I agree.
I hope it’s OK to say this, but I want to get something off my chest.
I hate when the answer given is “hire a pro.” There are some of us who take great pride in figuring out how to do things, and for some of us the harder and less layperson accessible the more we want to do it.
I’m really proud of some of the things I’ve accomplished in that regard. They didn’t always come easy, and they were never as fast as hiring a pro. But without exception, I’m glad I did them, even when I had to do them twice.
I am interested in opinions on this. I am sure the thicker the concrete, the better, especially for driving a car over it, but is this option even an option?
Two inches seems pretty fragile for driving on. One thought that occurs to me is shrinkage and water. There’s a good business in our area drilling holes and injecting slurry to raise normal slab driveways. They are poured on a gravel base over normal clay soil; when the concrete prevents water from soaking in, the clay tends to shrink causing the slab to collapse a few inches to a new equilibrium. (unevenly, leading to cracks).
So the question is what is underneath your driveway end and will it change when you completely cut off rainfall soaking in?
IMO (not my thread) of course it’s fine to say this.
When I was 25 I totally thought like you do. I’m not going to let a simple [_____] defeat me. I can learn to [_______] and next time I’ll have the tools and the skills. Great fun.
Now, approaching 65, I’ve got lots of those old skills. Mostly atrophied to uselessness. I remember that I used to remember how to do [________]. And there are plenty of other skills I never had the opportunity to acquire and also don’t actually miss having.
I’m a lot more aware of picking my battles. Is that gray-haired wisdom, or creeping laziness? Probably both.
There is also the tradeoff between I used to have 3 weekends and few dollars to allocate to this fixit project versus I now have little time but enough dollars to hire a pro.
You’re not me and I’m not you. And neither of us are the other people in the thread. It does take all kinds. But for some jobs, and assuming the do-er can afford a few extra bucks, giving a shitty task to somebody who’s good at it can save a lot of time & backache to let the person do more of what they really value.
That’s well-said. I mean, I know how to do a lot of things, but but the older I get, the less able I am to do them. And while some physically challenging tasks can be broken up into manageable chunks, others need to be done in one fell swoop. When that effort means I’d end up spending three days in bed from one day’s work, it’s time to call a pro. Everyone has their own threshold. I personally will never reroof another house or change a car’s oil again, regardless of how much pride I took in acquiring those skills in my youth.
I hope I was clear. I wasn’t criticizing hiring a pro. I hire pros too- mostly to do things I don’t want to do. And like you, that list grows as I get older.
I was pushing back at the sentiment that I sometimes see that’s more along the lines of “a non-pro cannot/should not do this”
I see both sides of this discussion very clearly. I take pride in the many jobs I have struggled over and then completed (the latest is detailed here).
That said, it’s been decades since I’ve change my own oil.
mmm
Yep. I’m pretty good with a chainsaw. I’ve put some decent sized trees onto the ground right where I wanted them. But that’s a 15 minute job. Cutting up what’s on the ground and moving it all 300 yards to the burn pile site might take days.
Sometimes it makes more sense to pay someone to take a big tree so we can be out kayaking that weekend.
I sometimes look back on the things I did in my youth with amazement. When I was in my late teens I installed an attic fan for the owner of the house I was living in while he was away. As in, climbed up on the roof (which was three stories above grade in the back), cut a hole in it, mounted the fan, and wired it to a switch in a closet below. (I knew nothing about electrical code then and I seem to recall that I used lamp cord, not romex.)
I have no idea what made me think I could do it, other than blissful teenage ignorance. I don’t recall whose tools I used to cut the hole, or even why we thought it was necessary in the first place. My mother has had an identical house on the same street since 1969 and hasn’t had one installed.
But I did it, it worked, and the house hasn’t burnt down. Although I hope someone along the way has wired it up properly.
I might have been willing to do that kind of job in my twenties, thirties, forties, or even early fifties. But at 67, I would no more consider attempting it than I would flap my arms and fly.
This %100. When I needed a two story addition to my house, I designed it, drew up the ‘Blue Prints’ submitted it, got a permit and did it.
That was 25 years ago though.
Now, at 62, I have know problem calling in the pro’s for big jobs.
Yeah, you might be right. Mini-hoes have a ‘dozer’ blade on them that would make quick work of any unevenness though.
Ahh. I see. And you’re right that is different. In the case here in this thread it seemed those of us suggesting pros were mostly of the “Doing dumb unrewarding hard labor is silly unless you’re flat broke.” school.
The usual spot where we get people (including me) suggesting folks don’t tackle projects at all is when somebody walks in, demonstrates zero knowledge of the scope of the task, a blithe attitude to the safety implications, and in their the first response to advice either misunderstands it badly or rejects it as “too hard; I want a shortcut.” Especially for something like roof work or electrical work, that lack of knowledge and cavalier attitude leads directly to stories like @commasense’s attic fan job two posts up. Which story he himself suggests was a bad idea in hindsight.
Wired illegally without a permit, probably not properly water sealed versus the roof, great risk of falling, etc. In no sense was that job actually a success. Except in that he lived to tell the tale. Whatever learning he achieved at the time was actually mis-learning. And I’m not criticizing him here now. I certainly did very similar things in my own ignorant youth. He/It are just a nice handy poster child for a potentially dangerous job affirmatively mis-done.
There are plenty of careful and reasonably confident DIYers. And then there are those who should not own a screwdriver. We get both kinds here.
Separately to all the above, I also see a rural / (sub)urban divide here.
Lots of more rural folks are used to the idea of doing all their chores themselves. And rural living is just loaded with chores. So they get real good at doing what they know and improvising what they don’t.
Various questionable decisions are made, not too much damage occurs, then OK, off to the next bodged-together project. It’s not a matter of ignorance, nor lack of skill, nor lack of resources. It’s a matter of attitude that stuff gotta get done, and close enough is good enough. That attitude is less prevalent in folks living suburban or urban, and doubly so if they didn’t grow up rural.
To stereotype egregiously, rural life is functional / industrial / risk-tolerant while suburban life is decorative / frivolous / risk-intolerant.
That was my decision after reading just the first half-dozen posts. The money you would save by doing it yourself isn’t worth the possible permanent damage your back might incur. Unless your regular job entails rigorous physical labor, your body simply isn’t ready to go from “zero to sixty” overnight, especially at your age.
Man, am I glad to read all these comments. Yeah, I am done with tall ladder work. I came into a pile of used pavers last year for free, and we’ve decided to replace some old, half dead lawn with a little patio. I know the hardest part of the job so far is the sod removal (by spade, its too small for heavy equipment), so have been taking it in small doses, like an hour at a time, one time per day or two. Progress is showing and I am about 3/4 thru the excavation, but I am not killing myself. It’ll get done when it gets done, but my wife has already purchased the furniture for it, so I know she’s tapping her fingers.
Count me in as a member of the “have someone else do it” crowd.
As a new homeowner I got pretty good at taping wallboard, to the point where walls I worked on are perfect–the difference between my job and a pro job really was just how much faster the pro would do it.
As years went on I realized that part of my technique seemed to involve a five-year wait so that the joint compound could properly cure before applying paint. I’d rather pay someone to get it down right now and properly.
So that’s why I’m gazing across my office at a 1000’ roll of shielded CAT6 cable that waiting for my home security camera project to begin–I’d rather pay my contractor friend to run all of that cable and do all of the ladder work then to do it myself.
On the other hand, I enjoy networking and such, so I’ll happily do all of the network configuration.
So it’s a complicated combination of “am I broke?”, “will my work look like crap?”, “will I endanger myself?”, “will it take forever?”, “is it tedious, annoying, or backbreaking work to do?” counterbalanced by “is it something I love to do?” and “is it a skill I want?”
I recently did a project in my crawl space. Though I had the technical skills to execute it, the contortions that it required really cost me a couple of recuperation days.
The lost time was something I hadn’t anticipated. If I had, I might have made a different “buy vs. build” decision.
The older I get, the more I have to consider that: technical skills and physical robustness are separate categories 
I did a ton of stuff myself, and I was doing it even a few years ago while my knees were breaking down. Now things are different, no more of that. My knees are fine but every other joint in my body hurts at least a little and after exertion they can hurt a lot. My current rule is not to do anything out of the strike zone. I can pick up and carry some slightly heavy objects given they start at least waist high and don’t get lifted much higher than that or put down any lower. Was this the result of all that physical activity that gave me a great sense of accomplishment and saved me thousands of dollars which I could then fritter away on luxuries and fantastical distractions? Don’t know, don’t care now, but we all reach the point where we stop for practical reasons, or have no ability left.
I had to laugh. A beautiful turn of phrase and a very handy and memorable rule of thumb. Thank you!!
I’m well short of that limitation today, but I can imagine my coming to that in another few years.
ISTM the gotcha in late middle age / early retirement is that your healthy high-mobility longevity is yugely dependent on not getting a fresh orthopedic injury. But as we age, those get easier to experience with ever less provocation. I’d much rather play heavy lifting and twisting very conservative now at age 64 than spend an extra 3 years pushing a walker when I’m 83. While still moving and exercising enough now to avoid atrophy then.
When I was in my late 20s, I had a Ford Escort that was on its last legs. It needed ball joints and I didn’t want to spend what the garage quoted.
So, I ordered parts from JC Whitney and bought the Haynes manual for my car. I borrowed jack stands from a buddy. It took me a few evenings (allowing liquid wrench to work) but I eventually got it done.
When I went to the garage to get my inspection sticker, the mechanic assumed I’d had the work done elsewhere for less than he quoted. When I told him I did it myself, he asked what I did for a living. When he realized I knew nothing about cars he was pissed off. He told me his young mechanic employee couldn’t do ball joints, but I read a book and did it and that just made him angry (at his employee).
Key difference being you not only could read, but would read. And had a manager (i.e. you) who was willing to have the job take umpteen man-hours, not a few man-minutes.