They say that only a fool represents him/herself in a court of law. This is definitely the case with do-it-yourself plumbing. The percentage of the population that can actually manage to take care of their own plumbing is minute. The folks at the hardware store will convince you that if you follow the instructions carefully it will not be a problem. While this may be the truth, there is another possibility: plumbers pay hardware stores commission for propagating this lie. Your average homeowner should never be allowed to fiddle with the plumbing because ninety-nine times out of a hundred it just leads to disaster and massive expenses being incurred. It is amazing how in the short distance from the hardware store to your home, a simple problem can grow into a problem comparable to that facing the sorcerer’s apprentice.
It may have started out as leaking tap or a blocked drain but after a few hours of DIY plumbing, you are faced with a serious plumbing problem. What normally happens to these DIY enthusiasts is that they try and fix a problem without using the correct tools; they convince themselves that there is nothing wrong with pulling a quick MacGyver to get the problem sorted. The thing is, most plumbing fittings are tightened very well, to prevent any leaks from the system, so when mister do it yourself comes along with shifting spanner, chances are he is going to strip the thread of whatever he is trying to loosen and this is the beginning of a whole new set of problems.
Once the thread is stripped you now need a specialized tool to remedy the situation, but DIY fans are not ready to quit just yet, so they will try some other jammy method of loosening the pipe or bolt in question. It would not surprise anyone if a news story suddenly had to appear which linked all the DIY ads that are on the television to some brotherhood of plumbers. Surely the amount of money that they make due to DIY mistakes must exceed their normal income by quite a bit.