Air mattress

From the "got to laugh to keep from crying" files... something to add to the list of universal truths along with "water flows downhill" and "you can't push rope"... add a line for "mattresses are not aerodynamic".

Generally, transporting anything on top of a car is something to be done carefully, with consideration for general principles of physics including, but not limited to: gravity, inertia, and friction.  Ignoring any of the above WILL result in possible outcomes including embarassment, property damage, personal injury and DEATH.  Car-top-carrying is an occupational hazard of DIY considering that the average homeowner has not made the wise investment in a box truck or sizable trailer to carry large, aerodynamically-challenged loads.  Large furniture, sheets of building material, big-screen TVs ... all are top candidates for generating sufficient lift to overcome the forces of gravity if strapped to the outside of a moving vehicle.  A pickup truck is no panacea; I've hauled 16-foot dimensional lumber on the roof of a Subaru Impreza, and in 8-foot pickup beds - hint:  it's a heck of a lot easier (and safer) with the Subaru, though I'd argue a good pull-behind trailer is the best bet of all.

So let it be understood that, done properly, the top of your car can provide all the utility necessary to transport significant quantities of oversized building materials between the local big-box store and the construction staging area in your backyard.  "Done properly" implies that proper consideration has been given to physics as noted above, and appropriate safety measures have been employed including bundling, load-balancing, tie-downs and that all of the above has been done with considerations for load limits of roof hardware, and without impeding visibility for the driver.

Just for the record, and in case this wasn't clear, "done properly" never, and I mean NEVER, involves getting your buddy to sit on the roof to hold something down.

Enter 20 year-old Sidney Zelaya Gonzalez, of Culpeper, Virginia, and the driver of the mattress-topped van upon which Ms. Gonzalez did ride; and who, together, provide us with a cautionary tale to the consequences of ignoring a little phenomenon known as air resistance.

The conversation probably went something like this:

"I need to get this mattress to meemaws but it won't fit in the back."

"Just put it on top of the van."

"I tried, but it flew off as soon as I started moving."

"No problem, let me get on and I'll weigh it down."

"OK."

The rest is history, and in the bylines of a news story that would be comical if the consequences were not so tragic.

WASHINGTON — A 20-year-old woman who was riding on a mattress on top of a van in Haymarket, Virginia, died early Friday morning after she and the mattress fell from the roof of the moving vehicle, Prince William County Police said.
Police believe Sidney Zelaya Gonzalez, of Culpeper, Virginia, and the driver of the van — a 41-year-old woman who has not been identified — were attempting to transport the mattress a short distance when Gonzalez fell and hit the pavement, police said.
“This was not a joy ride,” Nathan Probus, a public information officer with Prince William County told WTOP.

Were these ladies trying to pull some ridiculous stunt to post on YouTube in the hopes of landing a guest spot in Jackass 4, one could be forgiven for tactless comments about Darwin awards and the such, though it's clear that some people in online comments sections have no compunctions about doing this anyway.  The tragedy is in the fact that they were simply trying to get a job done, and took the initiative to try to get it done themselves, but for whatever reason lacked the initiative, knowledge, or common sense to take even rudimentary safety precautions.

The lesson here?  DIY can get you killed if you don't do it right.  Some people just need to hire it out.

Independence Day 2013

As our country celebrates its 237th birthday, HouseOfDIY will seize the opportunity to do something fun around the house.  We have worked hard, and now we shall play hard.  For today, we celebrate our independence as well.

"Independence" - consider the meaning of that word.  Simply, it means "the state of not being dependent".  For America, it means the time when our founding fathers made the bold declaration that America was no longer a British colony, and would chart it's own course into the future.  Thankfully, we've since kissed and made up and today consider the Brits our good friends in the global community.  Still, even though American culture would have been quite dull without the UK influences of Led Zeppelin, Doctor Who, Top Gear UK, Elizabeth Hurley, and Harry Potter, it's nice not to have to report our activities back to the throne.

One of the common themes here at HouseOfDIY is that in taking the initiative to do it ourselves, we declare our own independence.  If we need something fixed, we can fix it.  If we want to build something, we can build it.  The ability for each of us, as individuals, to chart our own course without financial or functional dependence on others is the principle of self-sufficiency.  Today, we should recognize that this core aspect of DIY mirrors the same principle of self-sufficiency and self-determination upon which America is founded.

So carry on, DIYers.  Carry on with the great spirit of American resourcefulness, inventiveness, and independence.  But on this great day, take a moment to enjoy the fruits of your labor, for the opportunity to sit back, relax, and enjoy the world you have created for yourself is the greatest reward DIY can offer.

Why DIY - Case Study #1

Household appliances are supposed to make our lives easier. We depend on them to work properly for us, magically keeping our food cold, heating our water, and washing our dishes while we go do other things that we actually want to do. But the ugly truth is that appliances are machines that eventually wear down, malfunction, or just out-and-out break.

Appliances have a nasty habit of breaking when the proper operation of that particular appliance is the most crucial. Refrigerators will break when you've just stocked them with Thanksgiving leftovers. Heating systems blow in the dead of winter. And dishwashers will go kaput just when you've slacked on kitchen duty long enough that the sink is so full of nasty, dirty dishes that washing anything by hand is near impossible. The most appliance-dependent of us will suffer a kind of paralysis until our tools have been returned to proper operation and the status-quo of our daily lives is restored. Want to see this phenomenon in action? Unplug the refrigerator before you head off to work and see how long it takes your spouse to make a frantic call to the refrigerator repairman. Such lapses in appliance functionality are simply intolerable.

Broken appliances suck, but you know what sucks more? Finding a replacement. Even if you're not replacing something that's broken, the process of shopping for a new appliance will quickly ruin any joy you might have otherwise received from the novelty of acquiring it. In the process, you'll juggle your list of "gotta have" features, reliability reports, and price-comparisons until you finally settle on the model that will leave you feeling the least regret.

Appliance shopping is simply brutal, and it's small wonder that at the end of the process many buyers opt to "just have it installed." It's an understandable capitulation. Retailers make a lot of money banking on appliance buyers who aren't willing to tackle the installation. Some people are lucky enough to be able to afford the overpriced installation services. The luckiest see those installations go smoothly. But not for this guy:

Unbridled rage is the only rational response to this situation. Depending on your temperament, and the degree of your DIY nature, this rage will be directed either at the retailer who couldn't get a stupid dishwasher install done right, or it's directed at the homeowner who couldn't be bothered to borrow an electric drill and do it themselves (and then harangue the retailer until they get a refund on the install).

It's OK to want to hire things out. Even for the most avid DIY-er, really, there's times when that's called for if for nothing else than the sake of convenience. But when the system fails us so miserably, do you want to be at the mercy of the installer that takes 14 months, six home visits, and ultimately a call to the local TV news consumer advocate to get it done? Or do you want to unburden yourself from the incompetence of others by Doing It Yourself?

Why DIY? #3 - Be Master of your Domain

Hiring a contractor can be great, but when you do you give up significant control over how the work is done.   You're on their schedule.  Your ability to control costs on raw materials by shopping around different suppliers is limited.

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Why DIY? #2 - Be Self-Sufficient

There are few things as disruptive to household bliss as having a long honey-do list.  Whether it's something broken that needs to be fixed or an elective improvement, when something needs to be done it needs to be done pronto - and if you can get it done inexpensively at the same time, that's worth bonus points.  Being able to chip away at a long to-do list of home improvement projects yourself can be a satisfying way to burn a weekend and restore the balance of household peace and tranquility.

Building confidence to take on bigger and more complex tasks is the natural outcome of successful experience as a DIYer.  Start small, and build on the experience for the next time.  Before you know it, you will find yourself questioning the need to hire the pros for projects you never would have remotely considered doing yourself before.

In regards to self-sufficiency, perhaps the best argument for DIY is to free yourself from dependency on sloppy, dishonest, or incompetent contractors, and the companies that hire them.  This isn't to denigrate home improvement contractors in general, and in fact the reputable ones will complain the loudest about the ones who give their business a bad name.  But every service industry has it's shysters, and home improvement is no different.  Some unscrupulous contractors are banking on the naivete of their clients to inflate costs, cut corners, or to otherwise break the rules to maximize their bottom line.  Other home improvement "pros" may not be actively out to screw their customers, but just don't seem to care about getting the job done right. Consider, dear reader, the story of the guy stuck waiting 14 months to get a new dishwasher installed, and tell me he's better off for not sucking it up and finishing the job himself.  If you think he did the right thing, then you are not allowed to read this blog anymore.

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Why DIY? #1 - Save Money

DIY involves hard work, no doubt, and it's not for everybody.  But there is a price for convenience.  Service industries exist for the sole purpose of making money.  There is nothing wrong with this, and I salute those individuals that have dedicated themselves to developing the specialized knowledge and skills to make us whole when homeownership throws us a curve ball.  But leveraging experts in any field costs money.

Anyone who has ever owned a house and "had work done" has likely choked when presented with their first quote.  Even seemingly minor visits from qualified repairmen can come with bills that can temporarily evaporate household entertainment budgets.  A $75 bill to have someone show up and stick their head under your sink for 15 minutes can be tough to swallow.  But that bill covers not only the repairman's salary, it pays for the truck (and the gas and the auto insurance) that got them there, the tools of their trade that you didn't have to buy, and the benefit of their experience and the implied assurance that their work will be done on time, on budget, and to professional standards of quality.  It also pays for a broad range of things related to keeping a home improvement business afloat that you, the customer, never have to worry about beyond writing the check.

Where DIY saves you money is in separating you from those "extra" costs; in business terms, the contractor's labor, overhead, and profit.  You still have to pay for raw materials, but you save the markup that most contractors would charge on top of what you would pay yourself if you bought the same materials at the local home improvement store.  Depending on the job, the total savings of DIY can easily cut your out-of-pocket costs by more than half compared to hiring it out.  I've done projects where I've calculated my out-of-pocket savings to be more like 70% to 90%.  On large renovations, a successful DIY job can save you thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars.

Realizing those kinds of savings, however, is not instantaneous.  Embracing a DIY philosophy involves some up-front investment, though with a fairly rapid rate-of-return.  Once you start, every step is a deposit on making the next project that much easier and cheaper.  You will pick up tools that you can use later.  You will pick up experience that will give you confidence to tackle bigger projects that would have cost even more money to hire out.  And, perhaps most importantly, you will learn what it really takes to get certain home improvement tasks done, which makes you a more knowledgeable consumer when the time comes to shop around for a contractor when you have the flexibility to not DIY.

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