D-I-Y-ers who are also professionals, or Pros who also D-I-Y!

[Martin Angove]

Just for fun...

It has been said here several times that one of the reasons we d-i-y is that we spend a lot more time and effort on a job than the "pros" we might otherwise get in. The end result is therefore "better" in some way, be it from a design point of view or a finish point of view.

There are several here (myself included) who not only d-i-y at home, but have a professional skill with which they earn a living.

Do you find yourself somehow "skimping" when the job is not your own, or are we a special breed of professionals who always turn out the perfect job, time and cost aside?

In other words, given a similar job at home or for a client, would the client get exactly the same standard of care and attention as the job at home? Be honest :-)

Hwyl!

M.

[Tim Nicholson]

A few years ago I owned/ran a small data/voice cabling company. We took pride in our work, and each job would be tested, documented, and signed off with the client. The work always looked neat and tidy, and if you've ever seen a large (1000+ connection) patch panel after the techies have had it for a few weeks, that's no mean achievement.

I then look around at home, and all I can see in the study (where there's five pcs, a laptop and three printers) is a mass of odd lengths of cable strewn behind desk legs etc, and four way power adaptors everywhere.

I guess I took *way* more care with clients than I do at home with cabling. Yet when I get into the more usual DIY, I take an inordinate amount of care (and time) to get the job done right. Doesn't always please SWMBO whilst the work is in progress, but she's mostly complimentary about the finished job.

Tim

[Scott Mills]

Of course, you have failed to mention the flip side: those that do a better job at work then they would bother to do at home. I have lots of friends like that...

[Lurch]

On Thu, 06 May 2004 21:15:52 +0100, in uk.d-i-y Martin Angove strung together this:

If the customer is willing to pay for the same job as I would do at home then yes, I would 'give it my all'! Unfortunately customers don't want to pay for that so in general, no, but at the customers request. I know from past experience that pricing to do an A1 first class job pretty much garuantees you won't get it. The other thing is the amount of tools on the job, when I'm working at home I've got a garage full, (and I mean full), of tools and materials, and time to order any obscure parts to be able to go that extra bit further whereas on a job somewhere most customers won't wait for days while I order parts in 'just because'. I usually have a job explaining to the customer why one way of doing things is different to another, most won't even notice and from looking at other work that's been done in the house I notice things that I wouldn't accept having in my own home but the customer seem's quite happy with. In short, I'll do the best job that I can, without overcharging or pricing myself out of the job, but it's customer dependent really.

[Lurch]

On Thu, 06 May 2004 22:23:31 +0100, in uk.d-i-y Tim Nicholson strung together this:

Sounds familiar!

Actually, now I think about it anything I do day in day out gets lashed together at home but the stuff I don't do every day gets more attention.

[chris French]

In message , Lurch writes

I think the difference really comes in the details or the fiddlier parts of the job, were the time required is proportionally much more, and hence the cost. The extra benefit from the finished job may not seem much compared to say maybe a 20% increase in cost or whatever.

[Andrew Gabriel]

When I do DIY for others, I generally do a better job because it's not usually convenient to "finish it off next week" or whatever excuse might come to mind.

The only time I've done paid DIY work was when I worked for a small software house, and they were quite happy for us to spend time doing things like designing and building computer rooms as part of our job, installing structured cabling, extending the PABX, etc. Actually, it made a great team-building excercise getting people together to work on things in a different way from how they normally worked. Again, I was very meticulous with the electrical design and installation with safety in mind, and the design of things like the shelving to ensure no risk of toppling if people did silly things like climbing up it. Much as I hate to admit it, I would probably be slightly less meticulous when I'm doing things just for myself.

[BigWallop]

SNAP !!! I have the same here, and yet customers praise us on the tidy and complete work that we do for them. I think that the jobs I do at home are a way of releasing tension and aren't so much on a time scale like the trade work is, so they take longer and I spend more time creating a better finish than I think I'd get from someone I'm paying to do the job. The DIY stuff is also not completely related to the trade work I do everyday, so I'm learning other bits and pieces of how other things fit together and what other trades have to go through to do their bit in completing a job, which I think also helps in doing the paid work for customers.

[Rick Dipper]

IN my profession (not building) the client gets a job withc is a compramise beteen perfect and affordable. Things can always be done better, but at what cost. Time is money

99.9 % saftey, is still a 1 in 1000 failure rate. 99.99% saftey, 1 in 10000 failure costs about 10 times as much money - this is why the US space shuttle is so expensive, not that they get a 1 in 10000 failure rate on the whole machine, but on each subsystem they do.

Rick

[Andy Hall]

All of which takes us back to O-rings of course. :-)

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Andrew Gabriel]

and let's not to forget how to stick tiles on too :-/

[Ed Sirett]

Guilty. Mostly in the area of broken promises about when I'll get to it.... It is something to do with the balance of expected customer v. family appreciation.

[N. Thornton]

Thinking about this, for me it varies, have done everything from perfectionist to piss poor jobs here. The piss poor was getting the place spruced up in something like 1.5 hours - no paint prep etc. I dont mind doing things like that if I accept upfront that it will get redone later. But mostly the quality of work done here is much better than I see done elsewhere. I dont do it for others. I try to perfect the art of doing things fast but still getting a decent result. I hate it when people take forever.

Regards, NT

[John Stumbles]

When I'm doing work for myself there are things I may lash up because I know I'll be redoing it later (and I'll be around to fix it if it goes pear-shaped :-) which obviously I wouldn't do with my pro hat on.

OTOH in DIYing I may do a lot extra e.g. rerouting of services to make them accessible in future after putting down a non-removable floor, which I wouldn't do for a client (unless specifically discussed and agreed with them).

In general quality and finish of work I think I do about the same home and away.

Oh dear! [fx: sucks teeth] that'll be extra, guv ;-)