There are times when you may not feel qualified to do a home project. Or Sometimes it will be cheaper (because of the time it would take you) to hire a project out. We have experienced both of these and I wanted to share how we decided what to DIY and what to hire out.
Something we are trying to get closer to finishing is our basement. But there is still a lot to do. Something we want to replace this year is our old furnace and AC unit. Because come to find out our ducts are not large enough. But to expand our ducts, we needed to move some electrical and plumbing because both are in the way.
Our home had many breaker boxes (3 on the inside) and this is something we wanted to address before finishing the basement. Now, this is us and we do not feel comfortable messing with combining and moving breaker boxes into one.
- DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE? – Now a lot of projects we complete ourselves, we do not feel comfortable. This type of comfortable we are talking about is safety for yourself or/and the house. Like with our breaker box, I didn’t want to be trying to reattach the main power to our house to the new box. I was seeing warning signs but that is just us. Because I am completely comfortable add a breaker to the box.
Now with our plumbing problem, moving the pipes out of the way, we knew this was something we could do ourselves but after getting a bid we decided it would be worth our time to hire it out.
- COST LESS (in time) TO HIRE OUT – We always look at a bid and ask; is it more money than we thought? How long will it take the worker compared to us? And then, is that price worth our time? There are other things we do factor in like supplies and tools.
Not sure what your time cost? Think what else you could be doing, does this have an amount or worth more to you?
For example with adding drywall to a space; it would take us days to drywall a room where if it was hired out, it would take them a couple of hours. What other projects could I complete in those days it would take us? Is it worth the savings by doing it yourself?
An example of the cost not being worth it was when we redid all of our drain lines. We needed to remove concrete to get to the pipes in our basement. We had a bid for someone to do the work for over $3,000. But if we did it, it would take one full day of work plus renting a jackhammer (less than $150). We decided to DIY it and saved over $2,850.
DIY OR HIRE?
This is a very personal question that you need to decide. But whenever this question happens think of two other questions to answer that question:
- Do I feel comfortable doing this project (safe)?
- Would it cost less in my time to hire the project out?
I hope this will help just a little bit when you ask should we DIY or HIRE out the project. And good luck with your future projects.
Do you have any tips to help answer this question?
SIDE NOTE: We love DIYing and we have learned so much by doing so many projects we never thought we could. Don’t let the fear stop you from trying something new!
