Diving head first into your DIY project without the proper tools and know-how is a sure-fire way of causing a yourself a big headache’ quite literally! We asked some of the worst offenders to share their (amusing) stories’.
It's a fact! Hiding precariously behind closed doors of homes up and down the nation are some of the most dramatic DIY disasters ever seen! And according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), more than 200,000 DIY enthusiasts turn up at hospital each year. Some of the stories almost beggar belief but then they are so daft they have to be true. There was the man who came to work one Monday morning with his arm in a sling. He was reluctant to admit what had happened, but after some persuading he owned up that he had done the classic sawing off the tree branch - the one he was sitting on.
Another nameless miscreant managed to cut a heavily-shielded mains electric cable while digging holes for a fence with nothing more that a garden trowel. The electricity company were so amazed by what he had done that they didn't charge for the repair.
The colour of money
There's no two ways about it, disasters in the home can cost you a small fortune! Top firm, Churchill Insurance, found the following category of claims
on household insurance over an Easter period, traditionally the launch of the DIY season:
Painting and decorating 72%
Drilling, hammering, putting up shelves 14%
Ladder accidents 8%
Tiling, broken tiles smashing bathroom suites 3%
Glue disaster 1.25%
And the expense! One policyholder who was installing a wooden floor nailed through a pipe, causing £1,583.09 worth of damage. Then there was the excitable two-year old helper who put a hammer through a TV screen, causing £1,398.82 worth of damage. Another policyholder damaged a sewage pipe while trying to remove concrete steps, resulting in a claim for £744.17.
7 steps to DIY success
You'll cut your chance of being on the DIY casualty list if you:
Only tackle jobs you're capable of doing. If you don't have the necessary skills, get a professional in. If the job involves gas or electric, always get someone expertly qualified to deal with it. Make sure your tools are up to the job. Keep them clean and in good working order, and always check them before using them. Use them as instructed, too. Injuries from tools and machinery account for an estimated 87,000 visits to A&E. Allow plenty of time. We're all busy, and most of us try to squeeze a DIY job in when we've got a spare moment. But that means we run out of time and start to rush, and that's when accidents happen. Plan ahead. Make sure you have everything you need before starting a job. Leaving a dangerous tool dangling precariously while you dash to your shed for the tool you need is just asking for trouble. Take care when using ladders - they account for 41,000 accidents a year, often serious and sometimes fatal. Make sure the ladder works properly, is stable at the top and base, and is positioned at a safe angle (1 in 4). Extreme care should be taken when using potentially dangerous equipment, particularly sharp cutting tools like knives and scalpels, which are the tools most likely to cause injury. Read and follow makers' instructions carefully, particularly when using instant-bonding glues - these are responsible for more than 3,000 casualty visits every year. Stop and disconnect all electrical appliances and tools before working on them. If the job recommends wearing protective gear - such as goggles - wear them.
No pain, no gain
Then there are the "ouch" cases. As one Midlands home improver admitted: "Preparing to start work painting a skirting board, I ran my hand over it to get rid of the dust... only to impale a large splinter through the tip of my finger - in one side, out the other. I wasn't too worried at first, but increasingly desperate attempts to pull it out resulted in both ends breaking off. Then it started to swell.
"I called NHS Direct as it was the weekend and my doctors surgery was closed. As I have a disabling medical condition, they spent a good ten minutes questioning me about it, whilst the finger continued to get bigger and bigger, to the point the tip of the splinter could no longer be seen.
"They wound up telling me to go to A&E, where I admitted in shame to being a DIY casualty and a nurse yanked it out with a large pair of surgical pliers."
And then there was the man who took the day off work. "Having had a bit of experience, I decided to lay a new laminate floor in my bathroom. The first task was to cut some hardboard to size to go under the new flooring. I started work at 9.30am and by 10.15am was in casualty waiting for several stitches, having sliced two thirds of the way through the top of my thumb with a Stanley knife.
"The annoying thing was that it happened so early so I didn't have anything to show for all that blood. I had to sit out my day off watching day time TV. I did finish that floor, a couple of months later, and luckily my thumb did heal albeit with a different thumbprint."
It seems the most simple and innocent of jobs can earn the worker notoriety and local fame. "My dad set the bathroom on fire when he had the inspired idea of removing tiles using paraffin and a lighter," said one daughter, who shall remain nameless. "A visit from the fire brigade and a paragraph in the local paper ensured that my mum has undertaken all DIY ever since!"
And then there are some people who are cursed. Take this trail of woe. "While alone in the house I managed to stab myself in the wrist with a chisel while putting up a door. Had to ring my girlfriend, who is a nurse, for advice while laying on the floor feeling a little faint, I had a few stitches and a scar that looks like I intended to try and end it all!
"The other disasters? Getting blown off a ladder changing a light fitting, forgetting to turn the fuse off, dropping a pot of paint stripper on my arms and splashing my legs, which resulted in a cold shower and a few scars! And they're just the ones I can remember."
Likewise this nameless woman. "I was about to start painting the lounge of my very first flat. I went to get the brush and walked into the stepladders and broke a toe. When moving a statue in the garden, the head fell off and the body landed on my foot resulting in a trip to A&E. I think steel toe capped shoes are a must!"
And more of the same. "My dad was installing a new bathroom in our house and had to drill a hole for the waste pipe. Our house is over 200 years old and has walls of granite blocks that are three feet thick, so it was pretty hard going. The bathroom is on the second floor, so he was working up a scaffolding tower on a platform of wooden planks.
"He was using a proper masonry drill to do the work - it's really big, with a handle on the side and a shoulder rest so that it is more stable. As he was drilling, the drill bit hit something really hard within the wall and rebounded off it, and the body of the drill slipped and hit dad in the face, splitting his top lip in two.
"To add insult to injury, he then fell off the scaffolding tower, although thankfully didn't sustain any further injury. A few years later, he was doing some plumbing work and was basting the joint with solder and a blowtorch when the gas ran out. He changed the canister but forgot he'd left the gas valve open, so when he re-ignited the gas he created a fireball that burned his forearm. He pretty much gave up on DIY after that, thankfully."
And even some in the trade can't get it right. "My husband is a building consultant. A member of the Chartered Institute of Builders, (MCIOB)" admitted a woman in Surrey. "He decided one summer to re-tile the bathroom in shorts. The first panel was next to the loo and we had two small boys who often had poor aim. The first tiles broke and slid down the panel slicing open his shin. We both walked up the doctors who stitched him up - whilst I fainted, I hate needles, and ended up on the floor of the surgery. He caught an infection that erupted into big lumps up his leg and needed antibiotics for about six months. We now call in the builders."
Finally there's this. "My brother-in-law decided to plumb in an outside tap to make watering the garden easier. He used a DIY outside tap kit (the type that you fix to an existing water pipe that punctures the pipe allowing the water to flow through the tap when in use) After completing the task he stood back to admire his handy work and turned on the tap, unfortunately he had chosen the wrong pipe and instead of watering his plants he gassed them instead."
The top 10 injury-causing tools
Knives and scalpels (21,300) UK accidents a year
Saws (15,100)
Grinders (6,400)
Hammers (5,800)
Chisels (3,900)
Screwdrivers (3,400)
Power drills (3,000)
Axes (2,200)
Planes (2,100)
Welding equipment (2,000).
(Source: BBC.co.uk)
