My diy skills are useless. I think a lot of it is a lack of confidence in using tools and also, to be honest, the fear of making a costly c*ck up.
Has anyone here as a complete beginner undertaken a 5 day intensive course in, say, plumbing? I saw the 5 day intensive course advertised by Able Skills and it does sound good.
Is it possible though for someone who is completely lacking in both confidence and technical skills to get anything from a 5 day intensive course?
The last straw for me was paying a plumber £60 to tighten a f****** radiator nut.
Well I learnt because I couldn't afford to pay a plumber when I bought my first house! (or bricky or carpenter or electrician or a car mechanic) Just rolling up your sleeves and applying common sense is a remarkable self teaching course. They say necessity is the mother of invention. At least these days Google is hovering in the back ground whispering in your ear.
Honestly I think you'd do better to jsut come here and ask when you have diy 'events', and keep comign back for more info until its sorted. Also coming here at times to learn what you can is very effective. There's also a wiki, which is mostly quite good
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've avoided short courses, as they dont have enough time to address the real life issues, and the basic stuff can be got online quicker for nothing.
My personal opinion on short courses is that they are not much use unless you want to use the skills fairly soon. For example, if you took this 5 day plumbing course and then didn't need to tighten any radiator nuts for a few years would you remember what you did on the course when you needed to use the skills?
Maybe you would, or maybe the fact that you had been on the course would give you the confidence to have a go, or maybe you do plan to do some plumbing soon?
Personally I find books and the internet very useful, for example a while ago my washing machine stopped working and I have never fixed a washing machine before. I just typed the make, model and problem into Google and after a few minutes I found a website which told me EXACTLY what to do.
If the main problem is a fear of making a costly c*ck up perhaps you could make sure that your home insurance covers DIY c*ck ups before you try anything.
Now that's a novelty, an electrician setting up Internships - not related to (or taking advice from) a certain Deputy Prime Minister are you Adam?
Nice try to get the 'humping' done for you for 'free' (I wonder if the OP realises how heavy those bloody heaters are?) - and I give you full marks there for initiative. LOL
Back in the mid 70's when we bought our first house, I had to have it rewired within six months. The lender withheld some money from the mortgage to ensure this was done.
At the time I knew sweet FA about DIY but a neighbour lent me his Readers Digest Do it Yourself Manual and I managed to rewire the house myself and get it passed and connected by the electricity board at their first inspection. You probably couldn't do this now with all the new regulations etc.
Since then I have picked up plumbing and woodworking skills, mainly from books and, in recent years, the internet.
There is a great deal of information available through Google as has already been suggested and some sites even provide videos e.g. YouTube. So, in answer to your question, I wouldn't bother with short courses unless you value the social aspect.
They're not heavy if you take the bits out of the box and get them upstairs in stages.
However if you leave the other bits at the bottom of the stairs the pikeys will have them while you're halfway up.
Hence the advisability of having someone else to run up and down the stairs 30 times while Adam sits in the van 'looking after the stock' and drinking tea.
I would agree with that. If you choose to do a course, plan a project to do just afterwards which uses these skills.
I started by watching my dad, and 25 years later progressed to designing and fitting a whole central heating system and replumbing everything else in the house too as part of kitchen and bathroom refit.
There were some areas of building where I had no skills and needed some, plastering and brick laying. For each of these, I did a 2-day course at a local building trades college, which gave me the necessary skills. These were aimed at other tradesmen who needed some cross-training, but there were a couple of DIYers on each one. I could have learned the bricklaying from a book, but with plastering, I think you really do have to be shown how and watched by someone who can tell you what you're doing wrong. Besides that, the courses were both great fun.
Two weeks after doing the brick laying course, someone demolished my gatepost, which was perfect timing ;-)
Once you have built up skills in a few areas, you can gain confidence to tackle new things. 5 or 6 years ago, I decided to take some time off between jobs, and I stipped back and replaced the felt and battens on part of the roof, rebuilding the valley gutter. That's the sort of thing I would never have even thought of doing myself 20 years before. The reason it needed doing was because the person I paid to do it 20 years before did a poor job. Last year, I repointed my chimney and refitted the roof ridge tiles. However, I did get a roofer in to replace the chimney's leadwork, and he did a much better job than I would have. (He was very complimentary about my repointing though:-)
The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked.
"Every one makes mistakes" said the Dalek climbing off the dustbin.
To build your confidence and skills why not try get some scrap bits of tube and fittings from a plumber. Passing a couple of quid will aleviate the loss to the plumber of weighing the scrap in.
Play with them, take them apart, see how they work, safe in the knowledge that if you do c*ck it up it doesn't matter.
OK Many years ago I got fed up getting plasterers in to quote to do a wall, saying 'go ahead' and them never turning up. Happened 5 times. Never having plastered in my life I thought 'what's to lose?' bought a bag of browning and top coat. Read the book, set up vertical laths on browning dabs. Ruled off the browning between laths, removed the laths, filled in the gaps, skimmed twice with top coat and it was pretty good. That encouraged me to plaster an arch between two rooms. No way am I as fast or as good as someone who does it every day, but with a positive attitude it's amazing what you can achieve.
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