The Sound of America Hammering

Do-it-yourselfers are beating high costs at home

Most home handymen used to be harmless basement tinkerers who whiled away their leisure hours building knotty-pine bookshelves. No longer. With a vigor born of economic necessity, more and more Americans are pushing themselves away from the TV set and doing their own home improvements. Risking blackened thumbnails and sawdust-filled eyes, they are installing bathrooms, insulating attics and renovating whole houses. Do-it-yourselfers this year are expected to spend nearly $28 billion, about three times as much as just seven years ago.

The major reason most people pick up a hammer is the high cost of home repairs. Carpenters in Chicago, for example, charge as much as $14 an hour, if they are available. Joseph Armento, an Atlanta social worker, has spent $550 on hardware and tools since he moved from an apartment into his own home. He admits to having a tough time even hanging curtains, but says, "I'm finding a need to acquire those skills. Prices are high."

With cash scarce and gasoline expensive, more people are staying home and stretching the family budget by doing their own work. Fixing up the old family homestead that has a 6% mortgage is far cheaper than buying a new house. Says Bernie Marcus, chairman of Home Depot Inc., a chain of Atlanta home-improvement centers: "Given the cost of borrowing, less spending money and the fact that they really can't find competent help, some people don't have a choice."

Today's do-it-yourselfer is tackling bigger tasks than just changing a light bulb. He (or increasingly she) is doing complicated electrical and plumbing jobs that used to be considered hands-off for amateurs. Hardware stores report a growing market for difficult-to-install bathtubs and showers. Professional tools like a ramset, a heavy-duty stud gun that uses .22-cal. cartridges to drive nails into concrete, are enjoying wider use. Energy-conserving improvements, such as the installation of wood-burning stoves and clock-activated thermostats, are among the most popular weekend projects.

Sprawling super hardware stores and home-improvement centers are springing up to meet the demand. W.R. Grace's home-centers division has grown to 240 outlets since it was started four years ago. Toolmakers are prospering. Black & Decker's U.S. profits rose 29% in 1979.

Along with the demand for hardware and tools come growing requests for instructions. Says Michael J. Montalbano, president of Houston's Retail Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association: "People don't know anything about what they're doing." A common novice mistake is to use a piece of string as a measuring tape. Once at the lumberyard, the string starts to stretch and the would-be woodworker either goes back home or ends up with a board that is too long. Thus the black thumb rule at most home-repair centers: $5 worth of advice with every $1 in sales. Last winter Boston's public television station WGBH broadcast a 13-week series on home renovation titled This Old House. The program drew some of the highest ratings in the station's history, and a new version will be put on nationwide this fall.

For those with the time, skill and persistence, home labor can pay off. Victor Sanchez, a Teaneck, N.J., salesman, figured that with just three hours work he could install a new shower by himself--saving $150. Chicago Architect John Dix and his wife estimate that the painting bills alone for the condominium they are refurbishing themselves would be $3,000.

The 84 Lumber Co., a national chain, sells the ultimate do-it-yourself job: kits for designing and building houses practically from scratch. Containing everything except the foundation, plumbing and wiring, they range in size from bungalows to two-story colonials. In just one week this summer, 17 modern pioneers paid an average of $12,000 each to raise their own roofs. qed

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