Fixer-Upper Skills

How do you learn the skills needed to fix up a house?  Personally I grew up a sheltered life in terms of manly duties.  Sure I changed my car's oil once, and I know the different types of screw drivers but how do you learn to wire an outlet, cut and solder pipe, and remove and put up new flashing and gutters?  Do you really need to know all of this before you buy a fixer-upper?

I would say don't let this deter you but take the steps necessary to be able to learn on the job.  For instance, I knew none of this information before I bought my first investment property, yet now I handle all my own plumbing and have completely remodeled exterior sections of the house.  I am still afraid of electrical but one day...  the reason I was able to learn this is twofold.  I had someone that was willing to teach me on the job.  My dad knows how to do a lot of this stuff, and honestly he was doing all of it for me in the beginning but he was teaching me as we went along.  So 1st off, find a friend that you trust and will help you learn.  Maybe you can help him learn something too.

2nd way is to take advantage of the free Home Depot and Lowes classes that are held on the weekends.  They have classes that involve everything from building a deck and laying tile to plumbing and electrical.  Also while you are at it, go to Youtube and look up essentially anything you need an answer to and someone will have posted a detailed description of how you can complete the project.

So as I said in the beginning, don't let your relative lack of understanding deter you but make sure that you have factored in enough time and money in case a professional needs to be called.  Going back to learning how to handle my own plumbing issues; it use to take 3+ house to cut, drain and solder pipe together when there was a leak  (and there were a lot with 80+ old pipes and acidic water).  My last fix was 18 minutes and 15 of them was letting the pipe drain.  That knowledge saved me $115 plumber call.

Get out there and learn some new skills.