I'm hopeless at estimating how long it will take to do every DIY job. Does anyone else suffer from over enthusiastic time guestimates? The problem is always with jobs I've never done before, they always take twice as long as expected. There are ALWAYS complications or twists to every job.
It makes life interesting though. I suppose.
It does. But when you try to derive a sensible estimate based on experience, not wishing to raise expectations, etc. it ends up sounding ridiculous.
The experiences OH of a DIYer knows that half an hour means three. :)
Never start anything DIY when the shops aren't open to buy that essential bit you'll need.
DIY sometimes seems like opening cans of worms. Inside there is another can of worm. The floorboards upstairs were old and wormy so I pulled them up to replace them. However this revealed that some of the floor joists were also rotten and needed replacing. Ditto the ceiling joists for the bathroom below. So I ended up removing the ceiling below and all the joists in between. To get the ceiling down I removed some box work that had been put around the bathroom pipes. This revealed that two of the pipes have got a very slow leak.
It was also necessary to move some electrical wiring, but it has become clear that circuits have been added at random for years, with random gauge wire. The bathroom lights were fed directly off the 30 amp water heater circuit etc etc.
None of the joists were standard sizes - they were just random sizes, probably hewn directly from trees by hand. The list just goes on. Sometimes I think it would have been cheaper and quicker to demolish the house and rebuild a new one.
I'm not complaining, it's just that no job is ever as straightforward as I think it's going to be.
That's even more true here in France where the nearest DIY shop is 12 miles away and shuts for two hours at lunchtime. No Sunday opening either.
DIY shopping is like a military operation with carefully prepared lists of everything needed to do a job. Invariably something extra is needed, which entails an hours rummage around old bits and peices looking for a substitute.
Add up everything you can think of and TREBLE it.
I have found this to be a reliable method.
But they were still open for another six hours after I started that twenty minute job...
Its been one of my biggest problems since starting the handyman business 2 years ago. I'm much more accurate that I used to be, based on bitter experience, but I still make the odd c*ck up.
I also tend to quote "between 3 & 4 hours" if I reckon its a 3 hour job. People never mind paying less.
When I'm asked to go & do a multitude of little jobs that will roughly occupy me for a day I always say "Its a days work, or maybe a little more - I'll get all I can done in a day".
It is just impossible to accurately estimate some jobs.
Mind you, I'm much faster at doing stuff than I was 2 years ago.
I don't do this work for a living so time is not really critical. However I do writing and software, which is similar in needing estimates. Boring though it is, I find keeping a record of number of words per hour for a particular type of writing, or how long an average screen form takes to write, is very useful. Over quite a short time you build up a list of values and take an average.
One of the problems with diy is that once we start we can all see ways to do it better. A tradesman working to a quote will just do the job asked for. We'll stand back and think, 'Well actually if I shifted that over there, I could....' etc. It's one of the pleasures of diy that you know that you've finished with a better job than you could have paid for. Does take at least three times as long, at least.
Peter Scott
Do not forget the exponential curve of the graph of time verses age, that is as you get older the jobs takes longer.
As you get older than 35 there is a negative trend. Which is why if you are in PAYE employment, you need to get to the salary peak before
35I still think that I can do jobs like what I did at 21
My mind is there most of the time, but its the body that is not willing.
Its raining I will have to leave it till tomorrow. its too cold the paint will not dry. its too dark now to hang wallpaper, i need daylight. etc etc
I'm still at the stage when lots of the DIY jobs are being done for the first time. Unfortunately there is nobody to ask how to tackle some jobs or the order to do them in. That is where this group comes in very handy, as does a couple of DIY books. Common sense is useful too of course but sometimes there is no obvious "best" way to do a new job, so I tend to lay awake at night thinking of all the different ways of tacking the job, or spend hours staring at a job and pondering how to tackle it rather than being able to just plunge in from previous experience.
Which brings me up to a question about how to fix joists - time for a new thread.
I still have energy enough for the job, it's the clearing up that does me in
That's very important point you've made. Yes, it takes a long time to do a job the first time. For some jobs the real problem is when something goes wrong, even quite a small difficulty. Is it me? Did I do it right? Am I missing something? Where can I found out (as you said). Oh bugger was it really that simple!!! What an idiot I was. Etc. Etc.
This ng is great in that whatever problem you've got, someone else has done it too. Except my current problem about a Carecall old people's emergency alarm and extension phones cutting out. I'm sure it's a design fault in the box but how to prove it without more examples?? Muggins got volunteered to wire extensions when the cordless wouldn't work. Guess what? Yes you're right. My reputation as resident genius plummets. I'm just a guy who can't say 'no'.
Peter Scott
Snip To my mind a useless estimator is not someone who always under estimates time but also over estimates it as well, this I often do, as I tend to be pessimistic. Having said that the "easy" jobs are the worst for under estimating. Have you notice if a job entails removing half a dozen screws the first 5 come out easily, the last one takes longer than you estimated for the total job!
It is also the least accessible screw where you need to be double jointed to twist yourself into position to remove it and have the strength of Titan.
The worst ever time estimation I gave for a job was with a former employer. The job was for the costings / time and motion dept (of all depts!). They wanted some software writing to facilitate easier calculations and preparations of reports etc. At the time they were just using a ridiculous mass of joined spreadsheets. It was an unmanageable inflexible monstrosity that had grown over several years.
I put a spec together with the head of the dept and gave an estimate of around two weeks to write the software. Six months later the job was done!!! One of the biggest factors was runaway project creep. After every iteration of the software they decided they wanted to add new features, some of which involved re-writing core modules. It just went on and on and on. I'm just glad I was an employee not an outside developer working to a quote.
Similar experience. Computer charging system. Operations department insisted that they wanted to charge the same grand total every month as they were not allowed to make a profit or a loss. So other departments paid different amounts each month for pretty much the same workload. I.e. a cost reallocation system.
When they saw that, they changed their minds and wanted a fixed rate per amount of work. But this resulted in their income going up and down month by month.
Then they explained that what they really wanted was a system where customer departments knew how much it would cost each month, and that had to be roughly proportional to the workload submitted and at the same time they had to have a static income...
I always insist on a requirements list, jointly signed. That way we all know where we stand and how to test the outcomes. It means that creep works in your favour in that changes be chargeable unless done for goodwill. And it also would no doubt help with the indemnity insurance if it came to court!!
Peter Scott
You have one that close, lucky you. Our nearest is 20+ miles away.
Aye, with alternatives if what is really wanted isn't available, that or a trip onwards to the next nearest shed, fortunately once near a shed the others are not that far away. Penrith is best with a Wickes (Ex Focus) now, an ordinary B&Q store an excellent independant builders merchants, Plumb Center and CEF all within a mile or so of each other. Carlisle has bigger places but they a scattered in/around the city so getting from one to the other can take a while.
When I buy something I either buy a "bulk pack" or a few extra, particulary of "consumables". I then have a stock of bits to call on for the odd little job to save the 3 hr round trip to a shed 20+ miles away.
Quite I'm never quite sure what I'm going to find when I start to take apart something here. But I wouldn't really want it any other way.
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