When it comes to do-it-yourself home improvement projects, the benefits are obvious; you can not only save significant money by eliminating labor costs, but also take pride in a job well done! At least, that’s the idea in theory. The reality is that things can and do sometimes go wrong, incurring costs that rapidly eat into both your time and budget. Of course, not all projects have the same inherent risk of a major mistake or the same penalties if one should occur. Keep reading to learn about the DIY projects that have the costliest mistakes in terms of lost time, additional cost, and even spousal arguments!
All of the information in this post comes from Porch.com, a website which helps match people with home improvement professionals. Porch conducted a survey of almost 1,200 homeowners who had attempted a DIY project in the last year with the goal of determining the extent to which costs were expanded following a mistake during various home improvement projects.
Overall, Porch found that DIYers typically completed between 4 and 5 projects per year and spent about $1,700 on them in total. By far the #1 reason reported for attempting to do-it-yourself was a desire to save money, with 33% of all respondents naming it as their chief incentive. Millennials were the generation which spent the most money per project, likely due in part to the fact that they are the generation most likely to purchase a “fixer-upper” home.
Now let’s get into the actual DIY projects themselves. First, which projects are costliest in terms of lost time once a mistake has been made? The answer to this question is quite clear, with mistakes during “flooring installation” more than doubling the project’s time commitment from 13 hours to 27 hours! Importantly, this category did not include tiling, which saw its time increase by only 3 hours following a mistake. This makes sense when you consider that tile is typically laid out ahead of time, making a serious error (such as ripping up the entire floor) less likely. For comparison, after the 14-hour time loss following a mistake with flooring, the next costliest mistake was one made during “electrical wiring/rewiring”, which added “only” 7 hours to the project.
Of course, we’ve already established that money is considered the most important element in the DIY equation, so homeowners are probably more concerned with how much a mistake costs in terms of dollars. While the cost metric might have changed, the answer didn’t, as “flooring installation” was also the clear winner (loser?) in lost money. A mistake during this project raised costs from $711 to $1,540, another increase of over 100%. Combined with the lost time, this further indicates that mistakes made during flooring installation require the DIYer to start over completely. Other expensive mistakes were those made during “exterior painting” ($447) and “replacing an electrical outlet” ($445). It’s worth mentioning that, although the gross amount might be less, the extra $445 spent to fix the electrical outlet is added to a base cost of just $118, meaning it increases the project’s relative cost by a massive 477%!
Finally, the survey asked whether a mistake lead to a fight with the DIYer’s significant other. Mistakes during “electrical wiring/rewiring” took the top spot, resulting in a fight 43.6% of the time. In second place was “drywall hanging/patching” at 41.7% and third was “replacing an electrical outlet” at 39.1%. Porch speculates that electrical projects have high fight potential due to their increased safety risks both during and after the work.
