Do you handle it yourself or contract it out to a professional? Depends on the work, and you.

So you’ve bought a house, gone through it with a magnifying glass, moved in, and lived in it. At some point, perhaps after the defect liability period has lapsed, you might come across some things you would want to change (or fix).

Whether it is a little more shade from the sun that you need, some landscaping, or repairs to a vintage property, the question of doing it yourself or hiring a professional largely comes down to three factors:-

1. What it is you intend to do,

2. How much you know about the task at hand, and

3. What you can afford in terms of money, time, and effort

Research

The bottom-line in doing anything, especially work on your home, is definitely putting in some time to do the research. Whether you intend to do it yourself or hire a professional, you absolutely need to know what the work entails.

Fortunately, the internet provides. Begin by equipping yourself with some information on what you want to do, what materials are required, and what procedures to follow – and then, decide if you could handle it all on your own.

Simple Tasks

Relatively simple work such as drilling holes in the wall for curtain railings should be something you can approach on your own – albeit with some careful measurement and the right tools.

Even simple tasks like drilling a hole in the wall can be a little more strenuous and complex than you would initially imagine, especially if you’ve never even seen it being done before.

Imagine holding a kilogram of weight between your chin and your chest, and pressing that vibrating weight against the wall while perched on a ladder – it’s like a deleted scene from one of the “Final Destination” movies.

If you’re doing it for the first time, you’re in for some surprises. But if you manage to pull it off by yourself, it’ll be a learning experience that will have you beaming with pride.

Complex Tasks

There are some potentially dangerous tasks, such as having a jaunt on the roof or messing with electricity, for which you should seriously consider hiring a professional.

Seriously, we don’t want to see any obituaries because you’ve decided that you’re half mountain goat or that you could handle reconfiguring your fusebox with a fork and a pair of socks for gloves.

Accounting

If you know something about what you intend to do, having put in some time to do the research and seen some how-tos, your next point of consideration would be the costs in terms of money, time, and effort.

For large-scale work, you could grade the tasks you need to be done, according to the skill required, in order to figure out how much you would be paying someone else to do it.

Unskilled labour (work that doesn’t require any professional training) can cost you around RM50 per head for an eight-hour workday. You would have to double, triple, or even quadruple, that figure for tasks that require more professional training.

Don’t be surprised if an electrician charges you a few hundred ringgit for a few hours’ work.

You’ll find that some of the work can be exhaustingly menial and back-breaking – ever tried mixing cement?

If you are planning on working with a lot of it, you could invest in a stirrer attachment for an electric drill to save some time and energy – but you should probably ask yourself: how often will you be using that potentially expensive attachment?

A rust-proof and high-strength stirrer attachment could be costly and is more likely found in a professional’s toolkit than in your home workshop.