DIY Disasters

It's amazing how easy those cable TV shows make home improvement projects seem, and interesting that they never dwell on the ones that don't work out so well.

Electrical miscues that'd make Edison himself blanch. Plumbing installations that look like something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. Levels of well-intentioned ineptitude that'd frustrate even the perpetually cheery Ty Pennington and his crew.

Home inspectors -- the prospective homeowner's last line of defense against money pit-hood -- have seen it all.

Even as tight times make adopting a do-it-yourself lifestyle tempting to even the most dexterity-challenged homeowner, let inspectors' tales underscore the folly of overreaching, corner-cutting or inept planning.

The insidious thing about faulty DIY home improvement or home maintenance projects is how adeptly they can be disguised.

"I could pull up in front of, say, a nice-looking home, 8 to 10 years old, the typical Las Vegas home -- an area of 2,200 square feet, one story, ranch, tile roof, two-car garage, stucco -- and say, 'This shouldn't be a bad morning,' " says Scott Mitchell of National Property Inspections, who has been a home inspector for 16 years, all of them in Las Vegas.

But, Mitchell continues, "that was a mistake, because you go in and find all these issues."

Generally speaking, Mitchell notes, owner-built homes have more issues than professionally built homes.

Mitchell once inspected a home in which the creative but not particularly adept owner "basically used all the leftover parts and materials" he had obtained from elsewhere.

Another time, a prospective bidder asked Mitchell to inspect a home that was being put up for auction. Mitchell checked out the house and recommended to his client that he hire a very large bulldozer and then "put the blade down in the front yard and don't stop until you're 10 feet from the back fence. Just lower the house. It was that bad."

Fortunately, most home projects gone wrong aren't quite that bad. Shawn Smith of Pinnacle Property Inspections says the most common theme he sees is "people cutting corners every which way."

That could mean using cheaper materials than needed, or taking shortcuts that could turn out to be dangerous.

Or, for that matter, merely silly.

"I've seen people who have roof leaks put buckets up there (in the attic)," says Smith, who moved to Las Vegas from Florida and has been in the business since 2002. "They tell me the roof is fine. Then I go up in the attic and (ask), 'What about those buckets?' 'Oh, I don't know what you're talking about.' "

Some well-meaning homeowners inadvertently compromise their home's safety features when they take on projects or fail to maintain their homes properly. Mitchell often sees ground fault circuit interrupters -- designed to shut off power when water is present -- that "don't work anymore because people haven't tested them in years. All the manufacturers say, 'test monthly,' which no one ever does."

Andrew Costabile of Shield Home Inspection often sees improperly installed electrical outlets. All, he notes, "come with little directions they fold up into a little square and, for some reason, a lot of people don't want to open up that square piece of paper to see the diagram and see how it's supposed to be wired."

Mitchell once inspected a home that "was wired with sections of wiring, and nothing was continuous. If he had an 8-foot piece of wire and a 10-foot piece of wire and a 2-foot piece of wire, he just twisted all the wires to make a 20-foot piece of wire."

Smith has seen DIY electricians who have tapped into existing lines, overloading breakers, and spliced wires that weren't tucked away in junction boxes.

"You don't want people electrocuting themselves," he adds, noting that installing a junction box might add only about $10 and an extra 20 minutes to a job.

Smith has seen homeowners who, probably to seek a cozier feel, alter their gas fireplaces in ways that can expose them to carbon monoxide, and a presumably DIY hot water heater on which the owner used a cottage cheese container to extend the piping.

In a similar vein, Smith says, "there are not a lot of crawl spaces here, but you'll see people propping up their pipes inside crawl spaces or attics using coffee cans rather than proper bracings."

Inspectors have courted physical injury from homeowners who haven't maintained roofs and rooftop air-conditioning units properly.

Mitchell recalls the time his helper was on the flat part of a roof while he was in an upstairs bedroom. When Mitchell looked in the attic, he noticed that "the middle of the roof was totally dry-rotted."

"I yelled to my helper, 'Stand still, don't move,' because two more steps and he'd have fallen through the roof."

On another occasion, Mitchell noticed that a shower or toilet in a home's upstairs bathroom apparently had leaked for a long time.

"The floor was so rotted they had actually covered it up with a carpet," he says. "If you walked anywhere near the outside wall of the master bathroom, you'd have fallen right into the first floor. That's how bad it was."

Mitchell often sees such small leaks that cause sustained damage. A homeowner may see a stain at the bottom of a toilet and simply "go to their favorite household store and buy a $3 tube of silicon caulk and run a bead around the bottom of the toilet and think they've solved it," he says.

But, Mitchell adds, "many times, the toilet has to be taken off its base and remounted."

Ill-advised DIY plumbing installations are common. Hot water taps running cold water, and vice versa, for instance, as well as, Mitchell says, the results when DIY plumbers forget the basic principle that "drainage has to flow downhill. You can't have uphill pipes under the sink."

Some DIY plumbers even forget about the adversarial nature of water and electricity.

"I literally have seen where people will install tubs and put an outlet right next to the tub so they can plug in their whirlpool spa," Smith says.

Patio covers are a common DIY trouble spot. In fact, Mitchell says, "do-it-yourself patio covers, I'd say confidently that 98 percent of them are never constructed properly."

The roofing material might be wrong. The slope of the roof might be wrong. The framing or foundation might be done incorrectly. Or, the construction just lends itself to damage through rotting or leaks.

Whatever the problem, Mitchell says, "it's dangerous because you've got an 800-pound gorilla over your head while you're sitting out on the patio."

"And if there's electrical in that patio, watch out," adds Mitchell, who has seen DIYers use interior-rated, not exterior-rated wiring, for their patio projects.

Costabile once even saw a covered patio that sported a homeowner-installed ceiling fan. Problem was, he notes, that "the patio's ceiling is so low, the blades are touching your hair."

Do-it-yourself home improvement or home maintenance projects not only can save money, but be creatively fulfilling. But to Smith, the lesson is simple.

"If you don't know what you're doing, don't," he says. "I mean, truly: Don't."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.