No matter how new or how well-built, every house needs work or maintenance on a regular basis. You can pay professionals to do it all, of course, but if you’re looking to save a little money (or just want to learn and be in control of your home maintenance fate), there are plenty of home repair jobs that can be DIY’d. If you’re a beginner who’s just getting started on DIY maintenance and repair, however, you should watch out for some easy and common mistakes inexperienced DIYers make.
One of the most common mistakes beginner DIYers make is to assume that if tight is good, extra tight is better. This is especially true for plumbing jobs. We all fear water leaks and how easily they can destroy whole sections of your house, so it seems to make sense that when you’ve replaced the trap under your sink or swapped in a new drain or faucet, you should tighten those connections as much as you can. But over-tightening any connection, bolt, or screw can lead to disaster because it can cause small, subtle cracks that lead to failures and leaks that may not become evident until days or weeks later.
Caulking an empty tub will cause your job to fail faster
Re-caulking a bathroom every few years is a very good idea. Caulk isn’t forever, and even a tiny failure can allow damaging moisture to invade your walls and floors. And caulking is a DIY job almost everyone can do to an acceptable standard.
If your goal is to destroy your house and possibly yourself, then you should definitely dive into a DIY project without bothering to locate and turn off the water and electrical supply to the areas you’ll be working on. Not only can one wrong turn of the wrench on a pipe send a torrent of water coursing into your house, but working with any exposed wiring that hasn’t been confirmed to be cold is just foolhardy. Turning off the water and power to the areas you’ll be messing with might seem like an unnecessary complication for a small, quick job, but if your hand slips or a component fails, you’ll be very glad you took the time.
Not testing your equipment first can lead to problems later
If you’ve never heard the term "kerf," you’re not alone—few DIYers likely have. The kerf is the width of the cut your saw blade makes, in addition to whatever cut you've measured. This can be crucial, because that material is deleted from the wood you’re working with (transformed into sawdust)—and that means your cuts can end up wider or narrower than intended.
Skipping checking to make sure you aren't drilling into pipes or wiring can cost you
You’re about to hang some shelving on the wall. You’ve measured twice, you have your screws and anchors. You double-check the bit size in the drill, and start drilling away. Moments later, water starts pouring out of your drill hole, or there’s a spark, and your lights go off. Congrats! You just drilled into a pipe or electrical wiring inside the wall. Assuming you’re still alive, you have a mess to clean up.
You’re in a groove—sanding, cutting, demo-ing, and making progress. Everything looks good, so you start to paint. And your paint job looks awful. It’s bumpy and it might even start peeling immediately. Why? Because you didn’t clean first. All that sawdust and drywall dust and tile dust has settled like a film on every surface, including the vertical surfaces of your walls, where it can be impossible to see. When you paint over dust like that, it will look terrible (at best) and fail to adhere properly (at worst). Always vacuum and wipe down every surface before you move to the finishing stages of your project.
Relying too much on painter's tape can lead to sloppy results
But painter’s tape is not magic, and you still need to use proper painting technique if you want truly clean lines. That means learning how to use a cut brush properly, taking your time even if you’ve taped everything off, and not overloading your brush with paint. Even the best painter’s tape can let paint bleed through if you’re smearing too much on.
Forcing and stripping screws will stop any job in its tracks
An easy mistake newbies make when using power drills for the first time is stripping screws. The bit in your drill is harder than the head of your screw, so if things go wrong, your drill can 100% wear down your screw until there’s nothing left to grip, leaving you with a frustrating mini-project called "Using Pliers to Remove Screws." This usually happens because inexperienced DIYers just pull the trigger on their drill and go full-speed ahead. By the time they realize the bit has jumped and they’re stripping the screw, it’s too late. There are a few basic things you should do to avoid this fate:
Start slow. Don’t just jam the drill’s trigger and launch it into hyperspeed. Ease into it and increase the speed steadily. Push in as you drill to ensure the bit stays seated.
If you follow those simple steps, your chances of stripping a screw go down dramatically, and your chances of a happy ending to your DIY project go up. If you have the discretion to choose your fasteners, consider using screws with different drive types, like hex or torx. These are less prone to stripping than your standard slotted or Phillips screw.
Using close-but-wrong materials really can make a huge difference
A common misconception among newbies to the joys of DIYing through a home repair or maintenance project is that materials within a given category are broadly similar and can be used interchangeably. But using, say, exterior paint on an interior job, or acrylic caulk (which isn’t waterproof) in a wet area like a shower, can ensure disastrous results, with the added fun of doing the job a second time. These materials are formulated for specific environments—exterior paint, for example, is designed to withstand exterior forces like wind and rain, and will actually degrade pretty fast on an interior application—so make sure you're using the right ones.
The time saved by eyeballing your measurements is never worth the risk
Most homes are not level. Settling and the natural cycle of expansion and contraction mean it takes just a few years for everything in even a new home to be maddeningly out of plumb. Yet every day, someone thinks they can just eyeball stuff—getting things level and measuring materials accurately—without using the proper tools.
Overworking paint can mean redoing everything
Painting is one of the cheapest and easiest DIY projects you can undertake, and paint can be a surprisingly powerful renovation that makes a space feel fresh and new. Just about anyone can learn to paint walls pretty decently—all it takes is proper prep, the right tools, and a patient approach. But a common DIY mistake when painting is to overwork the paint. This can happen when you apply more fresh paint over a section that hasn’t completely dried, which results in a splotchy, uneven look, or when you use too much pressure when using a paintbrush, which results in visible stroke lines. Modern paint contains leveling agents that will coax it into a uniform sheen if left to do its work. If you think your first coat was spotty, wait for it to fully dry before applying a second coat.
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