easy DIY help: is DIY Value For Money

In the DIY world the big question has to be asked sometimes...

Do I Do it myself or get a tradesman in?

DIY websites a often criticized for giving out trade information to the pubic and quite often it can be misleading information as well.

Obviously, for certain job, you must call a tradesman in. Gas work being a typical example. [see: easyDIYhelp - GAS SAFETY] But for the vast majority of jobs there is always something the DIYer can do.
But best of all any DIYer can find out 'how to' Do It Themselves here on the Internet and at easyDIYhelp.com.

Lets say that you are replacing a light fitting, in the past you would of consulted a DIY book, so you read the relevant page and then you have some idea of what you are doing. You isolate the circuit and proceed to remove the old light fitting. Now you notice that the wires you have at the light fitting or nothing like what you are looking at in your DIY book!

Now you are left with no light in that room. The probability is that if you switch the electricity back on you are going to have a whole lighting circuit that is not working.

After the initial panic has subsided you reach for the phone book and find an electrician, you tell him that you have removed the old light fitting and cannot fit the new one. After he has finished laughing to himself he tells you the price for coming and sorting out your problem.

Electricians normally charge between £15-60 per hour depending on where you are located. The electrician charging £15 per hour will probably have a call out charge, whilst an electrician charging £30 per hour might just charge a minimum of two hours, so you could be looking at between £30 and £60 to get your light fitted by an electrician. Many electricians would call this a beer money job as it would literally take them 10 minutes and if you were lucky enough to live near an electrician he might just offer to do it on his way home and charge you £10-£20 cash.

Now that you have the price from the electrician you are thinking that a simple job that should only take 10 minutes has turned into a nightmare. That £15 light that you bought from the DIY store is now going to turn into a £45-£75 light.

You search Google and find a DIY website that might have the information that you require, but you have to register for their forum before you can ask a question. You fill in the required information and it is totally free. Now you post your question and within a couple of hours some helpful person has answered you and told you how to wire your new light fitting.
But remember - that person hasn't seen your job first hand and only if your 100% confident should you attempt it.

The light fitting is now wired back up and the electricity is restored and Bingo- your new light works as it should do and at the cost you expected.

Why was the electrician going to be so expensive- he must be very well off earning that kind of money. Not really when you consider all the overheads that the electrician has to pay for. If he charged an hourly rate of £15 his actual hourly rate after all of his overheads would be much less than this, perhaps even half of that amount!

Every qualified tradesman or tradeswoman that will do the job correctly and provide all the necessary paperwork that's required nowadays will incur the minimum of expenses as shown below even before they turn up at your house...

Public liability insurance
Sometimes employee's liability
Extra liability costs for working with heat or at heights
Costs of a running a work vehicle
Insurance and road tax for work Vehicle
Fuel for vehicle
Tools ( bear in mind that some tools are £500 each )
Cost of training
Membership to an approved organisation, such as NAPIT ( membership to some of these organisations are a few hundred pounds per year)
Income Tax
National insurance
Holiday pay
Sick pay
Pension contributions
Bookkeeper fees
Accountant fees

When you take all of the above into consideration a hourly rate of £25 is actually very reasonable!

The DIYer has very few of the above costs and there's also the added pleasure of doing some jobs yourself and the pride you feel.
You can take as long as you want and change your mind as to the final finished product as many times as you want - its your job after all.

So .... to DIY or not to DIY

the big question!

What are your real costs?

no vehicle or travel costs
don't need any insurance or an accountant
don't need to be a member of any association
no real unseen costs

But remember, you need to buy the materials for the job yourself, these will be far, far more than any tradesman pays at a builders merchant or over the trade counter as they will get very big trades discounts...

or do they.?

As the supply market gets more and more competitive so the costs of materials goes down. Not only that, over the last few years they have had to open up their doors to the 'good old public' of which there are millions of potential customers.

So the real costs to you are actually very good now -

no hidden costs
no travel / insurance and hidden costs
no higher materials costs

all good news for the DIYer