Fairly often, when things go wrong in the home (or we just need something doing!), the first thing we consider doing is making an emergency call to someone. Sometimes, it can be a family member who you know is fairly handy, but other times it can be an emergency electrician or plumber, depending on what has gone wrong and how quickly you need it solving! We often panic that we can’t do anything ourselves or perhaps we don’t trust ourselves to try and right the wrong.
Despite this, there are definitely a few repairs and home maintenance things that can be done by yourself, provided you have the right tools and equipment to do so. By having some tools ready and waiting, you’ll know when a repair or task is needed, whether you can grab your kit and do it yourself, or if you need to call in a professional.
Drains
Drains have a habit of getting blocked from time to time. Whether you’ve put something down there that you shouldn’t have, or there’s been a blockage further along, it happens. Two pieces of equipment that can help you unclog a drain yourself are a plunger and a drain snake. Both together and seperately, these tools can assist in getting your drain unclogged and back in working order if the issue is small.
However, there may be occasions where the blocked drain causes damage and inconvenience like flooding, larger blockages on your street or foul odours. This may be the situation where you may have to call for a professional in blocked drains. They will be able to assess the situation and work to resolve the issue(s), leaving your drains clear and clean.
Boilers
Boilers are an aspect of your home/property where you have to be extremely cautious and careful. Issues with boilers and gas pipework can be severely harmful if not looked at by a professional. An issue that we commonly come across involves radiators that aren’t fully warm, affecting heating and costing money. This is something that can be solved at home if the problem isn’t a large one. All that you need is a radiator key to ‘bleed’ your radiators and that may resolve the issue. Some other hands-free solutions that you can perform at home include re-pressurising your boiler and manually resetting it.
There are certainly some instances where boilers need professionals to look at them. Whether you’re looking to replace or install a gas boiler, or you smell gas, ensure that you call a professional – the latter could be extremely dangerous.
Odd Jobs
There are plenty of odd repair and maintenance jobs that you can do around your home. Some may require special tools that you can easily grab from your local DIY store, whilst others may require your typical handyman equipment. Jobs include tiling walls, plastering, replacing lightbulbs or fitting new lights altogether, or simply painting and decorating your property.
The above can certainly be simple jobs you can work on yourself with no real danger (if done properly) but they can, however, be time-consuming and messy if not done properly and with care. Property maintenance isn’t something that everyone loves and wants to get involved in, but luckily there are services out there that can take the hassle from you.
Ensuring that your DIY box is filled up with appropriate tools could save you both time and money in the long run, allowing you to do some jobs that professionals aren’t required for. However, as always, ensure you know of and look out for the warning signs of certain issues that may require a professional to step in.
Here at Kiasu, we have teams of emergency electricians, gas & heating engineers and plumbers to assist should you need it.