It can't be that tricky, can it, to save money by doing it yourself? Well, yes it can. But luckily, the experts will still be there afterwards to pick up the pieces, writes COURTNEY BROOKS.
SIMON MASTERSON, 22, once found himself broke in Dublin at 4am after going out to celebrate a friend’s birthday. He had to get to Lucan for an 8am shift at work and didn’t have money for transport. “I had absolutely no way to go home, so I walked for four hours. I took a nap halfway,” he says.
The €10 he had at the beginning of the night was used to buy alcohol and a glass of coke to sneak into the bar.
Walking four hours home to save on bus fare may seem a bit extreme, but there is no doubt that the recession is causing people to pinch pennies in creative ways. Many are taking it upon themselves to do things, such as hair dyeing and plumbing, that they would normally call the pros in for.
This do-it-yourself approach can save a handy person hundreds of euro, but for jobs that really do require an expert it can end up costing even more to repair the damage done.
For hairdressers, “the horror story is generally people trying to highlight their own hair at home”, says Noel Higgins, owner of Noel Higgins Hairdressing in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Eddie Doyle, owner of Hair Perceptions in Dublin, says that some women have started choosing a blonde tint and then dying their whole head in an attempt to match their roots to their highlights. “They end up with awful orange roots, so they come in and we have to do highlights and toners and a lot of correction,” he says. Normally a half-head of highlights and a blow-dry costs up to €120, says Doyle, but correcting and treating a bad dye job can cost up to €250. He adds that he has lost 60 to 70 per cent of his hair-colour clients since the recession started, with many colouring their hair themselves.
He has started suggesting to clients that they tone their hair down with a semi-permanent dye, which doesn’t entirely get rid of the highlights but makes the roots less obvious. “I know things are tight, and this can save them €100, or maybe €60,” he says.
Higgins says that using peroxide bleaches at home can also cause hair breakage, which can’t be recoloured.
Tom Mullen, who owns Assured Quality Plumbing Services in Dublin, says he has seen an increase in people trying to do small repairs or installation jobs themselves, often to their detriment. “There is certainly an increase in people trying to do it themselves. There are some things you just can’t mess around with. A lot of people try to fix things and make a mess of it and finally back off, hands up. People sometimes go to an awful lot of expense trying to fix things themselves, and at the end of the day they just have to call the right guy.”
One client had attempted to connect a gas cooker using a plastic pipe. “Worst-case scenario is the place would blow up,” Mullen says. In this case, the pipe began to leak and the man called a gas company, which then called Mullen. Other accidents Mullen has seen include valves breaking, water being re-routed to the wrong building and homes being flooded, which is most likely to happen when people go on holiday after attempting a repair job themselves, he says.
While, overall, the do-it-yourself trend is hurting the industries that provide services, those companies which do repairs that even confident DIY-ers won’t attempt may be profiting. Peter Frew, who specialises in repairing boilers, says he has seen a 5 to 10 per cent increase in clients this year.
“Previously people went out to buy a new one, so the repairing end is busy enough because people can’t afford to buy a new one. They want to keep the old one going,” he says.
