3 Situations When It Always Pays to Outsource a Job

Sometimes, trying to DIY could be a costly mistake.

In the excitement of buying a new home, home repairs and maintenance projects are generally the furthest thing from your mind. But inevitably, the time will come where you'll be forced to face that first home repair. Making repairs to your home could be expensive. In fact, in some cases, in order to fund the cost of fixes, you may even need one of the following:

• Personal loan
• Home equity loan

If you're worried about paying for home repairs or simply want to keep your costs down, you may decide to try to do some of the work yourself. DIY can save you on labor expenses, making your project costs more reasonable.

Sometimes, however, attempting to do a project yourself simply isn't a good idea -- and could be a really costly mistake. Here are three situations where you definitely don't want to try to DIY because you could end up really regretting your choice.

1. When DIY is dangerous

Sometimes, doing work in your house could put your health at risk. This could happen if you're working with electrical wiring, which comes with the risk of shock. Or if you have asbestos in your home, any remodeling work could be high risk because of dangers of inhaling the poisonous particles.

If there's any risk to your health from attempting the work yourself, the cost of DIY could end up being too high. You don't want to lose your life or end up facing large medical bills to treat complicated problems caused by your attempts to fix up your home on your own.

2. When you could get more value from your time than the cost of paying someone else

Most people have only a limited amount of time. If you could pay someone a reasonable amount to do work around your home in order to free up more spare time for yourself, then you're sometimes better off doing so.

For example, if you could work a little overtime at your job and make $25 an hour while paying someone $15 an hour to make simple fixes around your home, you'd be far better off outsourcing the work around your home and using your time more wisely.

3. When you don't have the skills to do the repairs

If you have no idea how to actually make repairs or upgrades in your home, then trying to DIY them most likely isn't worth it. That's because you could end up botching the job and making it even more expensive for repair people to come in and fix the mistakes you've made.

There are some types of DIY work where a mistake could be especially costly and damaging to fix. If you are trying to handle plumbing issues on your own, for example, you could create a very real possibility of a leak that causes serious water damage or the development of mold. Likewise, a DIY fix of your roof could lead to a leak, while trying to handle electrical issues on your own could cause a fire.

If the risk of a botched job is minimal, you feel safe doing the repairs, have the confidence to perform them, and it's worth your time to do so, there's nothing wrong with trying to DIY. But if that's not the case, calling in the professionals could be the best money you ever spent.