5 ms·

Yeah, I've heard friends say that they don't do DIY at their house, or fix basic things because the plumber / joiner / whoever earns less than them per hour. SO

• dazc 6y ago
  I could but don't want to spend my spare time changing the brakes on my car. It makes sense to pay someone who can do it efficiently and properly as part of his/her job.
  • dharmab 6y ago
    I DIY those jobs exactly because I want the job to be done properly.
    • MattRix 6y ago
      Many people don’t have the time or desire to become an expert at every little DIY task.
      • dharmab 6y ago
        And those people are easily parted with their money :) You have to be making a very high income for DIY to not make sense. Paying someone skilled to do my brakes costs over $80/hr. And paying someone unskilled leads to showing up on /r/justrolledintotheshop later. Meanwhile with $600 or so of tools you can do all the basic maintenance for the rest of the car's lifetime (and re-use those tools for home improvement and other jobs). Something simple like brakes is a couple of hours and you can listen to a podcast or audiobook.
        • MattRix 6y ago
          If I was going to do a lot of DIY stuff, the last thing I would do would be my brakes. I’ve got no problem paying for the professional there.
          • dharmab 5y ago
            Brakes are one of the simplest systems on a vehicle (for good reason- simple systems are safer systems). Changing brake pads is literally easier than swapping RAM sticks. Rotors aren't much harder. Of course, the professional shops invariably overtorque the lug nuts on reassembly and cause damage/issues for the next service...
            • MattRix 5y ago
              I just skimmed through a youtube video on how to change break pads and of course it turns out to be way more complex and difficult than you describe. This is a common flaw I’ve noticed among people who encourage doing DIY everything, not being able to be objective about the difficulty of it once they’re used to doing it.