That Time We Talked About DIY vs Hiring a Professional

This is episode number 20 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hacken, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. My name is Craig Williams. We are so glad that you could join us for our 20th episode. Didn't think we'd make it this far, Kev.

I didn't either, honestly.

I didn't think you'd make it this far.

Yeah, I, I, uh, I thought we'd, you know, I thought we'd already kind of peter out by now.

Or one of us would have like stabbed each other with a lead pencil or something.

Yeah, I'm done with this.

But we're still here.

Yeah.

So we got, I think we got, we got a few more in the tank.

We got a lot more in the tank.

Man.

I think we, uh, I think we've gotten a little bit better. I hope so.

Well, you've definitely gotten better.

Well, it couldn't get much worse.

Well, man, we, I'm actually really excited about this show. I mean, usually I'm more excited when we have guests, but I'm, I'm really excited about this one. Because we're going to be talking about how to decide whether or not to, to be a DIYer or to go out and get yourself a handy-dandy contractor or a professional and get that project done by somebody else.

Yeah, I agree. Uh, when I was kind of preparing for this as well, um, I, I did— I found a lot of things that, that I think are going to be helpful to those that are listening. You know, I think it's important for us to, to talk about What is the difference? I mean, because somewhere there's got to be like a break-even point where you either go one way or the other. Um, and, uh, and I think there's some things, there's some tools out there. I think there's some ways that you can consider, uh, what your project is that can help you determine whether or not you should do it yourself or let somebody else do it.

Yeah, absolutely. And before we, before we move Too far down the road, let's go ahead and remind everybody, go ahead and hit the subscription button there for The Homeowner Show. And you can follow us there on iTunes, Stitcher, all kinds of different podcast places. Kevin listens to like Underground Podcast 0056. I don't know what it is, but, uh, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Um, there's even like some funky new weird social media stuff out there I've been playing with. You seen those?

No.

So I think it's like, it's like pay-to-play kind of, like, you have to use like social coins. I think they're trying to create like their own Bitcoin.

Well, we saw how that did.

I think we're still watching.

Yeah, we're still watching. Uh, also YouTube. Yeah, go check out YouTube.

The YouTubes on the internets.

Of course we have to put the disclaimer out there. We ugly.

We ugly, man.

It is what it is.

But The content is incredible.

Yes, it's way better than regular podcast.

Oh man, I gotta, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be filtering out some, some, some, some anger today.

Okay.

Yeah.

What kind of anger?

Some propane anger.

Propane anger?

Yeah, I'm like anti-Hank Hilling it. I'm, I'm, propane's the devil.

Well, Uh, it, it can be really helpful.

Yes. In certain situations.

When it works.

Well. So, dude, I— okay, so once again, my lovely house that is not weird at all.

No.

Um, and man, I could probably spend 30 minutes talking about this stupid fireplace. So we have 2 fireplaces in the house.

Okay.

One upstairs, one downstairs. The upstairs one is natural gas. The downstairs one Is propane.

Why are they not the same?

That is a great question. They are identical fireplaces.

Uh, cosmetically.

Cosmetically, yeah, they look exactly the same.

And yet—

And if you go outside where the propane fireplace hooks up outside, not 10 feet away is a natural gas line. So with a shutoff valve where they could have just run it over and hooked it up, but no, they wanted to have a propane one. Anyway, the propane one quit working and the downstairs gets way colder than the upstairs. Um, and so I've taken this thing apart like 3 times and I've watched like 30 YouTube videos on how to repair propane valves and heaters and yeah. And everyone's like, oh, this spider crawled in there and built a web. You just gotta dust it out. It'll work fine. I just, I can't get the pilot lit.

It's the problem.

Well, like there's no gas flow.

Do you know any spider people that can remove spiders?

Oh yeah, me. And I'm not afraid of spiders. Um, so I, I literally took every pipe off this thing and cleaned it.

Well, let me ask you this question before you get too far. Is this like a, I need to go do a switch-a-tank and, and like a little, you know, 5, 10-gallon tank, or do you have it like a, a big tank that has to get refilled in order for this to run?

No, it's, it's like a little 5-gallon tank.

This, this is getting worse. Like, so, so literally if you want to heat your downstairs with something other than your central heating and air, right? You have to make sure you have a 5-gallon tank filled.

I mean, I could go buy a 20-gallon. I mean, it's not that big.

But still, yeah, it's— this isn't something that you get a service coming out to refill your propane tank.

No, no, I don't have to like bring the propane tanks inside. Like, the tank— the line runs outside.

But still.

And but like, again, that's the annoying part. It's like the, the gas line's right there. This is right there.

Like, you could Just take it off your grill, man. This is weird.

No, and like, so like, and like, I think this is probably why I'm fired up about this show because I'm at that breaking point right now where like, to replace the fireplace, it's like $800. It's a nice fireplace.

$800?

Yes.

For a 5-gallon, okay. I get where you're going with this, but at some point, I'm just really questioning the person that put this in.

I've questioned him many times. But yeah, so to replace it, replace the fireplace to get one exactly like what I have, it'd be like $800, 'cause it's a nice wooden one with a blower and circulator and it's nice. And the part that I think, and like again, like I've already replaced several parts that were cheaper because I didn't wanna have to replace this one or take it apart to even get to it, but I've done that twice now. This particular part, it's like $160 for a valve.

That's a lot.

Yes, it's the valve control is what it is, the thing that allows gas to come in, get to the pilot and thermocouple, all that kind of fun stuff. I've learned many things about propane fireplaces that I never wanted to know.

You said like 6 words that nobody knows just now, and that valve, that's important.

Yes.

Yeah, they know it's important.

And like, it's that particular model, and it's the only one that would fit in there.

Okay.

And apparently, this particular one must break all the time because there's frickin' hundreds of them on eBay and everybody knows— It's $160.

It's gonna be $160.

Or $120 with $40 shipping.

Oh yeah, that's the same.

So, I have names for people like that.

Well, we can't say them here because there's an explicit rating that we're trying not to hit. That's right.

Keep listening, kids.

Yeah.

But yeah, so I'm at that point and like, It's just frustrating.

Yeah, well, it sounds frustrating to me.

It's actually right outside this door on the workbench.

It's in the shop.

In pieces. And I just glare at it as I go by.

I think that's where I would put it too.

So, but I don't wanna give it too much power. I don't wanna have it, you know, like, if we're gonna have a good show, have a good show.

Well, good. Well, I mean, and you really have to get to the point with this project where you have to determine in your mind, am I really trying to put this propane thing back together? Especially whenever you know there's a gas line right there, natural gas line, that you could go purchase a new fireplace that was natural gas, and then you're in a little bit better place.

So I mean, I will say, I mean, like, we're not, I mean, like, I have like a deer camp heater in there right now that's kinda taking the place when it gets, 'cause it is, I mean, we've had a couple of nights where it's gotten pretty chilly and it's nice to have that. So like, we're not without heat or anything. But not only that, man, I mean, like, I don't know if you can see the, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the wall behind Kevin, the Homeowners Show Studios, the walls are coming up there. Kevin, give them a nice like Vanna White.

Yes, this is—

yeah, I don't know which way to look. Yeah, so the walls are starting to come up, things are starting to take shape, it's starting to look good around here. And that's like— that's not like the only project I'm trying to work on right now. So, um, that one just kind of popped up on my radar.

Yeah, lots of irons in the fire. And, and it's always— it's always the one that you think is going to be a pretty simple fix, right, that winds up Being a lot bigger project than you expected to be.

Yeah, and at this point also, it's like, I'm not going to be defeated by a propane fireplace. It's, it's, it's a matter of pride at this point.

Oh man, you know what they say about pride.

So that when I, when I have to come back to episode 21 and be like, it won. Yeah, and I'm not gonna let that happen.

You know, pride doth goeth before the fall, they say. You know, if you read the book.

I'm a tall guy. It's gonna take me a while to go down. Oh man.

Uh, the camera doesn't show everything. Uh, well, that'll be interesting. I'll, I'll be interested to see and, and hear how that goes.

I, it'll either, it's gonna heat me one way or the other.

Yeah. Yeah. It's already heated you pretty much.

I'm gonna get heated up and if I get heated up enough, it's gonna go on the burn pile.

Yeah, exactly.

Either way I win.

Which kind of leads us into the topic, right? Uh, where— at what point do you choose to do something yourself or have a professional come in and do it for you?

Yeah, and that's a tough one for me always because I love figuring stuff out.

Yeah, you know, and you're capable on some level.

I, you know, I know the difference between Phillips and flathead. Yeah. Um, and Yeah, I mean, and I just like, one, I like figuring stuff out and I like learning new things, so it's always intriguing to me when it's a project that I've never done before.

I actually like that.

Some people hate that and it drives them bonkers. I kind of get a kick out of it. I really enjoy it, but that's just me. And so I think you kind of have to filter through your own personality sometimes on these, on the different projects from project to project and go, okay, do I really want to spend my time doing that?

Yeah.

Is that something I'm going to enjoy? Is that something that's gonna be worthwhile? Am I going to like myself when I'm done with it?

Are other people going to like you when you're done with it?

How many cheap cases of whatever am I going to have to buy these guys to help me with this thing?

Right, exactly.

And yeah, and that's, man, that's always, it's hard. It really is hard because I, you know, a lot of people, whether they admit it or not, are motivated by the bottom line. The bottom line matters to a lot of people, and when that bottom line It's tempting when you can go to the Home Depots, Lowe's, McCoy's, Ace Hardwares, and look at the prices and like, well, that's what they cost to buy that? Why am I getting charged $3,000 to do this?

For an $800 fireplace.

Right.

Yeah.

You took me right back to it. I'm steaming.

Oh man.

It's a good thing it's a little chilly in here.

Yeah, no joke.

So yeah, man, and what I thought would be kind of fun, 'cause I've, I've sort of created my own personal decision matrix on this kind of thing, and I thought it would be kind of fun for our listeners for us to go through some numbers on a project you've been thinking about and see kind of where we end up.

Sure.

Because I think it'll be interesting to people, one, to see how I arrived at the numbers that I arrived at and why I did it that way, and then really just kind of talk through the different things that probably ought to be going through your mind when you approach these kinds of projects. You game?

I'm game, let's do it!

Yeah? So let's— well, let's start with this. We talked earlier, so you have a project you've been thinking about doing in the house for a while.

Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, one of the things is whenever you come into a new home, there's always gonna be something that you think, man, I probably wouldn't do it that way, or I would have chosen something different in this area.

Yeah.

But one of the things about our house is just there's different carpets throughout the house. Even across the hall from each other, there's different carpets.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're, they're similar color. But the, you know, the quality is a lot different. The feel is a lot different. Honestly, just the, the overall look and wear of it is different. And so, you know, I've often thought, once we— once my kids get just a little bit older, I mean, they don't have to get a lot older, just kind of past that that stage of I spill everything. And we just got a new puppy. So it— well, if you've ever had a new puppy, you know what I mean. So, you know, once you kind of get inside—

An inside puppy.

Inside puppy. Yeah, that, that does change things. Um, once you kind of get to the point where accidents aren't happening, right, whether it's a pet or a, or a child, um, that's whenever I think, okay, it's time for me to change out these carpets. So, so that's one thing that, that I would be interested in knowing the cost differential, uh, and, and where my break-even point is. Right. Yeah.

So, so we, we looked this up and we, we ran, we ran some numbers. Um, and, and just, just right off the bat, well, I mean, we want to give you guys some resources and we'll put all this stuff in the show notes. A couple of resources I used to, to get my numbers on this project was one was remodelingcalculator.org. Um, it's just a free resource. on a way to calculate how much it would cost to have a contractor come in and do certain kinds of projects in your home. And you can even do this, use this resource to search regionally. And so it'll give you prices based off where you live in the United

States, which is pretty cool. Or you can just take the national average and use that.

Okay.

And so then another one that we used, Home Depot actually has a project calculator for specific projects, and theirs is a little bit more comprehensive, and rightly so, because they're trying to sell you lots of stuff.

Sure.

Good for them.

Yeah.

So basically what it is with them is they'll give you— you punch numbers into their calculator and they'll give you what amount of that product that you need in order to do that project with some wiggle room.

Okay.

And so then you can take that number and then go apply it To that, you can go pick out what you want and then apply that number to that. So like, for instance, like, like this, we're talking about carpet and we were talking like what, 1,000 square feet of carpet?

Yeah, roughly.

Yeah. Roughly 1,000 square feet of carpet. So we, we went in and, and, and put Kevin's numbers into the, the Home Depot project calculator and, and came up with how many square feet of carpet that we needed. Um, and, and, and so we, we've plugged all these numbers. And so for the first one, we, we, we did the remodeling. remodeling calculator at remodelingcalculator.org. Uh, really, really simple to use. And we came up with $4,700 to do this 1,000 square feet of carpet. And it wasn't like the lowest grade quality carpet. I think it was like $12.15 a square foot.

It was a mid-range.

Something, something like that. Yeah. Um, and so with the labor and the materials and the amount of time that was going to take, so basically it's going to take these guys like a day to come in and knock this project out. So really not much inconvenience to you and your family to, you know, you probably have some, furniture moved, you know, something might get scuffed. Um, a guy might, you know, tip his cigarette butt in your yard or something like that, but you're gonna have new carpets in a day and it's gonna cost you $4,700.

Right, which, which, you know, depending on who you are and, you know, what your, um, idea of this project is, um, some, some people may listen to that and say, hey, that's not bad at all.

Yeah.

And some people may look at that and go, dude, that's like $5,000.

Yeah.

And that may be, that may be more than 10% of what I make in a year. And that's really tough to try to do. So it's the exact reason we're having this conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and it's always difficult for the purchaser to kind of rationalize the price without— and they don't consider all the steps and materials and tools and time and experience that goes into these kinds of things that allows these guys to do these projects quickly.

Sure.

Um, and, and so anyway, um, so here, here's sort of my decision matrix for DIY. So I, I always, for me personally, I always, I always try and talk to at least 2 people who are doing what it is that I want to do and get a price from them.

So in this case, carpeting, you'd try to talk to 2 carpeting people.

Right.

Okay.

And I, and I, again, like, don't, don't do what I do. I'll just tell you the reasons why I do what I do. I always take both prices back to both guys, regardless of whether or not one's high and one's low. Um, and I'll give you an example. Recently we were quoting out some solar panels for the house. Um, and You know, both— I gave both these guys the same numbers, uh, and one guy came back, man, it was, it was insane. He was literally 3 times the price of the other guy. Um, and rather than going, this guy's a nut job that's just trying to rip me off, Mm-hmm. I gave him the opportunity to explain himself and I called him and I said, look, here's the other

company, here's the numbers that they gave me. And without accusing him, I'm like, I'm really curious as to why your numbers are so much higher.

Sure.

And it wasn't rude. It was, it was literally coming from a place of, I really want to understand, is this other guy just trying to rip me off with cheap parts and pieces? You know, or do you know something that he doesn't know? I mean, what's going on? Or maybe he knows something you don't know.

Right.

Maybe you guys need to talk.

Right.

Um, and so he goes, well, can you send me those? Yeah, I'd be happy to send you those numbers. And he goes, do you, do you have this, this information and that information? And I gave him every bit of information I had. And he goes, let me go, let me go have some conversations with some guys. And he called me back within 2 days and goes, well, here's what I'm seeing. And he explained himself. He didn't change his price.

Yeah.

Um, um, but he, he, he was able to explain to me why he was where he was at or why he felt where he was at was okay.

Yeah. And, and so you're able to look at that and weigh Is what he is doing 3 times superior to what the other guy's doing? And obviously he's able to justify himself and say, I'm 3 times superior than the other guy. Um, and at the same time, you gotta figure out which one's more legitimate.

Right. And I just, just one, for instance, on, on that particular project, he came back and was like, look, my warranty is 2.5 times longer than the other guy. And so you're looking at the difference between 10 years and 25 years.

That's significant.

Yeah. So, I mean, especially when you're talking about, you know, do you all want to be in this house for that long?

Right.

My wife's answer is no. It's kind of turned her into an arsonist. But anyway—

I hope legal never gets a hold of this episode.

I'm sure I'll go down in the fire. But anyway, so here's— Here's, here's my, here's my DIY analysis. Here's, here's how I go through it. I, I, I look at a project and I try and estimate how much time that project's going to take me. And, and, and Kevin, Kevin's already given us some numbers here, so he didn't, he didn't necessarily like game his numbers in order to, to fix it into my equation here. But anyway, um, so I, I, I calculate the time and you said how much time?

I, I guess for me to do the project, right, um, I, I guessed it would probably take me a good 3 10-hour days.

Okay.

So I'm thinking 30 hours.

30 hours. So we take that 30 hours and we multiply it by 2, because I always assume that every project that I take on is going to take me twice as long as I originally thought it was going to take me.

At least.

Yeah, and, and not, not because like I'm slow or anything like that, but like stuff happens because like It's in your off time. It's not in your regular work time. And so time gets broken up and then it's, for me, it takes me a while to get all the tools out again. And there's all sorts of things that happen. Anyway, I take however much time it's going to take me that I think it's going to take me, and then I multiply it by 2. And then I multiply that by my hourly wage. And I don't really get paid by the hour, but I can kind of figure out what I get paid by the hour. And so we took this project that Kevin's talking about, and rather than

telling everybody, well, we make. Um, we just did the national average, uh, which is $27.50.

Right.

Not a lot of people realize that it's that high, but it is.

It is.

Um, so, and then we take that number and then we add it to the cost of the materials. You know, what we would look at and go, okay, like looking at the Home Depot project calculator, what they told us to buy, what we wanted to buy, and then, you know, figuring out what that number is. And then I always take that number and I add an additional 15% onto the cost of that, uh, just because it, you know, I've had many projects where I've bought exactly what I needed and then it was never enough because stuff broke, I made a mistake, stuff happens. And so I just add—

I just— Or you miscalculated. Right. And so I just—

so I give myself 15% of wiggle room on the materials. Um, it also helps account for like gas.

Sure.

And time going to the store to buy those things, even though I think you can like order it online and have it picked up and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, it helps account for some of that nebulous.

Right.

In the project. And so then I have these 2 other questions that I always ask myself is, do I know what I'm doing? Meaning, have I done this project before? Do I have experience? Am I an expert? Do I know what I'm doing? Is this something I can easily accomplish? It's not gonna take me any learning time. Do I have a good understanding as to what's going on? And you and I were talking earlier, like both of us, I think, are probably pretty standoffish when it comes to like electrical work.

Yeah.

You're like, well, not probably not like putting an outlet in the wall, but like major electrical work. I'm just not going to mess with it. It's just not my bailiwick.

Sure. And there's a couple of reasons and we'll talk about those in a minute.

Sure. Um, so anyway, do I know what I'm doing? If the answer to that question is yes, I always take off 75.

Okay.

And if the answer is no, I always add $150.

Okay.

Um, and, and so on this one we asked you, Kevin, do you know what you're doing?

Not on carpet.

Not on carpet. So for this project we added $150 and we should probably go back because you know what we, the number that we ended up with for the carpet with your time times 2 hourly wage plus materials plus 15% came out to about $2,400.

Right.

In materials and time.

Yeah.

Um, and so now we've got, um, oh, sorry. Time, sorry. Time times 2 times hourly wage came out to about $2,000. Materials plus 15% came out to about $2,400.

Right.

So we're already at $4,400 basically.

$4,400, yeah.

Um, and then do you know what you're doing? You answered no. So that's an extra $150. Do you enjoy doing carpet work?

Uh, no.

No. So, so with that, so if we're at $2,400, uh, $2,400 plus $150 is $2,550, right? Plus $300 is $2,850, right? And so you're, you're over what it would cost to have someone come in and do it in a day at that point, right? Um, And, and so now it's $150 more.

Right.

So I mean, I guess if you really, really loved carpet, um, or maybe the guy that— the guys that you wanted to use, they couldn't get the carpet, I don't know. But anyway, for me, I'm looking at that going, okay, it's $4,700. I get to keep potentially 30 hours of my time, maybe even 60 hours of my time, um, and, you know, plus frustration and tools that I may never use again. Who knows? I mean, I don't know. But it's just a good way to go through a project, in my mind, it's a good way to go through a project and evaluate it and go, do I really need to be doing this? At the end of the day, is this gonna be the project for me?

Yeah, and I think, you know, it's easy for someone to listen to this and say, well, I mean, seriously, Craig, I mean, you're just coming up with numbers. But the reality of it is, these are all things you have to think about. You have to think about the overages that you don't account for.

Right.

And you have to think about the fact that when you are doing this project, you're not doing something else. And, you know, there's a lot of people in the world that work hourly. And if that's the thing, you're not at your job for 3 days, you know, and that's 10-hour workdays.

Yeah, where you're not earning money.

Exactly. And even, even if it— this is, you know, off time where you're not working and maybe you're a salaried position or whatever, most of us have other things that we enjoy doing, whether it's hanging out with our family or playing a round of golf or going, you know, running or whatever it is. We're not able to do something else. And so there's a lot of these calculations that I think, uh, are helpful for me because it allows me to put some real numbers to is this actually worth it. And what's real interesting is it allows for those things that I do enjoy doing, um, for that number to actually be lower. Um, you know, for example, you know, put— you put in there

if, if, uh, if I know what I'm doing You take off $75 off that because I'm not spending any time trying to figure this out.

Right.

But if I don't know what I'm doing, then I'm either reading a book, I'm talking to a professional somewhere, you know, wherever I can find one, I'm on YouTube, probably most people go directly to YouTube, and I'm spending more time on this project. And so I think that it's easy to say, well, I could save half of that if I just do it myself. And that may be true, but there's a whole lot of things that you have to calculate for that may make that extra, you know, half, that extra 50%, not worth your time or your effort.

Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that brought up a fun memory for me, especially considering last episode we were talking to, uh, to Justin Yeah, the roofer. About roofing. Yeah, because I had a buddy in high school that lived in my neighborhood, and his dad decided one summer that they were gonna re-roof their house. And to me, that's one of those projects that I look at and I was like, no, no, not doing that, not gonna do that. And he, I mean, he just jumped in with both feet. And so like, you know, so, you know, I think this was like into middle school, beginning of high school kind of stuff. Um, but you know, like, that's like, it's like hanging chill time for like, like we go play

basketball, we, you know, go run around, ride four-wheelers, whatever's going on in the neighborhood. But like most of the time he was at home scraping the roof or putting shingles on the roof.

Wow.

And like in the middle of the summer. And so like, and if you've ever had your house re-roofed, I mean, like those guys can knock it out in, you know, 3 or 4 days.

You said guys.

Yeah, multiple. There's a crew. I mean, like, these guys bring in massive crews and they, I mean, like, they knock it out really, really quick. And they do it that way because, like, you know, they don't want to have an exposed roof to rain and any other elements. Um, but man, it took them, I want to say it took them like 3 and a half months.

Oh my goodness.

To knock that thing because he was, I mean, the guy worked. I mean, he was, he was, you know, he had a regular job. And so he'd come home after 5 and they'd get to work on the roof and they'd spend all weekend on it. And, uh, you know, it was the summertime and so he was out of school. So his dad's expectations were for him to be working on the roof.

Oh my goodness.

Um, so it was just a nightmare.

That sounds awful.

Um, but I'm sure, I'm sure they ran the numbers and it's like, well, this roof's gonna cost us, you know, $8,000 to $10,000 to have somebody else come in and do it, but I can go buy the materials for $2,000. Right. And, but like $2,000 plus 3 months does not make a good equation.

No, not in any way. And, and, you know, you brought up a really good point. I think, uh, it, it, it helps lead us into this, this next part of our, of our conversation here is what are the things that you need to consider whenever you're trying to determine, do I do this myself or do I hire a professional, beyond how much is this going to cost? I mean, cost, cost is definitely going to be one of the number one motivating factors.

For everybody.

For everybody. I don't, I don't care if you're a millionaire or if you're, you know, working a job that you're just hoping to make ends meet, um, it doesn't matter. You're still going to look at that and go, I don't think I want to pay that much, or that, that's not bad at all.

Right.

So, so once you kind of move past the cost element, there's other things that you really are going to have to consider. And you brought up a really important one, which is, what am I exposing myself to here? Um, from a liability standpoint. So, so specifically for this roof, 3, 3 and a half months in the summer— like, here we live in Houston.

Yeah.

And the first part of the summer, June, you're probably good.

Yeah.

You get to July, the second half of July, and dude, it starts raining.

You cook your breakfast up there, man.

Man. And, and it's just like At what point are you putting— setting yourself up for a massive failure?

Yeah.

And, and so you have to calculate, is this project something that if it fails, it is gonna cost me way more? 'Cause now I'm not just replacing the decking and the, the shingles of, of my roof. I'm, I'm replacing maybe the insulation underneath it, maybe the ceiling, uh, where water's gotten in. And this could be a much bigger project than I ever expected it to be.

Oh yeah, man. And, and, and like when it, when it's not installed properly, I mean, does your insurance cover that?

I doubt it.

We probably need to get an insurance guy in here and talk about that. I mean, like that's, that's a, that's a good one right there. But I'm with you. I don't think they will. I don't think they would. And I don't think they should.

No, I agree with you.

Um, you know, if, if I installed it, I wouldn't cover it.

Right. That's, that's right. And so, you know, there's something to consider there as well. So, When you are looking to sell a home, an inspector is going to come and look at your house, right? And if he looks at something and says that's not up to code, they're going to make you redo it before you're able to sell that house. Unless the buyer is dumb enough to say, yeah, I don't really care. And I'll do it myself. But—

Or they can play on your patience and be like, well, just go ahead and knock knock $10,000 off the price and I'll take care of it myself.

Absolutely. So, so it really does come down to a, is it worth it for me to get into a project? And, uh, you know, one of the things you said as we were preparing for this episode is, is good enough good enough for you? Yeah, yeah.

I think when it comes to people's homes, people tend to have really high expectations for the end product. And, and so, you know, and let's just be honest, we're not all master craftsmen.

No.

And we're not going to have that magazine look in our house, particularly if we do the project ourselves.

Right.

Most of the time. One, because most of us can't afford the tools that it takes to do those kinds of projects. Um, and, and 2, even if you have the tools, it still requires a level of skill and experience and probably 50 to 60 mistakes with that tool in order to get it right.

Yeah.

Or to get it perfect.

Sure.

Um, and then there's just things that come up, uh, in, in regards to just things that were done poorly before you. If it's not square, if it's not flush, if it's, you know, because most people go into situations like that, like the room that we're sitting in, that it's like my expectation was like, hey, it's going to be square and level. And neither one of those things were true. Yeah, yeah.

And you know, you have different levels of what you think is acceptable, right? So, um, you know, I'm, I'm working on a project right now, uh, just, um, haven't been able to work on it actually the last couple of weeks, but, uh, just making a bench that's gonna go in our entryway. I enjoy woodworking. It's something that I, I find a lot of pleasure in. Um, I, I love the outcome with it. Um, my mother-in-law also loves to tinker around with, with things. And as I was preparing some of this wood, I was, uh, you know, I was, I was getting the joints perfect. I was, uh, planing it down. I was making sure all the, the boards were exactly the same size. Um,

and, and I remember, uh, she said to me, she said, yeah, you're just a lot more particular than I am.

Mm-hmm.

And she wasn't saying that in a derogatory way. And I don't, I don't look— I mean, she's made some beautiful things that, that I don't think is derogatory toward her to say, yeah, you just don't pay attention to detail like I do. Yeah, I don't think that's a derogatory thing. The thing that is different is we have a different eye for what we think looks good.

Yeah.

And so, um, if you're gonna do something in your home The question I think you have to ask yourself is, is someone going to come into this house and, and look at this, whatever it is, whether it's a plumbing job or a built-in, you know, a set of cabinets or something that you decide to build, and look at it and go, man, that looks really good?

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. Or just like, I can't really find a flaw in that, right?

You know, I would have done this differently, or if I would have hired someone It would have looked differently than this.

Yeah, and I'm the first one to admit I don't have a high level of attention to detail for things like that.

Sure.

For like precision cuts and different things like this, it's never bothered me that things can— I mean, I like things to be straight and I like things to be neat and all those kinds of things, but when it comes to me doing it, I'd rather somebody else do it because I know that they just have the patience for it and they have the skill for it. And I really don't feel like developing those things.

Yeah, but, but the opposite is also true, right? Is like, I do have the ability to do that, right? I do have the skill to do it. I have the tools to do it. And, um, you know, I did build a built-in, um, a little, you know, a little mudroom area in our, in our home, uh, before we moved down here, uh, and it was a selling point of our home because it was done really well. But, you know, it takes time to do that.

Yeah.

It takes patience to do that. It takes tools to do that. It takes a lot of time to develop the skills to do those things. And so I think that, yes, paying attention to the details is something that— am I gonna do that? Well, I think it kind of depends on whether or not you really enjoy doing it. It goes back to that equation.

Yeah, and I, and I think that's a big part of it is like regardless of, you know, what kind of personality you have when it comes to the work, are you going to enjoy doing it?

Yeah.

Is it, is it gonna be fun for you to do this project or is it just gonna be a big old pain in the katukish?

Yeah, yeah. And you know, even, even little, you know, disgusting jobs. Like I, I've mentioned on this, uh, podcast before, a project I had where my disposal was backing up into my dishwasher, which was an awful thing.

Right.

And, you know, it, it took getting down into the plumbing, disconnecting things, and, you know, cleaning things out, and it was disgusting. Um, but I remember, I remember when it was all done, we buttoned everything back up, and, uh, I, I was like, hey babe, it works again. And like feeling that sense of pride, you know, of like I did this and it didn't cost us an arm and a leg to get a plumber out here to do it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Oh yeah, if you guys are hearing the dogs barking in the background, those are, those are my, my guard dogs back over there. I'm sure they're corralling a cat or a possum or something. Hopefully a cat.

Sorry, cat people.

Yeah, they'll get over it.

Yeah. So what other things do you think are important, um, to consider?

Well, man, one of the big ones for me is— and you and I were talking about this before— is one is permits. I mean, is it the kind of job that's going to require a permit to be pulled? And, and then sometimes you live in a neighborhood like mine, um, where permits aren't enough. Uh, we, we actually have, like, for my neighborhood, anything that we do to the house is technically supposed to go before the HOA board, and they have a separate remodeling committee And you have to bring them the plans and you have to show them that if the plans require a permit, that your contractor has pulled that permit and that you have the right license to do the job. It's pretty intricate to do things around here.

Which is interesting. Yeah. Considering the house you live in.

Like, where were you guys 10 years ago?

The committee formed late.

That's right. Or they were drunk.

Or both.

Oh man. But, and I've been to some of their houses and I'm— yeah. Anyway, all that, all that to say, it's, it's not difficult to get things approved, right? But it is nice to know that there is that sort of stopgap there that kind of goes like, look, you got to put a plan together. You can't just like start knocking walls down and putting additions on and pouring foundations and all this kind of stuff. You, you've, you've You gotta make— you gotta do your due diligence on this thing.

Yeah, and so, so I think that's one of the things you, you named it, that if you have to start pulling permits, I think that's the type of job that you need to start considering. If I have to have a permit for this, can I do the work? Even if I feel competent that YouTube's gonna tell me how to do it, right, and I could read a book or whatever it is, I, I could do the work myself. If I have to start pulling permits, I think that that is an indicator of this is a professional-level job.

Yeah.

I don't have to pull a permit to change an outlet in my house, uh, but I probably do have to pull a permit if I'm going to run new lighting for outdoor spaces.

Sure.

You know, and so those are the types of things that you have to start calculating in your mind. Can I do this? And I think that's a real good stopgap, like you said, that word that says, this is the place where I have to stop and consider, can I get through this gap?

Yeah, man, and I don't want us to kind of go down the path that's making it sound like we feel like you just need to hire people to do everything.

Right.

Because that's definitely not the case, and that's not the point of the show either, but it is good to be aware of your limitations.

Sure.

Like what you can do and what you cannot do. And to be honest, and that's really why for me, like I created that matrix of like decision-making, like, and look and really, you know, trying to be as honest as I can with that project and using my time to create real numbers. And honestly, I've done it a few times where the numbers have not come out in my favor, but it's, I really want to do it.

Yeah, and I think you have to calculate that in your own, you know, matrix as well, is do I want to do this? And at the end of the day, if I want to install my own carpet, and it doesn't really matter how much it's going to cost, it, you know, at the end of the day, if I want to do it, it's worth doing.

Yeah, yeah.

And you'll figure it out.

Yeah, if it's— and especially if it's something like, you know what, I'm going to be doing this a few more times Before, you know, I hang up my whatever it is you use to put in carpet.

I wouldn't know.

I don't know what that is either. We need to have a flooring guy in here.

I guess so.

Make a note, Kevin. Ask the guy what the tool is to put the carpet in.

I will.

It's gotta have a good name, right?

Yeah, like carpet knife. One of those.

It should be something fun like Snoozen Bowser.

Yeah, probably.

That's what it is.

Yeah, I think you have it right there.

So I wouldn't buy an expensive Snoozen Bowser. No, mid-range. Mid-range.

About like the carpet. The carpet grade.

If I'm gonna have mid-range carpet, I'm gonna have mid-range Snoozen Bowser.

Yeah, I can't— I'm impressed that you remembered that, that name for like 7 times you said it.

I'm gonna bring it up like in at least the next 5 episodes. All right, that and the Finger Wagon are Yeah, okay. So yeah, you brought that up in about 6 episodes, I think. Uh, it's gonna happen.

So, so another thing that I think is important, uh, is to, um, ask yourself, am I the type of person that can put a plan together and finish it?

Sure.

Um, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who have said, yeah, I've— I started that 6 years ago and I'm gonna get to, you know, around to finishing someday. you kind of live in this state of construction, right, around your house. So, you know, in order to do these projects, you really do need to be able to be a person who can develop a plan, stick to it, and, and finish the project. Uh, and also along with that, I think you have to start evaluating the level of, of safety risk that you're under. Like, yeah, there are certain projects that— let's take electrical for example. Um, there's a significant safety risk whenever you start dealing with those sorts of things.

Like death.

Well, that specifically is what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

I would— death, that's, that's not good.

Whatever. I'm anti-death.

Well, eventually we're all gonna die. However, I don't want it to be from an electrical shock. Um, and so, you know, my brother-in-law is, is an electrician. That's what, you know, he's very, very good at it. And, uh, I remember we were changing outlets out, um, at my my previous home, uh, there were 2-prong outlets everywhere. And we were just like, let's, let's— we gotta change these out to something that is gonna accept current plugs, right? And so—

Gotta stop cutting off the ground.

Exactly. And so we're doing all kinds of stuff, and I'm like, all right, well, my brother-in-law is gonna have to cut off the electricity to do this room. And, and I remember him saying, no, just leave it on. I was like, uh, okay. You don't, you don't want to turn it off to change that outlet? He's like, no, no, I don't need to do that. And he didn't. Uh, he knew what he was doing and he was smart enough not to kill himself. Uh, but—

I don't care if you do know what you're doing.

Yeah, I— it was what he wanted to do. He's a professional. He can, he can deal with it if he wants to. But, um, do you know where your outlet, you know, your circuit breaker box is? Do you even know where that is? Um, you know, and, and if you don't know where your circuit breaker box is, you probably don't need to be working with electrical.

Um, I'll second that.

Yeah, so, you know, safety has to be a priority here. And, and so maybe that's something you want to work on. Do it. Absolutely. Get your feet, uh, all the way into the water. Get your hands as dirty as you can get them. Do the job, um, wash up afterwards, but yeah, get them dirty. But get them dirty and, and get into it, man, and enjoy it while you're there. Uh, but know what your limitations are. And I think that's really one of the things that I want our listeners to hear today is know your limitations, but be willing to take some sort of calculated risk. And you know, the, the bottom line is that this stuff is going to

cost you money.

Mm-hmm.

Whatever project it is, it's gonna cost you money, and you will save dollars in your bank account if you do it yourself. It may take you a lot of time.

Yeah.

And, and maybe at the end of the day, uh, your, your time is more valuable than the dollars in your bank account. But, you know, you, you're gonna have to make some of those decisions, uh, somewhere along the line.

Yeah, and even if like your time maybe right now is not as valuable as that project, I mean, this is a conversation my wife and I have been having a lot recently is like, you can always spend that money, right? I mean, like you can always do that. You can't get the time back.

No.

You can always get the money back.

Right.

There's plenty of it out there, you can go find it. it's there for the taking. But like the time, it's just gone.

Right.

It's always, it's, you know, it's a non-returning asset.

Right.

And so, but again, like if you just enjoy doing it, do it.

Yeah, and I would encourage people also to look at a project not as maybe as the whole, but look at it in parts.

Sure.

So for example, let's say that you are deciding you're gonna open up a room in your home by removing a wall, right? Okay, maybe you don't feel comfortable taking down the studs, and maybe you don't feel comfortable with, you know, doing the extra brace work, whatever you have to do here or there, but maybe you could demo the, the, the sheetrock that's already there.

Yeah.

Uh, that is going to save you dollars, um, because Someone's gonna charge you to come up, come in and rip the wall down.

Right.

Um, and so look at it not necessarily as a whole project, but, uh, more like the sum of its parts and figure out, is there a little part that I can do? And maybe that's gonna wind up saving you money. And maybe it's just something that you can, at the end of the day, go, I had a little bit of buy-in to that project, you know?

Yeah. No, that's— and that's the part I did right there. That, that was, that was my little, you know, that thing right there.

Yeah.

So yeah, and this room is probably a good example of that. I mean, and how budgets can change throughout because this, this one actually became significantly cheaper once we decided not to put the bathroom on. And really the deciding factor for that was this was— I mean, this was basically gonna be somebody's like studio apartment, right, that needed a place to live and like You know, we had the space, we were going to put the bathroom in just so they, they had that space.

Yeah.

Uh, then they ended up not needing it, and so it was like, now it's mine. So I'm already started, right? Uh, so probably at one point we probably need to have our buddy Jared in here to kind of talk about the initial startings of this project.

Yeah.

Once we, once we get it finished, I think that'd be fun to bring Jared in and, and talk about how this one got started because it was a freaking nightmare.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, man, so kind of, kind of going back to our numbers, so we've got our, we've we've got our numbers on your carpet now. Yeah. So, so based off, based off what we saw, are you gonna, you're gonna hire this thing out? You're gonna do it yourself?

There is no chance I'd do this myself. There's no chance.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, there, there are certain things that I think I, I can get in there and do that.

Yeah.

But when it comes to carpet, you know, this is one of those things that, I mean, my feet touch this a lot. I, my, I'm gonna roll around the, the the floor with my kids playing. I, I don't want to consider that I did it wrong, you know. There's no chance I'd do that. It honestly— here, here's how much I don't want to put in carpet. If you came to me and told me you could save 40% going through the matrix, you know, this, this calculator, uh, that you've created, uh, save 40% doing it yourself I would still have someone else come do it.

Oh wow.

Just because I don't want to do it.

Yeah.

You know, um, but there's other projects, Greg, that, that I think you can tell me it's going to cost you more to do it yourself, and I'm still going to do it.

Yeah.

Because I want to. Yeah.

And then you kind of have your ideas to how it's supposed to look, and you know you can make it look that way.

Yeah. And I am particular. I, I know I'm that about myself. I, I have a particular idea, and if someone comes in and does it differently than what I want them to do it or how I want them to do it, and I may have problems with that. And it may be, may be smarter for me just to do it myself.

Yeah. So there, I hope that was helpful to everybody today. Kev, you got anything else for us today, man?

Uh, no, I will tell you that, um, we're gonna do our best to get this, uh, this little calculator that you've, that you've created, uh, this matrix available, try to put it up on our website. We've probably got a little bit of figuring out how to get that up there, so it may take us a couple of weeks. But, you know, we want to provide you with that tool.

Yeah, if it's a helpful tool, we want to get it to people. I use it a lot.

Sure. Yeah, and maybe if you don't ultimately use it, it might be just another resource to give you some ideas. You know, feel free to contact us if you've got a project that you think, I'm looking into doing this and I need someone's perspective on whether or not I should tackle this or whether or not I should hire someone out. You know, send us an email at info@homeownersshow.com. We'll respond to you quickly and give you our opinion. I wouldn't tell you to always go with our opinion. But, you know, we'll see what it looks like. and if it's something that we feel like we would tackle or if we would hire it out, we'd love to give you that feedback.

Absolutely. Yeah, we need to give the shout out to Brandy for responding to our little video there. She said she wanted to get her ceilings redone.

Yeah.

We put the post up, I think we put up on Facebook and Instagram, what projects are you looking to get redone? And Brandy threw up, I want to get my ceilings redone.

Yeah. Still.

So hope you get your ceilings done, Brandy. Yeah, me too.

You too.

And man, anything else?

I think that's it. Uh, we're, we're glad that, uh, that you're tuning in. And, um, you know, if you've got an idea of a show you want done, let us know. Give us some feedback. And, uh, remember, we're here every Tuesday morning, so, uh, hit that subscribe button. And until then, we'll see you next time.

See ya.