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> You can save a lot of money in maintenance and repairs by doing your own work whenever possible.

True. But even if you have the physical ability, skills, tools, and equipment handy - you can spend a lot of time on maintenance & repairs. Just ask anyone who's done yard work for a few years, or has repainted a house, or ...

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That maintenance has to happen one way or another, hiring someone to do it can add quite a multiplier to the price. For example, I was recently looking at water heaters and called 4 different plumbers to get a quote. All of them came in around $5,000 for the job. The water heater they quoted costs $1,000 retail at Lowes. If you know what you are doing it isn't even difficult to install.

That said a layperson probably won't know the new code requirements in their jurisdiction and if you sell your house you'll have the inspector tut-tutting the work for one reason or another.

Hah, although, admittedly, when my AC died here I was looking at quotes for $17K for replacement (although I did also do the furnace at the same time, since both were early 1980s and basic models even then). "Why? I could buy the AC for $4K".

"Surely it wouldn't be too hard to undo/redo piping etc." But yeah, different refrigerant, different code requirements for vents and exhausts and drains. 4 people working for 16 hours, I saw where the money went.

> If you know what you are doing it isn't even difficult to install.

How much time does it take to acquire & refresh the skills and code knowledge, and how many water heaters can you amortize that over during your life?

The skill is in being able to solder pipes together, something that is useful to learn as a general skill. It doesn't even need specialized equipment, just a torch, some flux, and a spool of plumbing solder. There is also a tiny bit of electrical work, but that's literally just matching the colors and using a couple of wire nuts.

The building code stuff is more of a bugbear.

> The skill is in being able to ...

Admitting that one of my grandfathers was a blacksmith and the other a farmer, that my own father could have built a house from the ground down (I helped him dig and pour a foundation once) and then up, etc. - most modern Americans just don't have the backgrounds/aptitudes/comfort levels needed to try and succeed at such tasks.

I spent my 30s playing "this old house" when I could have made significant amounts of money just working more consulting hours. Yeah, I enjoy some home improvement and maintenance tasks, but I also enjoy financial security and pain-free joints. The tools and things required to maintain a home also take space you could use for hobbies or simply downsize. Home maintenance makes sense for folks with lower value skills and less means to side hustle though.

I learned very fast after purchasing my home that hiring out to a contractor made so much more sense. They can get done in a day what would take me a month+ of weekends.

Yeah I was surprised not to see the opportunity cost angle in this article. For high income tech workers the opportunity cost can be huge

Depending on the job, you can also do it better yourself than what you can reasonably pay for.

I built a custom shelf for my closet. It'd have costed me an arm and a leg to have someone else do that, even with a tech worker's salary.

I also built a custom walk-in closet. It took me a day, saved me over 2k and I got a better quality closet out of it. (You find find built yourself a walk-in-closet kits that are easy to assemble, it really isn't that hard, just don't get the home depot level quality ones.)

It definitely depends on the job. Enjoyment is certainly a factor too.

There is that famous study from a few years back where people value IKEA furniture they put together themselves more highly than pre-built stuff of a better quality.

Depends if you would be getting paid during the time spent doing these projects. People with flexible vacation time might even be getting paid while doing the work. But otherwise weekends and evenings are great times for smaller home projects.

There are other opportunity costs other than direct monetary income.

For example, to mow your lawn, you have to find a time to do it every couple of weeks when the weather cooperates, be at home at that time, store and maintain the equipment, have a pair of "grass shoes", clean up afterwards, etc.

This might be worth the effort if you don't have much disposable income. But if you have money to blow, hiring someone to mow your lawn can give you more time to do something else you'd rather do.