What’s the Real Cost to “Do it Yourself”?

When it comes to home maintenance and repair, you almost always have a choice. You can choose to do the maintenance or repair yourself—or you can hire someone to do it for you.

Let’s be honest. We’re home care and repair professionals. We do this stuff day in and day out. And we’d love to handle your home care and repair needs. But there are probably projects that you can complete without our involvement. So when should you use us and when should you do it yourself?

Naturally, you shouldn’t take on a project that you’re not comfortable doing. Maybe it’s because you lack the skills. There’s no shame in that. It’s why you won’t find us in the kitchen at one of Seattle’s fine restaurants! Or maybe there are safety issues. It’s smart to stay away from projects where you could get hurt.

Often, however, the decision comes down to cost. When you consider costs, however, remember that there are real costs and there are also opportunity costs.

Real Cost: Assuming that you have the skill and know-how to fix what needs to be fixed, you will have some real costs at the hardware store to buy the supplies you need. And you may need to buy a tool or two to enable yourself to complete the task.

If you call us to do the job for you, you don’t have to go to the hardware store. You don’t have to buy materials or tools. You also don’t have to find and fix the leak. Granted, you do have to pay us for our time and for the materials (but we may be able to get a better price on materials—and we already have the tools).

But that’s not the whole story.

Opportunity Cost: The time you spend going to the hardware store and working on fixing your problem is time you’re not spending on other opportunities. You give up one opportunity (time with your family, for instance) to take advantage of another opportunity (saving money on your repair).

There’s a good chance that we can do the job faster than you can—because we do it all the time. And we’re also aware of the snags you can run into (because we’ve run into them ourselves! And having the job done quickly may be worth something to you as well. Here’s a big question for you to consider: What is your time worth? We’re not just talking in terms of an hourly rate, but in terms of what else you could be doing with your time.

Are there care and repair projects you can do yourself? You bet. And if you can do those quickly, effectively and safely—you ought to do them. But if there are things that exceed your ability or your comfort level—or that take you away from greater opportunities—give us a call. We’d love to free you up for those things you’d rather spend your time on!