harvested from a wild tree of emotions in selvadorada (Jungle Adventure)
Depending on your Sim’s traits and environment they could become very focused, which is especially useful for gaining the handiness skill quickly!
Another skill that is boosted by being focussed is the logic skill.
Helpful Traits
The Genius trait ensures your sim is focussed more frequently than they otherwise would be (use the cas.fulleditmode cheat to quickly change your sims traits).
Helpful Likes/Dislikes
Likes Handiness can be set in CAS and will make your sim gain fun whilst building their handiness skill.
Helpful Reward Potions and Reward Traits
Each of the following reward portions and traits will help your sim increase their handiness skill faster. If you want to purchase one (go to the aspiration panel), but don’t have enough satisfaction points then use this cheat. The number of satisfaction points required to purchase each option is written in the brackets.
Focussed potion (200): Makes your sim instantly focussed.
Morning Sim (1,000): Increases skill gain in the morning.
Evening Sim (1,000): Increases skill gain in the evening.
Speed Reader (1,000): Increases rate of skill gain from reading books.
Marketable (1,500): Sell your crafted items for more money.
Savant (4,000): Increases skill gain all day and night.
Helpful Lot Traits
Peace and Quiet: Gain skill faster from reading.
Gremlins (City Living): Causes objects to break more frequently, so there’s increased opportunities for your sims to gain handiness skill via repairing.
Neighbourhood action plan
If voted into action by the community, the Self-Sufficiency NAP will reward handiness work with increased influence and positive moodlets.
Handiness Skill Cheat
The cheat code for the handiness skill is stats.skill_set_level major_handiness X. Simply type it into the cheat bar after enabling cheats and replace X with your desired handiness skill level. Refer to the handiness skill cheat post for an in-depth guide on this cheat and easily copyable codes.
There’s no singular cheat to max all skills in the Sims 4, but you can max the handiness skill by replacing X with 10.
What is the Handiness Skill Useful for in the Sims 4?
Careers that Require the Handiness Skill
Part-Time Jobs
Both of these jobs will require low levels of the handiness skill in order to get promoted.
- Handy Person (For Rent)
- Manual Labourer (Base Game)
Full Time Jobs
- Actor (Get Famous) – some auditions will require a certain level of handiness skill to pass.
- Civil Designer (Eco Lifestyle) – reaching certain levels of the handiness skill will be required for promotion during the lower levels of this career.
- Engineer (Discover University) – high levels of the handiness skill will be required for promotion in this job.
Aspirations that Require the Handiness Skill
Sims completing the Nerd Brain aspiration will be required to reach at least level 5 of the handiness skill.
Helpful Degrees (Discover University)
The handiness skill is developed as part of the physics degree. However, all degrees offer electives and there is an option to take one that increases the handiness skill.
Can You Make Money With The Handiness Skill in the Sims 4?
Yes! Your sim can sell the objects that they’ve crafted using the woodworking table. Higher handiness skill unlocks more advanced and expensive objects allowing your sim to make even more simoleons from their craftables. If you can’t see a crafted object in your sim’s inventory, be sure to check the household inventory in build/buy mode. Larger pieces of furniture are stored there and can be sold directly from the inventory or you could sell them as part of a retail store (requires Get To Work).
Final Remarks
I hope this post was helpful for you and allows you to have an upgraded experience playing the Sims 4! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below.
Keep talking sims!
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