What's the most common mistake homeowners make when they start a construction project?
They fail to organize and don't do the necessary research. We had a couple on DIY to the Rescue that almost had a real disaster. While the husband was on a business trip, the wife used a sledgehammer to tear out two load-bearing walls.
Now, I salute her for having the guts to do it, but it caused the roof to sag and her kids were swinging on live electrical wires that were left dangling. She should have talked with a structural engineer who would have explained how to install temporary bracing and replace the wall with another load-carrying member. On the show, we installed a beam to carry the roof load safely to the outside walls, and we got an electrician to relocate the wiring.
What DIY project do people usually get wrong?
Crown molding. Because it's cut upside down, compared to how it is attached to the wall, it always confuses people--even carpenters who are out of practice working with it. Another is hanging a door in an existing doorjamb. I've seen doors hung upside down, hung with 2-in. gaps and hung so that they couldn't close.
What can hurt a DIYer?
Almost anything, especially when they're not thinking. As far as power tools are concerned, I think the most dangerous is an angle grinder equipped with a metalcutting or masonry-cutting wheel. These wheels can shatter if you twist them as they cut, and that's exactly what happened to a friend of mine. He was working on a ladder using one of these tools when the wheel shattered. The flying debris struck him in the chest. I was there when it happened, and I can tell you that it was an extremely painful injury for him.
Other tools such as circular saws, miter saws and reciprocating saws can also be very dangerous--both from their cutting action and from the debris they throw. That's why I always wear safety glasses. Injury is bad in its own right, of course, but it also robs a person of the DIY initiative and the sense of accomplishment that he experiences.
Karl Champley is host of DIY to the Rescue on the DIY Network and HGTV. A construction industry veteran on two continents, he's a licensed and award-winning Master Builder in his native Australia and a home inspector in the United States.
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