Do-it-yourself mania is too much
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- September 6, 2023
- 375
This world is made up of two kinds of people — those who do their own home repairs and those who don’t. The latter are no less mechanically inclined, just wiser. They have looked reality in the face and called the proper professional.
The life that do-it-yourselfers can often provide themselves and their households is one of prolonged pain and suffering. Simple repairs too often take several days and require purchasing new equipment. Major repairs have been known to last for weeks, sometimes
months.
The desire to practice house repairs surfaces most often in the male homeowner, though the female homeowner can be just as dangerous. What causes these outbreaks of unskilled over-confidence in certain homeowners is unknown, but it can develop into serious problems.
Taller Half is a recovering do-it-yourselfer. He spent years utterly convinced there was no house repair project he couldn’t fix. He spent small fortunes on specialized tools that were used only once. He enjoyed some early successes, which only served to encourage his repair mania.
His recovery began with the dishwasher incident. Our house was not young, built before the advent of built-in dishwashers. We decided to put our portable model under the counter — a simple job requiring a few hours of work. (The rule of thumb with do-it-yourselfers is 3/2: triple the time and double the cost.)
By the end of the day, our dishwasher was under the counter, hooked up and ready to go. It didn’t go. There it sat looking great until it quietly burned out its motor. New motors for dishwashers aren’t cheap.
This time we called in the professionals. The motor was replaced, wiring and plumbing checked, and the second motor died. Taller Half was secretly relieved — he felt absolved of the death of the first motor. It took a few days, but the solution was found. A ground fault was the culprit. When safely grounded, the dishwasher was fixed and functional.
The do-it-yourself mania is remarkably difficult to cure. Our poor house had to survive several more do-it-yourself projects with Taller Half before her prayers were answered and we moved!