Trade Jobs You Shouldn’t DYI

Do you remember that old television program, ‘Home Improvement’? The star of the show, ‘Tim, the Toolman Taylor’ would prance around his home and the homes’ of friends, thinking he was helping out by doing odd jobs, but inevitably, blow up the house, knock down walls or injure himself.  Let’s be realistic, we all have little ‘Tim The Toolman’s’ running around our houses, thinking they are Mr Fix its and can take care of all our handy man needs. But unfortunately few of them can! As wives and girlfriends, we so often put in our two cents, ‘honey, I don’t think that’s a very good idea’, or ‘honey, maybe we should call in the electrical services on this one’, and yet, even though we know better, for the sake of our other half’s ego, we back down easily as soon as he gives that look, and simply says, ‘I’ve got this one dear’.

Well, as strong women, it’s time to stop backing down. It is time to stop letting hubby or boyfriend, brother or dad tackle a project for which he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, just so we can pay a professional to come in and do it properly later. It’s time to skip the explosions, the fallouts, and the trips to emergency and simply call in the big guys from the start. While there are a few jobs your other half may be able to get done, below are a list of trades they should avoid at all cost – and this is speaking from personal experience. So put your foot down!

1. Electrician

So my husband thought he could jump up into the roof, do a little rewiring and work in an extra power point in the lounge room for us. We did the usual routine, arguing lightly about calling electricians in Sydney, he gave the look, the magic words and I gave in. Two hours later, we were in emergency. While there are a lot of practical skills your partner may be able to master, doing circuits in science in high school does not qualify him to do electrical work on your home. Electricians train for years to know the ropes – so definitely don’t back down on this one!

       
    2.   Plumbing

I’m not going to lie, I’m not handy. I don’t know a wrench from a spanner, and can barely hammer a nail in straight, but I do know that water shooting out of a hole in my laundry is a bad thing. So did my dad, so he offered to fix it. Against my better judgement and because I didn’t have the cash, I agreed. Somehow over the course of a few hours, my dad managed to increase the size of the hole in the wall, undo anything and everything that connected and finally realise he had no idea how to put it all together. What was a cheap job for a plumber, blew out to a huge bill. Should have called in the pros to start with!

    3.   Cabinet making

The final one, was a great laugh when it happened, but not so much fun getting fixed. My sister’s brand new hubby decided he’d help out by installing a brand new flat pack kitchen. Never having done anything like this before and a bit of a city boy, he figured he was basically playing leggo – fitting bits together – how wrong he was. To his credit, he put all the pieces together almost correctly, and it actually looked quite lovely, we were all impressed.

Until she cooked us a first big grand meal to bless it – and all the plates slowly slid down the bench and onto the floor. Unfortunately hubby didn’t realise that a real cabinet maker has to check the angles on the slab, especially in old houses – and as the kicks, cupboards and bench tops were all fitted nice and flush to the angled slab, the angle exacerbated and she had a slight, but destructive slippery slide on her hands!

The moral of the story – ladies, stop worrying about hurting his ego and start worrying more about how he’s hurting the hip pocket! Call in the qualified, trained people from the start!

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