If 0 is completely thumb-up-ass incompetent and 10 means you practically will beautiful and functional things into existence, I’m a 5 or 6. I’m very proud of that, though, since I was probably a 2 when I first bought a house 11 years ago.
I generally don’t fool with electricity, ever since I nearly burned my house down installing a dishwasher, but most other things I’ll at least give a try if I have the time, energy, and inclination. Admittedly, I often don’t. Particularly with plumbing jobs I often call our plumber even if I could do it myself just because he’s a really good one and I’m happy to have a good relationship with him. (You learn how important that is when your dog sitter comes in and finds a huge leak happening while you’re 2000 miles away.)
I hate to be the guy looking over a workman’s shoulder but good God I’ve had more trouble with professional work. I could start a thread on it. I’ll just give one example.
My mother had a new tub enclosure put in her house. She specified it had to have the same footprint as the old one because of the tile floor. Not only was it not the same size they installed wallboard in 2 locations that were not secured to anything. I found this out when I leaned on the wall. The mudding job was fine. Actually pretty good. All it would have taken to do it right was a couple pieces of scrap lumber scabbed into the existing wall. I had to tear the whole !#%!% wall out around the tub and redo the tile floor.
Cars? Fixed all parts (needed a little guidance on the automatic transmission), just did a timing belt/hoses/belts/water pump on a Subaru a few weeks back.
I’m restoring a 1964 motorcycle and learning paint at the same time (already screwed up the primer…sanding it back down to make another attempt)
In the house? I’ll do most everything. At the office? IT security dude extraordinare. Have the metal shop in the garage and a soldering station in the basement. We make animatronic props for our Halloween display each year.
Sure, it might be more ‘fiscally wise’ to pay cheaper labor to do it, but it’s dual-duty as relaxation from the stresses of my work life.
In the past I have, hung dry wall, set toilets snaked drains, replaced faucets, garbage disposals, changed oil in older cars, as well as flat tires. I still trouble shoot appliances to see if I can fix the. I’m at the time in my life that for all the major stuff, I call someone.
I’m somewhat the default fixer at my job (big private property)…the pros come in, do 99.9% of their job correctly, and I get called upon to finish the rest…sometimes thats easy…(just flip the washer over, voila!! or patch/paint the last parts that were missed…other times, the learning curve is beyond me, and others heads start to roll!! I do love to solve problems, which are within "normal life"ie household type stuff… butI really dislike having to search and search all over town for obscure parts. The Internet has been a great help…
If I could just learn to put my tools away…I would be awesome!!! ha