Brits spend £3,000 hiring professionals to fix DIY mistakes
Brits spend £3,000 hiring professionals to fix DIY mistakes
DIY season traditionally begins over the Easter bank holiday and extends until the end of summer. We carried out research to find out how much Brits are spending on DIY and whether it's costing them to have mistakes fixed.
Alarmingly, it is not just small tasks that people are attempting to do themselves. Enthusiastic individuals are also taking on large-scale, complicated DIY work, with millennials* being particularly keen to take on risky tasks usually left to professionals - 19% tackling electrical wiring and 13% brave enough to attempt a house extension.
This tendency to be over-ambitious is also putting the safety of DIY enthusiasts at risk with 220,000** ending up in hospital every year due to their keenness. Ladders and step ladders are particularly dangerous pieces of DIY equipment, sending 41,000 to hospital annually. Saws are also amongst the most dangerous with over 15,000 people being hospitalised due to accidents with the tool and nearly 6,000 a year reporting hammer related accidents.
People across the country spend an average of £3,000 having their DIY mistakes fixed
For the 20% of DIY enthusiasts who resort to calling in experts to fix their mistakes, there’s a heavy price to pay for not getting it right. Millennials and men retrospectively outlay the most, with 39% of millennials calling in experts to fix a DIY disaster at an average cost of over £4,000 - 25% higher than the national average of just over £3,000; and men making mistakes costing 65% more to fix than the errors of their female counterparts.
Comparisons up and down the country reveal that those in London and the Midlands appear to be the most haphazard, forking out close to £5,000 and £3,600 respectively on rectifying DIY disasters.
Cost of repairing DIY disasters across the UK
| Region | Average cost of rectification |
|---|---|
| London | £4,764 |
| Midlands | £3,634 |
| North East | £3,486 |
| Northern Ireland | £2,751 |
| North West | £2,617 |
| South West | £2,533 |
| East | £2,519 |
| Wales | £2,398 |
| Scotland | £2,265 |
| Yorkshire | £2,231 |
| South East | £1,897 |
| UK average | £3,208 |
*Millennials are those between the ages of 16 and 34 (July 2016).
***Research on home renovations and DIY among homeowners conducted among 2,000 UK homeowners between 8th July and 13th July 2016.
About the author
James Cooper is a respected industry leader with over 10 years' experience in the home and property insurance sector. He works across a broad range of insurance product and policy development and delivery, including product development; customer sales and marketing; and P&L accountability.
Date: April 11, 2017
Category: Home and Property
