Residential Carpentry Jobs Best Left to a Professional

Construction & Contractors Blog

If you're somewhat handy with a hammer and circular saw, and can access online videos that explain home repair and renovation work, you may assume you can easily manage home carpentry jobs on your own. This can be a mistake, as some jobs are more complicated than you may realize and should be left to a professional. Note a few of those jobs and why you should never try to tackle them on your own, even if you consider yourself very handy around the house.

Framework

If you're adding to your home, putting up walls, or moving walls, you want to have a carpenter manage this work for you. Framework supports the entire weight of your home, so it's vital that you use strong beams, studs, and joists. Boards and studs that are too thin or made of a softwood that is not meant to hold weight can mean a frame that begins to buckle, with resultant cracks in the walls and possibly even crumbing ceilings. Moving a wall without compensating for this lack of support to beams and framework can also mean cracks and crumbling. Don't assume that you can simply attach some beams together and have a frame for a new addition or room in your home, but leave this work to a professional carpenter.

Floorboards

If you want to install timber floors in your home, you shouldn't assume that you can simply buy timber slats and then glue or nail them to the subfloor. If you use the wrong type of glue or nail, those boards can come loose very easily. The boards may also need to be attached or joined to each other so that they don't lift and separate. Attaching the floorboards properly to the walls around them will also be important so that they don't shift. Since this job is more complicated than simply gluing slats to a subfloor, you would do well to leave it to a carpenter.

Cabinets

Cabinets might seem very easy to make, since they're basically a box with a door connected with a hinge, and some interior shelves. However, kitchen cabinets need to hold quite a bit of weight once they're stacked with dishes and other items; poor quality interior shelves can easily buckle or pull away from the wall. Your home's framework might also be slightly off centre so that cabinets hang crooked, and if you don't know how to compensate for this, the cabinet doors might not close easily. To ensure sturdy wood is used and the cabinets are installed securely, leave this work to a  residential carpenter.

14 March 2017