"Is this a you job or a someone job?" Tessa asks some version of that every time something breaks, and for our first year my answer depended mostly on mood. Now it depends on a tab in the house sheet. The tab isn't fancy. It just makes me write down the things I used to skip, especially what happens if I get it wrong.
At work this is called a make-versus-buy decision, and nobody makes that call without columns. So the Cape got columns too.
The columns
- Quote. What a pro wants, ideally someone Gary, a neighbor or my dad has used. I don't use lead-gen sites anymore; the one time I tried, my phone rang four times in ten minutes.
- Materials. Priced from an actual cart, not a guess.
- Tools. Split into owned, borrowable (Gary's garage is basically a library) and rental.
- Hours. My honest estimate, then times 1.5, because I have never once finished on time.
- Risk, 1 to 5. One is paint. Five is anything that can burn, shock, flood or fall on someone.
- Cost of being wrong. Not the price of the job. The price of undoing my mistake, plus whatever it damages along the way.
That last column didn't exist until after the bedroom floor.
The ones I did myself
The PEX run to the kitchen was the clearest case. Plumber's quote: $1,150. Our cost: $262, including a $48 crimp tool. Risk was a 3, because it's water, and the cost of being wrong was a wet kitchen and basement. What brought the risk down was Gary, who has done this kind of thing more times than he can count, and the fact that I read the city's permit rules before we cut anything. We did it over the Fourth of July weekend, and the kitchen pressure has been fine ever since.
The bedroom floor looked even better on paper: $410 against a $1,950 quote, risk 2. But I filled in "cost of being wrong" after the fact, with the gouge I left by the closet when I paused the drum sander. I've never priced having it sanded out, because I've decided to live with it. That's when I realized "wrong" has a price even when nothing floods.
Next on the sheet is the garage roof. The roofer quoted $3,400. Materials plus a Bagster for the tear-off come to about $1,300. It's a one-story, low-pitch roof, my dad has done roofs before and Gary owns a roofing nailer. Risk 3, mostly for falls. We're planning it for early June.
The ones we pay for
The water heater in November scored a 5 before I even opened the spreadsheet. Gas line, venting into the chimney, a permit. The cost of being wrong there isn't money, it's carbon monoxide. We paid $1,780 and I'd do it again. Same with the garage door torsion springs in December: $285, and I didn't hesitate, because a winding bar in the wrong hands (mine) is a trip to the ER. The insulation was a different kind of hire. To get the Consumers Energy rebate, we picked a contractor from their participating list, so the decision mostly made itself.
Then there's the stuff that's never mine. The main roof on this house is steep, and I don't like ladders much past 12 feet, so that's a someone job forever. Tree work above ladder height went to an arborist in February for $1,100. Anything inside the electrical panel goes to an electrician.
Where the sheet doesn't decide
Some jobs land in the middle, and that's where Tessa's vote counts most. The kitchen light swap last month started as a 2 on risk: breaker off, tester, swap, done. Then there was no junction box behind the first fixture, which bumped it up mid-job. I finished with an old-work box rated for the fixture. If I'd found wiring I didn't understand, I would have stopped and called someone. So every DIY row now gets one more field before I start: a stop point, written down while I'm still calm.
This is how we decide for our house, with our skills and a very generous neighbor. Somebody else's numbers, comfort level and local rules will be different, and for anything that needs a permit, the city's permit office is the first call, not the last.
An HVAC estimator came out on Friday to talk to us about a heat pump. That row has no DIY column at all, just a quote column with what I suspect will be a very large number in it. I'll know this week.
