3 Reasons To Think Twice Before You DIY
Homeowners all over the Coachella Valley area know that while owning a home is rewarding, it can also be expensive. When you buy a home you not only agree to pay the seller’s asking price, but you also take responsibility for all ongoing maintenance costs. Those costs include everything from yearly air conditioning maintenance to appliance repair to roof replacement, and they can add up over time.
Given that your home will always need upkeep of some kind, it’s no surprise that you may want to save a few bucks here and there by doing some projects yourself. And with the prevalence of high-quality DIY tutorials online, it may seem like a cinch to do your own maintenance tasks. But if the project you’re thinking of completing by yourself is an electrical task, you should pump the brakes and call an electrician instead.
Working with electricity is inherently dangerous, and taking on any electrical project—even a ‘simple’ light fixture installation—without proper training can have costly, painful and potentially deadly consequences. Check out these three major reasons to hire an electrician instead of trying to do it yourself.
DIY Isn’t Really Cheaper
While doing an electrical repair yourself may seem cheaper than hiring an electrician, there’s more to it than just the material cost. If you attempt to replace an outlet without proper electrical education, you could get the wiring wrong and burn up the new outlet and associated wiring, then end up calling an electrician to fix a bigger problem than you had to begin with.
Now you’re out the costs of the new outlet you burned up, the wiring that was burned up with it, another new outlet to replace the burned up outlet and the electrical repair visit—significantly more than you would have paid if you had skipped the DIY and called an electrician from the beginning.
You Could Hurt Yourself
Reading that you can hurt yourself doing DIY electrical work, you probably immediately think of getting shocked, and you’re absolutely right! Trained electricians have the knowledge and expertise to avoid painful shocks, something your online video tutorial may not be able to teach you.
But there are other ways to hurt yourself as well. Just last year a member of our marketing team discovered the GFCI outlet that served her washing machine had died and she decided to replace the outlet herself. However, while moving her washing machine she ran over her foot with the machine and ended up with a broken toe and hefty medical bills, in addition to the electrical repair bill she inevitably paid. Learn from her DIY fail; hire an electrician.
You Could Burn Your House Down
The vast majority of house fires are electrical fires and they’re usually caused by loose and exposed wires. When you hire an electrician, you’re guaranteed the electrical wires they work on will be properly tightened, sheathed or capped to ensure that no sparks can ignite a fire in your home. If you DIY an electrical repair, you don’t have that guarantee. And if you do have an electrical fire as a result of a DIY project, your homeowner’s insurance may not cover the damages.
If you need to have electrical services done on your home, don’t risk the consequences of a failed DIY job. Call Hydes at (760) 360-2202 instead. Our electricians will guarantee your safety and satisfaction with professional electrical service at a reasonable price.
