The Rise in Popularity of Do It Yourself (DIY) Home Repairs

It used to be that for home plumbing and heating repairs and upgrades it was a skilled even licensed tradespersons job. Simple as that.

Tools, equipment and the plumbing and heating hardware might not be available commercially to the ordinary person let alone having them work or upgrade on this equipment. Even today in some areas furnaces can only be purchased through, by and even installed by bona fide registered heating companies and mechanics. Still there is a lot of work that can be done currently and is done by do it yourselfer.

Why the changes from a tradesmen only system to the current prevalence of doing it yourself or having a handy friend conduct house or building renovations and upgrades?

Cost is the answer. Labor used to be one of the components of repairs of all types and building projects and upgrades and renovations in this case. Materials costs used to be the major component of any building project or household renovations for the most part. Now its labor.

People used to fix things have them repaired.

You expected for example to have a watch cleaned every couple of years to keep it running.

Now it is “not worth it”. You throw out the watch. You have disposable VCRs, DVD players and other electronics. In most cases the cost of repairs including the diagnostics (which is composed mainly of labor costs) is simply not worth it. Its cheaper to replace the device, devices or items – usually on top of that the replacements are not even made in North America the US, Canada or Mexico.

Hence as a result many people figured out that if they did the work themselves first of all there would be major cost savings. Even if they wasted money by damaging materials in the learning processes they overall were ahead of the game in term of final project costs. On top of that it was an enjoyable educational project on top of that with the satisfaction of being able to look at the end results and announce “I did the home renovations” (or upgrades).

As a result of the increase in do it yourself handyman, contractors plumbing and heating workers a whole industry and service industry sprung up to satisfy the needs for products as well as supportive information and even classes in some of the full service do it yourself hardware, lumber, plumbing and heating retail outlets and supply stores.

In the end it’s a fact of life for the commercial trades. A lot of people do their home renovations and upgrades them.

Whether it is for a rec room, electrical work or plumbing and heating do it yourself construction and renovations projects are truly a force on the scene.