Happy Friday folks!
In today’s post, I want to go in a slightly different direction from our normal How-To posts and instead talk about How-To-Not. That’s right, even though we’re trying to grow our readers’ DIY skills, there is a line that each of us won’t cross. There are just some projects that we won’t touch no matter how much we love saving money and finishing our projects ourself. Some of these projects I won’t attempt because I’ve already tried to do them before and I absolutely HATED them. Others are just non-starters.
Here are 3 projects that I won’t go near with a ten foot pole.
1. Heights. Anything involving major heights. In our current home I’ve installed the roof on our shed and would climb on our first house’s flat roof for some occasional work, like adding the framing for skylights. But our new house has an A-frame roof and the angle is severe enough and the height is great enough that you’ll never find me on my roof. So if I need any roof work on our current house, I’ll hire that crap out in a hot second.
It doesn’t end with roofs. A couple of years ago, I bought a Little Giant ladder with the intention of painting the 2-story walls in our foyer. Got about 12 feet up the ladder, paused, took a deep breath and told my wife that we were hiring someone. Maybe if I had two more arms to hold onto the ladder, but alas, I only have two.
2. Fencing. I consider installing fencing pretty much the worst DIY job I’ve ever attempted. My neighbor and I installed a 20 foot section on our mutual property line several years ago and it was an absolute bear. It may be because the ground was hard and full of large stones that need to be chiseled out. Or it could’ve been the fact that the gas powered auger was rendered useless in the dense soil requiring me to dig it out with hand tools. In any case, it sucked. We’ve been thinking about adding a fence to our current house, but you can bank on us hiring that work out.
3. Anything I’m not “Permitted” to do. I’m a big fan of pulling permits for all my home improvement projects, especially anything involving plumbing, heating, or electrical work. New Jersey allows home owners to pull permits for any work they do themselves. This is great news if you’re handy. In Philly, I wasn’t allowed to pull permits for electrical, plumbing or HVAC work so I really relish the privilege now.
There are still some types of work that homeowners are NOT permitted to do in NJ, however. Sprinkler systems for lawns must be installed by a licensed irrigation contractor. So, when we get to that project, I won’t even think about attempting it.
So those are the big three. Everything else is pretty much on the table.
What are YOUR DIY non-starters? Leave me a comment and tell me what DIY projects you refuse to touch.
