Plastering a ceiling is the most stressful DIY job in the UK, according to new research.
Victorian Plumbing made this calculation having investigated how comfortable Brits are with DIY. The bathroom company analysed difficulty queries across UK Google, such as ‘how to fix…’ and YouTube views taken from ‘how to’ videos for each DIY enquiry on the first page of searches.
The researchers then looked at average time frames for projects, and the quantity of tools needed, before assigning a weighted value to get a final score, indicating the level of stress per job.
Plastering a ceiling had a stress score of 1,221, the highest of any DIY job in the UK, almost twice as high as hanging wallpaper in second.
In total, plastering a ceiling received 4,400 online searches and over 5.8m YouTube views. It took respondents an average of 12 hours to plaster a ceiling, and required an average of five tools.
Hanging wallpaper had the second highest stress score of 673. Unblocking drains (588), tiling a bathroom floor (542), and removing grout from bathroom tiles (262) made up the top five.
When the researchers included US data, installing a toilet took top spot with a weighted index score of 3,463.
How to be Good at DIY
DIY can be a fulfilling way of improving your home, enabling you to save money you would otherwise spend on tradespeople, and improving your skills around the house.
And it’s not just renovators who are choosing to DIY. Many self builders choose to undertake an element of DIY, when building a new home, in order to keep within budget.
(MORE: Self Build Routes: DIY)
Here’s some valuable DIY guides to help you with your project:
It is important to feel comfortable when embarking on a DIY project, so if you feel out of your depth or like you don’t own the right tools then this is probably something to leave to the professionals.