The £90,000 DIY bill

If you like to do your own home improvements, you may spend up to £90,000 on DIY during your lifetime. Insurer Cornhill Direct polled 3,000 adults to find out about their DIY habits. The research found that on average, families spend £634 each year on DIY materials and an additional £812 on fittings and furnishings, giving an annual bill of more than £1,400. Those trips out to your local DIY retailer to buy more paint or a couple of nails can add up to 12,000 miles over a lifetime, costing £1,337 in petrol.

However, not all of us are handy around the house, with 17 per cent of Brits having DIY disasters, 4 per cent of them resulting in an insurance claim. Hammering nails into pipes and spilling paint on carpets are common mishaps. Not all of us manage to complete DIY jobs quickly, with one in 20 of us taking up to three years to complete a simple job. In contrasts, 29 per cent of people would need a week to redecorate a bedroom and 42 per cent would need only a weekend.

Despite the time DIY takes, 75 per cent of people prefer to do jobs themselves rather than seek professional help. Ten per cent of Brits start electrical and plumbing jobs without knowing what they are doing and 66 per cent start jobs without having the right tools. And it’s not just our own homes we’re fixing up – more than ten per cent of us help our children with their DIY jobs up to three times a year.

While the survey suggests that Brits are taking good care of their homes, not everyone redecorates regularly. Eleven per cent of people redecorate their bathroom every 20 years. In contrast, 10 per cent of people said they revamp their kitchen every single year.