> the job needs to be done by some professional installers, because they're in a position to do the same thing day after day,
Possibly - it depends on the situation. In my experience, the transaction costs of getting people in can be pretty high.
After all, if a guy has to drive 40 minutes to me, perform a 10 minute job, then drive 40 minutes back - I gotta expect to pay for 90 minutes of his time.
And if some install jobs involve lifting a 160 lbs machine by hand, that's a two-man job - now I'm paying for two guys for 90 minutes. Or they want to see the job to check if it needs two guys before they can quote accurately - meaning another round trip.
Oh, and my job doesn't let me work from home, so I gotta take a day off work.
There's also tons of benefits for DYI if done in a correct balance. It allows you to later communicate with professionals more efficiently and figure out who is actually a quality professional, debug issues with the setup you have, make better decisions in the future. I think when owning a house, if something does not pose a significant long term risk health or damage wise, it's wise to at least try and spend few hours on figuring out the DYI. Unless you have serious FU money where you can hire a single, trusted person to just orchestrate everything for you.
6. Cost of "hey man I actually don't have time for your job today, I'll do it next week, sorry"
7. Cost of they just don't show up and you have no idea what happened
8. Cost of trying to call them after 7 to reschedule, it goes to voicemail, but the voicemail is full so you can't leave a message, so you text them, but they don't read texts, so you just have to keep calling all them and hope to get lucky and catch them between jobs
9. Cost of you get frustrated by 8 so you decide to hire someone more established who has a secretary, but the secretary is clueless and gives you misinformation mixed with "I'll ask him and get back to you" (of course never gets back)
10. Cost of you having a flexible sleep schedule, so you usually wake up at 11am, but they want to come at 9am or you have to wait who knows how long, so previous night you are stressed about getting too little sleep, ending with getting no sleep at all because of the stress.
Possibly - it depends on the situation. In my experience, the transaction costs of getting people in can be pretty high.
After all, if a guy has to drive 40 minutes to me, perform a 10 minute job, then drive 40 minutes back - I gotta expect to pay for 90 minutes of his time.
And if some install jobs involve lifting a 160 lbs machine by hand, that's a two-man job - now I'm paying for two guys for 90 minutes. Or they want to see the job to check if it needs two guys before they can quote accurately - meaning another round trip.
Oh, and my job doesn't let me work from home, so I gotta take a day off work.