When you buy a home, you’re signing up for a certain amount of maintenance and care. Little things are easy to fix, like loose trim or a squeaky hinge. For bigger or more complex tasks, like re-shingling and fixing the furnace, you should call a professional contactor.
Then there are some tasks that are right on the edge: You could save money by doing it yourself, but it would take an investment of your time and most likely other resources. When you can do some maintenance task yourself, you can do them around your schedule, instead of having to deal with someone else’s priorities. At the same time, if your schedule is like so many others, it could take considerable sacrifice or a longer time than you would prefer to complete your project. Even with some of the most basic DIY tasks, it’s often worth the extra money to have someone else handle the headache.
With that in mind, here are six home maintenance tasks you might not want to DIY:
1) Painting. Painting is relatively easy, right? Just get some paint, rollers and brushes. Then some tarps, tape and ladders. Pretty soon, you’ve racked up a pretty serious investment in tools for a one-time project. Then there’s actually carrying out the task. Depending on the size of the room(s) and your availability, it could take days or weeks for you to complete. I’ve known people to take days off of work just to make sure they could finish their paint job in a long weekend, then it took them another month to get the trim back up on the walls. Is that how you want to spend your vacation days and weekends? Save it instead for more fun tasks such as decorating or anything else you enjoy.
2) Tiling. Putting in tile looks easy enough, but it’s much more difficult than you think. It takes laying out the tile, cutting them, using just the right amount of adhesive to keep them on the wall and enough grout to space them out evenly. All that and you have to make sure the tile on the floor is flat (or perfectly angled towards a drain) and the tiles on the walls are flush. It takes experience for all the subtleties of installing tile to add up to a great tile job. Messing up the tile can be expensive to fix. It pays to have a tiling professional do it for you right the first time.
3) Flooring. Do you know how to stretch a carpet? Do you have the tools to do so? Have you ever laid down hardwood floor before? Do you have the tools to measure and cut around the corners of your home? Floors are difficult, but they’re very important to get right. You don’t want your carpet to bunch every time you move furniture or for gaps to form between the floorboards. Having your floors completed by a professional can help to ensure that you’re walking on solid ground.
4) Drywall. Patching a small hole in sheetrock yourself is probably an okay task for most people to tackle. Trying to create a major patch or hanging drywall for a whole room, on the other hand, is a much more complex task that requires expertise. It’s a physical activity that can be draining if you’re not used to the work. Failing to measure and cut drywall properly for mounting around corners can add up to expensive mistakes. Finally, professional drywall hangers have all the equipment needed to tackle even the most complex installations.
5) Electrical. Unless you’re an experienced electrician, this is one type of project you may never want to consider doing yourself. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could be putting your house or self at risk by starting a fire or getting electrocuted. Even if the results work okay when you first install, it could take time for the issues to crop up. And when the spark comes you could very well be asleep or at work. While no electrician or contractor is perfect when it comes to electrical work, this is one type of home project that you shouldn’t try to DIY.
6) Plumbing. With plumbing work you’re probably not going to hurt yourself if you do it wrong. However, you could end up doing irreparable damage to your home if you mess it up. Once you let water flow to your DIY plumbing project, there is no putting the genie back in the bottle (or the water back into the pipes). Even if you get the mess cleaned up relatively quickly, water in wood or drywall can result in warped boards and black mold. You could end up having to replace carpets and walls, making your little plumbing project a big ticket restoration project.
These projects have the potential to be accomplished on your own, but in the end it’s worth it to pitch in the money to have a professional do it. Though it will cost you extra up front, it will save you considerably in time, effort, materials, potential damage to your home and possibly vacation time. You can use the time you save for more simple DIY tasks, accomplish more productive endeavors that actually make you money or even pursue some recreational activities.
Kurt Jacobson is a surfing enthusiast with a background in real estate. Having moved 10 times in the past 7 years, he thrives on helping others learn from his experiences. When he’s not out shredding waves he writes about rental homes for RentFinder.
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