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>But I really hate this notion of "just pay someone to do it correctly", because this proposition also has a ton of risk and expense associated with it as well.

>But I really hate this notion of "just pay someone to do it correctly", because this proposition also has a ton of risk and expense associated with it as well. For almost any task you'd consider hiring a professional, there is less risk and less cost, which is why professional exist. They are the best option for a wide range of cost/risk tradeoffs. >Not every contractor who takes a job is Bob the Builder But the majority are a lot better than the average person thinking they can build. Experience is a useful thing, in software dev and in building.

sethammons 6y ago
I'm on the fence. With youtube, you can find so many things tricks and suggestions, things that professionals don't even know. With my current home, I've brought in contractors half a dozen times. Half of those were terrible, terrible experiences. The other half saved me vast amounts of time. However, even with the solid contractors, for them it is a balance of time and money leading to some cut corners that, as the home owner, I would never cut on. But time, time is the thing I don't have enough of, else I would figure out most things.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Totally agree with this, I replied similarly to the same OP. If a job is extremely complex and dangerous, but I have all the time in the world, I will find an extremely time-inefficient but safe way of doing it. Contractors usually will cut a corner to save money and time, for example they may not tighten everything back up as well as it should be when operating on a furnace, only for you to encounter the smoke/leak next year when the machine vibration finally kicks those bolts loose.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  >time is the thing I don't have enough of, else I would figure out most things. Sure, if your time has no value, then you can learn to be professional at everything. And for many tasks the amount you'd have to pay to learn to do it far exceeds the cost of hiring someone, since they amortize their training time and tool cost over multiple clients. Since time is finite, that's why it often pays in both time and money to hire someone. > With youtube, you can... Youtube and the like have led a significant number of people to assume they have skills they don't, and the effect is large enough there's subfields in econ and psych that study this effect. For example [1] [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2018/article/watching-youtube-can-make-you-overly-confident https://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2018/arti...
sushshshsh 6y ago
As a softeare dev who used to work in the contracting space, I cannot tell you how many stories I have of licensed, insured, regulated tradesmen going to jobsites and the outcome being burned down houses, flooded houses, oil spills, trees falling onto houses, and just monetary and physical damages galore. If you have the time and desire to do things carefully, truly, then you will do things carefully. You'll find that tradesmen have plenty of expertise and money-- the only thing they don't have is time, and it really shows.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  >I cannot tell you how many stories This is not the metric. It's a self selected post hoc measurement, subject to mental bias. The proper way is to measure all pros that do a task, then the ratio that did badly, then do the same thing for amateurs, and do so carefully (preferably somehow double blind) to remove cognitive bias. Then compare ratios. When such things are done, I find almost every time notice my (and likely your) anecdotal claims vanish. I suspect this is such a case. A good example is a friend owns a business that handles two cases of building things: doing it themselves first time, and fixing screwups done by amateurs. Literally (I've seen the books because I was surprised when he told me this) 75% of their revenue is repairing things people screwed up by not hiring pros, and then it costs much more. (It's related to wetland construction issues).
  - sushshshsh 6y ago
    Then don't construct in a wetland? 90% of building involves avoiding risk, not developing Herculean skills to overcome risks. It would be like if I lived in Thailand and then complained that I got electrocuted trying to set up a really complicated AC system. If you aren't willing to put in the time to do that kind of electrical work safely, then ask yourself why you really want to live in an area where that type of work is a pressing requirement. I don't subscribe to your philosophy that all contractors are superheroes that are immune to messing things up. I'm not paying $125 an hour for a guy who lives in a tin shack to come and tell me how much of a pro he is just to disappear the moment I discover some deficiency in his work.
wyclif 6y ago
What it comes down to in my way of thinking about it is that for me, it's easier to do the research around finding a great, on-the-level contractor than it is to do the research around doing it DIY.

sethammons 6y ago

I'm on the fence. With youtube, you can find so many things tricks and suggestions, things that professionals don't even know. With my current home, I've brought in contractors half a dozen times. Half of those were terrible, terrible experiences. The other half saved me vast amounts of time. However, even with the solid contractors, for them it is a balance of time and money leading to some cut corners that, as the home owner, I would never cut on. But time, time is the thing I don't have enough of, else I would figure out most things.

sushshshsh 6y ago
Totally agree with this, I replied similarly to the same OP. If a job is extremely complex and dangerous, but I have all the time in the world, I will find an extremely time-inefficient but safe way of doing it. Contractors usually will cut a corner to save money and time, for example they may not tighten everything back up as well as it should be when operating on a furnace, only for you to encounter the smoke/leak next year when the machine vibration finally kicks those bolts loose.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
>time is the thing I don't have enough of, else I would figure out most things. Sure, if your time has no value, then you can learn to be professional at everything. And for many tasks the amount you'd have to pay to learn to do it far exceeds the cost of hiring someone, since they amortize their training time and tool cost over multiple clients. Since time is finite, that's why it often pays in both time and money to hire someone. > With youtube, you can... Youtube and the like have led a significant number of people to assume they have skills they don't, and the effect is large enough there's subfields in econ and psych that study this effect. For example [1] [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2018/article/watching-youtube-can-make-you-overly-confident https://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2018/arti...

sushshshsh 6y ago

As a softeare dev who used to work in the contracting space, I cannot tell you how many stories I have of licensed, insured, regulated tradesmen going to jobsites and the outcome being burned down houses, flooded houses, oil spills, trees falling onto houses, and just monetary and physical damages galore. If you have the time and desire to do things carefully, truly, then you will do things carefully. You'll find that tradesmen have plenty of expertise and money-- the only thing they don't have is time, and it really shows.

ChrisLomont 6y ago
>I cannot tell you how many stories This is not the metric. It's a self selected post hoc measurement, subject to mental bias. The proper way is to measure all pros that do a task, then the ratio that did badly, then do the same thing for amateurs, and do so carefully (preferably somehow double blind) to remove cognitive bias. Then compare ratios. When such things are done, I find almost every time notice my (and likely your) anecdotal claims vanish. I suspect this is such a case. A good example is a friend owns a business that handles two cases of building things: doing it themselves first time, and fixing screwups done by amateurs. Literally (I've seen the books because I was surprised when he told me this) 75% of their revenue is repairing things people screwed up by not hiring pros, and then it costs much more. (It's related to wetland construction issues).
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Then don't construct in a wetland? 90% of building involves avoiding risk, not developing Herculean skills to overcome risks. It would be like if I lived in Thailand and then complained that I got electrocuted trying to set up a really complicated AC system. If you aren't willing to put in the time to do that kind of electrical work safely, then ask yourself why you really want to live in an area where that type of work is a pressing requirement. I don't subscribe to your philosophy that all contractors are superheroes that are immune to messing things up. I'm not paying $125 an hour for a guy who lives in a tin shack to come and tell me how much of a pro he is just to disappear the moment I discover some deficiency in his work.

wyclif 6y ago

What it comes down to in my way of thinking about it is that for me, it's easier to do the research around finding a great, on-the-level contractor than it is to do the research around doing it DIY.