Overall do it yourself projects require a simple ability to figure out if its home repair or home improvement, while in time some of the time some of the topics that I will cover here will be more to the home improvement end, its crucial that you know your limits and what your comfortable with. If you do not feel comfortable attempting to do something it may well save you time and much frustration to consult your neighborhood professional instead.
With home ownership the critical things seem to be burst pipes, and if in cooler climates as I am, the furnace not lighting in the winter. I was lucky enough to get a early education on My furnace, the basic part that will go bad is available for 45.00 and can be replaced with the turning of one screw in under 5 minutes, now I did pay 250.00 for My furnace education at 11pm at night as it was cold in the house. So in the emergency situation I elected to have the quick and easy method of hiring the pro to find out I did correctly follow the furnace guide and diagnose the problem, from here forward that is now a repair I am comfortable with.
Most major appliances have some type of guide with them that will even cover diagnosing issues so with a lil common sense you can find a pretty close idea if your not afraid to use some tools, and are able to read and approach things with some common sense. The major things to remember are, where is the circuit breaker box, where is the gas shutoff and where is the water shutoff located. With that even with a burst pipe you can eventually overcome the basic issue that is happening. First thing, shut it off, that will stop the leak, now, with the leak gone, you can take a peek at where the burst has happened and determine weather or not you want to attempt to repair yourself or if you would rather call a plumber. If you have PVC its relatively simple to work with, if you have copper, its slightly less forgiving but generally very durable. For myself, PVC I will work with anything else I will call someone.
Sometimes home repair means doing a lil bit of home improvement.
I have a leak in one corner of My basement, now upon a quick visual inspection outside, I was quickly able to determine the likely cause of the problem. The ground slopes back towards the foundation and the to make it worse the downspout was not connected to anything to direct the water flow away from the house. The first thought was I would have to dig down and recoat the foundation with a water proofing solution but I lucked out in this instance, all I needed to do was divert the water away from the house, problem solved.
Alternately, on the inside when ripping out some of the original wallpaper I found out that the drywall was no longer attached to the studs on the wall, in fact when I tore the paper off portions of the wall came of with it. I happen to have hung and finished drywall, done My share of patching so this was absolutely within My comfort zone, I took advantage of the chance to rip that wall back down to the studs, add some additional insulation into the wall, insulate the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom, and from there, finish the wall out and find a quick home improvement task completed.