Can I buy and install a veranda DIY?
Often people ask can I buy the material only and install a veranda myself? My sentiment is no..
Why would you do that?
Would you buy all the car parts and build your own car? You’ve got to be crazy.
Would you do your own surgery? You get experts to do that for you.
Let us not forget what is going to happen here, you need to have a work safe site. Often it involves work platforms, not ladders, and specialised tools. Let alone trade skills. With the greatest respect to my clients I am going to say that most people, most of the time, unless they are trade based and trade skilled, are probably not going to be able to do this in a good finish.
We can guarantee it every time.
Warranties
Hold up, what about if you do it yourself, there are no warranties.
How would you like to lay awake at night, you are in a very windy area and you are wondering if this roof is going to take off and kill someone’s child? It is just not worth the worry.
We make our products out of steel and it means there is probably about a 1-2 mill of tolerance a section. Not much. We’re not working with timber, where you have got the tolerances, and can still pack it up and fix it. In terms of what we have, if you have to replace even one beam, you might as well have had us do it.
Better for the client in the long run
I had one client who built the veranda himself. For the seven years he stayed in that house he couldn’t stop it from leaking. When they built their new dream home, the wife would not let him build the veranda himself!
Our office get a call almost weekly, and it is usually from the wife, asking us if we could complete a job that her husband had started?
How many times have we been out to jobs and people have said I’ve got all this material can you make a veranda for me? I think we are all guilty of having something at home we didn’t quite finish.
I can’t forget, it’s in my mind, indelibly imprinted. I’m talking to this couple and the husband says, ‘oh look I am going to do that’. And she looked at him and she looked at me and she said, ‘oh no you are not. I have seen the standard of your work.’
It is not worth it
You are dealing with your most expensive investment. You want to add value to your home. You don’t want something that detracts from it. You have to look at it every day. It had better be good.