Comment on I am not a builder… but that does not seem right
grue@lemmy.world 5 days agoWelp, I can’t tell if my faith in professionals has dwindled or my confidence in my DIY skills being up to code has increased upon reading that. Probably both.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Honestly, the requirements to become a professional in most of the trades are pretty minimal because there’s a massive shortage of trained workers in basically every trade. The bar is probably the highest for electricians. I’m a refrigeration mechanic and the bar for us is basically subterranean. I’ve come across “professional” repairs all over the place that are just wild.
Honestly, if you’re a DIYer and you’re consulting building codes at all then you’re probably doing better work than many (but not most) pros. That’s why you should never just go with the cheapest contractor you can find for anything. They’re cheap for a reason. You really need to ask around and see who is good in your area. One thing that can help is if you can find a contractor that does commercial as well as residential work. It’s not 100% but generally they’re going to do better work because it’s a bit harder to get away with shoddy work with many commercial customers than it is with most residential customers.
grue@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Aw man, now you’re just enabling my bad DIY habit, where I get too ambitious and/or too skeptical of hiring somebody and end up taking way too long to get the project done. I’m this close ->| |<- to committing to a DIY HVAC replacement (complete with new 240V circuit for a conversion from gas furnace to heat pump), which is obviously gonna end up with me relying on “temporary” window AC units all summer, and you’re just shoving me right over the edge!
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Haha. I’m the same way. It’s fun to tinker with that stuff. It’s actually probably a good thing it’s so expensive otherwise I’d have twice as many half finished renovations.
Just be sure you’re aware of local laws. At least where I live home owners can do all of their own electrical work as long as they get it inspected but that isn’t the case everywhere. As far as the minisplit goes you should be legal to DIY it as long as you use precharged units and linesets. You just can’t buy refrigerants or legally tap into the system in any way unless you have an EPA 608 certification. But if you’re using precharged linesets and the equipment works then you won’t need to do either of those things unless you somehow lose the refrigerant charge. As far as the rest goes just do your research on system sizing, placement, and all that jazz. But as far as DIY goes, a minisplit is probably about the same difficulty level as installing a new gas furnace so if you would be comfortable doing that they you should be fine.
Also if you’re going with a heat pump minisplit, I’d go with mitsubishi, not a samsung. The Samsung units are more technically advanced and have more flashy options but they aren’t very reliable. I’ve worked on several that had major issues less than a year after install. They’re also more “proprietary” when it comes to working on them. On the other hand I have never come across a dead mitsubishi with less than 5 years of hard use and they’re dead simple to work on as far as minisplits go.