Being a homeowner comes with many perks, like owning your own land and the ability to do whatever your heart desires with it. It also comes with the added responsibility of having to maintain the new property. This means fixing every leak and filling every crack that may appear.
There are a lot of home improvement tasks that you can do by yourself, even if you’re not the handiest person. However, there are some things that you should never, ever try to do yourself unless you’re a licensed contractor or technician because you could easily make a small problem into a larger, dangerous, and more expensive issue.
1. Repairing Drywall
Most houses have drywall in them, so you’re bound to have an issue arise with it at some point. When that time comes, call a ceiling and partition contractor. No matter how much faith you have in yourself, repairing drywall is more difficult than you think. Skim coating takes skill and will look messy if not done properly. That’s why you should let a professional like Orange County Drywall Repair handle the job for you.
2. Redoing The Bathroom Plumbing
Never try to redo bathroom plumbing on your own. It’s a really complicated system that is really important to the functionality of your home. If you mess up your plumbing, then basic things like showering and a running faucet are out of the question.
You can attempt to fix a leaky sink or running toilet on your own, but anything more can result in flooding and a very expensive plumber bill.
3. Roof Repairs
For someone who wants to be as handy a man as possible, a leaky roof or a few missing shingles can seem like something you can fix pretty easily. Do not attempt it. There are a few reasons why but the most important is that it can be dangerous as many people injure themselves from falling off of the roof.
Even if you manage to not fall, you could still end up making a simple repair cost a lot more money. A roof is important to the structural integrity of a home, so a bad repair will just cause more problems in the long run.
4. Installing a New Electrical Panel
Out of all the things that are not recommended repairing on this entire list, this is the most important. Do not ever try to install an electrical panel on your own. There are high risks of electrocution, which should be enough to scare you away. If not, you can risk code non-compliance and electrical fires.
Don’t put yourself and the other occupants of your home at risk by trying to do this job yourself. Call a technician and let them do the job for you so you can sleep peacefully, knowing that you won’t have caused any electrical fires.
5. Removing Walls
This one can seem kind of obvious, but there are a lot of people who want to try to remove the entire walls themselves. Do not do it. Put the sledgehammer down.
If you want to remove a wall to create a more open floor plan, it’s so important to make sure that the wall isn’t load-bearing. A load-bearing wall holds all the roof or upper floor weight, so removing that wall could result in the ceiling caving in. This is incredibly dangerous so just call a contractor to ensure that wall is the right to remove and have them do it for you.
Conclusion
It’s totally understandable why you would want to handle home renovations all by yourself. A feeling of independence comes with owning a home, but sometimes you should just ask for help. For all who live in the home for the general safety, you shouldn’t try to fix the things on this list.