hello,
I’m learning all I can now so that I’ll be ready in 6-8 months (my goal) to buy my first property and become an LL. I want to do at least some of the repairs myself (not things like roof or electrical, though–at least not yet), to save money. Do I need to take courses or should I just buy a do-it-yourself book and learn as the repairs come up? thanks. The one course that I saw was a 1 year building trades course for $4000 – that seemed overkill.
HoldandBuy
Buy a couple of basic Do It Yourself type repair books. Most basic repairs are not rocket science. Even most residential electrical repairs are not rocket science. There’s a lot of “figure out what broke, figure out how its connected up to the rest of the house and how to remove it, buy a new one at the best possible price, and replace the broken stuff”.
That being said, there’s a lot of uncommon common sense involved with hands on repairs, If you’re modestly mechanically inclined, most stuff will be reasonable for you to do. If you’re a total mechanical nimrod, you may want to get help from a mechanically inclined friend and really watch what they’re doing your first time you encounter something entirely new.
I do almost ALL my own work. The only thing I farm out is roofing (takes too long to do it yourself. A crew is done in 1 day, only 1 day open to the elements), heavy duty landscaping (I absolutely hate it), AC (not worth buying the tools) and carpet (installation is too cheap to do it yourself). I am self taught in plumbing, electrical, heating, tile, sheet rock, carpentry, appliances repairs,painting, siding, auto repair, welding, you name it.
I wouldn’t advise against taking a course, but $4k seems WAY over priced. Try looking into something at the local vocational school or community college if you really feel the need. However, in my opinion the best school is actually doing it. The worst you can do is screw things up and have to hire someone to do it and you would have had to hire them to do it anyway if you didn’t attempt it.
jmd_forest
thanks jmd. I’m pretty good at learning from books, so I may try that approach. That year long course for $4000 is not really doable for me at this time.
Just dive in and learn it, if it’s over your head hire someone who knows how to do it. If I’m doing something brand new or for the first time I Google the process and watch a quick video, it helps. Good luck.
I commend you for wanting to learn to do your own repairs. It will help save you so much money. There will be some things that are just cheaper to hire out because of the equipment involved, but you can save plenty on other stuff. If you have a friend to help you in the beginning, it would probably be the easiest and cheapest way for you to learn. It’s a real confidence builder once you feel comfortable fixing things. It takes the fear out of wondering what your repair bill will be and you’ll just realize you can go down to the hardware store, but the parts, and solve the problem.
I learned a lot of things from the Hometime books and DVD’s. Go to their website Hometime.com and they have books and DVD’s that show you the basics on just about everything. They explain what they’re doing and why. Best of all they do it wothout all the expensive tools ( for the most part). It takes a lot of work,practice and mistakes but it can be learned. Good luck.
thanks everyone. It’s a relief to know that I don’t have to learn everything at once!
H&B…
Why not spend the time you would have been in class, and get a part time/full time job working for a remodeling contractor, be straight up with what you are doing. You will offer him cheap labor, he will teach you somethings, You will only be there for a 6-12 month time frame, but at that point you will have made money, instead of spending money, and the relationships you create during this time may be more valuable than the hands on knowledge.
A good way to learn to do things would be to find a person to hire to do the repairs and be their laborer for the day or days. Most of the skills you learn will transfer from one project to the next.
good luck
Marcus