Everybody has the right and privilege to work on their own projects.  In fact the Do-it-Yourself industry is growing.  Whether or not a person does their own work or hires it done, the job must still abide by the laws governing inspections.

I have noticed that there is a great deal of difference in workmanship, usually depending on the experience factor of the person who performs the work.  There have been a few cases I have seen where a “Do-it-Yourselfer” has been so particular in his or her work that the job was as good as a contractor.  But that result is not common.

On the other hand I have seen workman in a particular trade do work so bad it could have been done by “Joe’s Pretty Good Garage Mechanics and Tradesman Coalition.”  Through the years I have looked at the finished product of Electricians, Plumbers, and Carpenters.  After awhile I could identify the company and the tradesperson involved by looking at the work.

Usually the difference was most notable between professional and non-professional.

On one job I watched a number of teen-aged boys on a scaffold trying to put up a sheet of 4’x8’ sheet rock.  (The process for fastening sheet rock has changed over the years and I won’t comment on what is the more correct way to do it here.)  These boys were using the process of placing the sheet rock in position, nail the corners, and then decide it was in the wrong location and remove the sheet.

When you remove a nailed piece of sheet rock, the nail heads pull through the sheet.  This leaves a small nail-head size hole on the front side and a large divot of missing sheet rock on the back side.

The crew of teen-agers did this so many times that the sheet they were using became as limp as a dishrag.  I guess they left it up to the taping and mudding to cover up.  When it comes to taping and mudding, you can really tell the difference between professional and non-professional.  A professional taper can tell the difference between a professional rock hanger and a Do-it-Yourselfer.  (Just as much as a painter can tell the difference between professional and non-professional taper.)

One time we were on a job where the sheet rock dust was about ¼ inch deep on everything.  It turns out that the rock hangers had been using a table saw to cut the rock to fit.  Their clothes looked like they had been grinding grain into flour.  It is usually not best to fit the rock so close that there is absolutely no space between pieces.  (Then again, I’m not a sheet rocker or a taper and I don’t play them on T.V.)

Speaking of which, when my wife and I were building our home we used a lot of pieces of sheet rock left over from jobs we had been on.  We wound up doing a lot of extra fitting and finishing.  We also used some 4’x12’ sheets, which were hard to handle for two (inexperienced) people.

Years later I found that there is a tool for sheet rock hanging.  They have a ceiling jack for the purpose of putting up large pieces of sheet rock and it works like a charm.

Which is why, generally speaking, no matter how much you know or want to do your own work, people with the right tools and experience will generally cost less than a D-I-Y project.

One time I was temporarily out of work.  There wasn’t much going on and I was sort of “on-call” for little odd jobs.

I was called in to do an emergency job about 30 miles south of town.  It was a small town that had an old septic management system.

The town’s sewage was piped down to a large tank outside of town.  There were two submersible pumps that would pump the sewage from the tank to a nearby, manmade, pond.  For lack of a better term, you could call it an “open septic pond.”

The two submersible pumps were regulated by a set of controls that would work one pump at a time and use them alternately.  There was one, critical, flaw in the control set up.

If one pump failed, the controls would not automatically turn the second pump on.

One pump had failed.

Remember, the pumps were submersible pumps.

Raw sewage is not fun to deal with.  What could I do?

First I rewired the controls so that the alternate pump would start working and continue to work until the second one was back on line.  Then I pulled the second pump and, as carefully and cautiously as I could, secured it in the back of my work truck.  I then went as rapidly as the law allowed to a well known motor/pump repair shop and delivered the “mess” to them.

Then I went home, cleaned up, and burned my clothes.

Some days later I was called by my employer.  They informed me that the motor repair shop had called them and had informed them that there was nothing wrong with the motor and pump.

I replied that they probably had not wanted to open it up and look at it.

I also told my boss that they could send someone else to re-install the motor.  It wasn’t worth it to me for just a couple hours of work.  (After all, I had a limit to the amount of clothes I owned.)

I never heard anymore from anyone about that job.

And that was a good thing.

The Fred Myer Corporation was going to build another store at a location that already had some existing businesses and a manufactured home park.  The owners of the manufactured home park purchased property about ½ mile away and moved their tenants to the new location.

The manufactured home park had about 30 homes and I wound up hooking up about 20 of them.

Every electrical hook up for a manufactured home is different.  There are no two hook ups that are alike, but I was able to do about two a day.  They didn’t move all the homes at once, as a consequence I was at that site for about 3 weeks.

I met some interesting people, including the manager.

After all of the homes had been moved, set up, and occupied, I would be called back every so often when an existing home would move out and a new one would move in.  The manager would recommend me to tenants that wanted small wiring jobs done.  I also wired several projects for the manager, such as an RV garage and landscaping additions.

Above the new location for the manufactured home park was an old meat packing plant.  In order to have access to the meat packing plant, the road was built around two sides of the manufactured home court.

I don’t know how much traffic went back and forth to the old plant, but there was extensive traffic in and out of the court.

One time I was talking to the manager and I commented that it was strange that the road had not been re-routed so the access to the plant would not go by the court.

The manager, who was getting up in years, near retirement, said to me; “I’m just too tired to fight city hall anymore.  All I want now is another cookie.”

I know what he meant.

I have come across similar circumstances in dealing with the “powers that be.”