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5 Kinds of Home Repairs You Probably Shouldn’t Do Yourself

Written by Posted On Thursday, 24 January 2019 16:12
5 Kinds of Home Repairs You Probably Shouldn’t Do Yourself

As most homeowners know, a key to having a home that looks good and runs efficiently is being able to learn how to DIY most home repairs. Most of these repairs can be done quickly and easily with not a lot of learning required and will save having to pay professionals hundreds of dollars just for 30 minutes of work.

The catch, however, is that there are some home repairs that you just shouldn’t do yourself as you could cause structural damage to your property that will cost more to fix after than to have called a professional to start.

Here are the top 5 that you shouldn’t do yourself.

 

Plumbing

Leaky faucets and clogged drains can be very frustrating and both may seem like they should be easy quick-fixes, however, it’s often much more complicated than that. Most home-owners should always try the standard fixes for a clogged drain including using liquid de-clogger and pushing a snake down the drain, but further than that you should always consider contacting a professional plumber to get the job done.

Unlike other home repairs, incorrect plumbing can cause serious structural damage if done wrong. A leaky pipe can rot the structural wood of your home and pipes bursting can cause extreme damage to your home by flooding it. Even more importantly for sewage and hot water pipes, it’s especially important to contact a plumber to conduct the repairs. You’ll also want to ensure your plumbing is up to code on how your municipality requires it.

plumbingg

 

Electrical Work

At the top of every “do not touch” list for home repairs is electrical work – it’s just too dangerous. While at first glance the steps seem simple. “Just turn off the breaker, pull out the old item and put in the new one.” It certainly involved more than that in terms of fixing electrical wiring.

Here are a few electrical items that you “might” be ok tackling if you’ve had training and experience in the past:

  • Test and change fuses in a fuse box.
  • Utilize a multimeter to test outlets and electrical appliances
  • Drilling holes in baseboards to run electrical wiring through
  • Replace a basic light figure

Outside of those basic tasks above, the rest shouldn’t be touched and a professional electrician should be called in. Electrical work needs precision and experts to understand when the electricity is fully turned off to ensure you are not electrically shocked. Electric shock can be deadly. Additionally, improper wiring of a house can cause sparks and fires which can both destroy your home and can cause loss of life. You also may not know the specific local laws that are required to be followed for safety standards.

electrical work

 

Gas Appliances

Another key area to steer clear of is anything pertaining to gas usage. Especially in the past few years you’ve seen major explosions in cities across the US due to natural gas improper application. No matter how experienced you are, you should never DIY fixed to things in your house including your gas oven, gas furnace, and gas water heater. These should only be tackled by professionals as you need to ensure it’s done right and there are no leaks.

Gas leaks in your home can cause terrible health issues, fires, and explosions if not properly detected and corrected.

 

Removing Walls

While you may think you understand the structure of your home, it’s very often that a seemingly unimportant wall may be one of the pillars that hold up the entire structure. Watching TV shows it always seems like they pick walls at random, but in reality, they carefully examine the homes construction first to understand where everything is leaning against to ensure nothing is relying on a specific wall before choosing to tear it down.

You also have to take into consideration what is inside of the wall before taking it down. Most walls have electrical wires running through them and before you start taking them down those wires need to be first disconnected and then pulled out. Using your cordless drill you can often remove most of the outlets easily yourself, but again dealing with electrical wiring is best left to a professional electrician.  You may also find in a 2-story home that there is plumbing and water pipes running through walls which one hit to those and you’re bound to be flooded.

Lastly you have to consider the construction that has to happen after to ensure area left after the wall is removed is properly leveled and framed so it doesn’t look out of place.

 

Roof Repairs

There you are during a big stormy night and suddenly water seeps through the ceiling dripping onto the floor. While the easiest solution is to put a bucket under it and hope for the best, this isn’t a problem solver. The reason a roof leaks is because there’s a gap in the shingles and it needs replacing. On the surface a roof repair seems like an easy job to fix yourself with some caulk to plug it but this isn’t very effective for the long term.

If you don’t tackle the problem and fix it properly the first time the water will eventually start to cause rot to the wood in your attic and can leak down through the walls of your home causing serious structural damage. If you need more than one or two shingles replaced, it’s best to let a professional handle this especially because one-third of all construction fatalities are from people who fall off the roof.

roof repair

 

Beyond these, there are many other home repair tasks that you may want to tackle, but just be cautious before tackling them. These include projects like cutting sheetrock, drywall installation, sanding your floors, tiling, installing an attic fan and replacing the coil spring on your garage door. While most of these projects are not physically dangerous, they can often be quite difficult and require very specialized tools to get it done right the first time.

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Elena Tahora

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