Planning · 8 min read
DIY or hire a pro: how to decide, job by job
A practical way to decide which parts of a renovation to do yourself, which to hand over, and which are illegal to touch in Canada without a licence.
Doing some of the work yourself is the single biggest lever most homeowners have on a renovation budget, because on most projects labour is roughly half the cost. It is also the lever most likely to cost you more than it saves.
The useful question is not "am I handy?" It is "what happens if I get this wrong?" Sort the job list by that and the answer usually becomes obvious.
Three things that are not a choice in Canada
Before the money question, there is a legal one. Some trades are restricted, and doing them yourself is not a budget decision, it is a code violation that can void your insurance and block the sale of your home.
- Electrical work for hire needs a licensed contractor in every province, and homeowner-permitted work still gets inspected. In Ontario, the contractor's licence is a seven-digit ECRA/ESA number starting with 7. Look it up on the Electrical Safety Authority website.
- Gas fitting is certified everywhere. Furnaces, fireplaces, gas ranges and water heaters are not DIY, full stop.
- Plumbing is a compulsory trade in several provinces, and anything touching the main stack or the water service will need a permit and an inspection.
- In Quebec, essentially all construction and renovation contractors must hold an RBQ licence, and hiring an unlicensed one is itself illegal.
The four questions worth asking
For everything that is legally yours to attempt, run it through these. Any single "no" is usually enough to hand the job over.
- If I get this wrong, is the damage cosmetic or structural? Repainting a bad wall costs a weekend. Fixing a floor you levelled wrong means pulling up the finish.
- Does it hide behind something permanent? Anything that gets tiled, drywalled or floored over should be done by someone who does it every day, because opening it back up is the expensive part.
- Does it need a tool I would have to buy or rent? Rental, delivery and the learning curve eat the savings on one-off jobs quickly.
- Is it on the critical path? If the trades booked behind you cannot start until you finish, your slow weekend becomes a schedule delay that costs real money.
Where DIY usually wins
- Painting walls and ceilings in standard-height rooms
- Demolition and disposal, if you are careful about what is load-bearing and what might contain asbestos in a pre-1990 home
- Removing old flooring, fixtures and cabinetry
- Landscaping, fencing and simple deck boards
- Assembling and installing flat-pack cabinetry, given patience and a level
- Site cleanup between trades, which contractors often bill by the hour
Where it usually loses
- Tile, especially floors and wet areas, where waterproofing failures surface years later
- Anything structural, including removing a wall you believe is not load-bearing
- Cabinet installation in an out-of-square room, which is most rooms
- Finish carpentry and trim, where the gap between competent and professional is very visible
- Drywall taping, which looks easy and is not
- Roofing and anything at height
Be honest about what your time is worth
The saving is not the labour line on the quote. It is the labour line minus your tools, minus your materials waste while learning, minus the days you are not doing something else, minus the risk you hire someone later to redo it.
A useful test: if a job would take a crew two days and would take you three weekends, you are not saving labour, you are buying a three-week delay at a discount. Sometimes that is a fine trade. Decide it deliberately.
Model it before you commit
Our calculator has a DIY setting that removes a share of the labour cost from the estimate, so you can see what taking on 20 or 40 percent of the labour is actually worth on your specific project before you promise anyone a weekend. On a small project the number is often smaller than people expect, and on a large one it is often larger.