Does DIY plumbing impact your home insurance?
You may be surprised to learn that outside very basic tasks to do with your plumbing (think something as simple as changing a tap washer) both your home insurance and your personal health insurance could be in serious jeopardy should you choose to take up the tools yourself.
Apart from the real chance of accident or death if you take on a DIY job that requires hazardous tools and chemicals, and the subsequent fact that your personal health insurance may also exclude you from cover if you engage in high risk behaviour of the home handyman kind, you are dicing with some serious legal implications should you sell your most valuable asset with dodgy plumbing work hiding behind the walls.
As a broad brushstroke, any plumbing upgrades that have the capacity to affect the drinking water supplied to the home or the sewer line have to be done by a licensed plumber. You can double checking the specific laws relating to DIY work in your state and confirm that you are legally approved to carry out works like replacing a jumper valve or washer in your tap (approved in all states) or change your shower head (also cool across the board) by jumping onto the relevant info site.
You may now be asking yourself why large chains like Bunnings sell you all the goodies to get the job done if you aren’t supposed to be carrying out the work yourself, and how shows like ‘The Block’ can place such a big focus on the contestants being able to carry out the brunt of the work themselves.
Well, the answer is simple – tradies also use these chains for lots of items so selling direct to the public isn’t a big stretch for them.
In terms of The Block, unless they are licensed before they get on the show in the particular trade they need for the job at hand, there is no way they are installing that hot water system themselves!
You can look to save a little bit of money by working alongside your plumber if you strike up a great relationship with them. There may be some grunt work you can do in supervised capacity on the day, like digging a trench, that the boys would happily watch you carry out. This may be enough to satisfy your DIY tendencies (and probably cure you of wanting to get your hands dirty for quite a while).
Save yourself real insurance worries by checking with us before you do any handy work that you may be better off having us carry out on your behalf.