Life hacks for economical repairs: we draw up an anti-crisis estimate

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We are starting repairs! Don't panic! This article is a great guide to renovation ideas and savings that don't compromise the quality of the result.

So that after the repair you do not have to urgently patch holes in the budget, it is enough to carefully consider planning: study the building materials market properly and work at the preparatory stage.

Make plans and estimates

Decide how much work you want to do. Overhaul and light cosmetic can cost about the same, it all depends on what materials you decide to use.

Review the list to see which of these you want to accomplish:

replacement of wiring;
replacement and repair of pipes, heating, plumbing;
floor screed;
alignment of walls;
replacement of windows and doors;
fine finishing of walls, ceiling and floor.

You cannot save on the first two points. How to benefit from the rest, we will write below. The main thing to do is to prepare in advance. Because any transformations that come to your head in the middle of the journey will increase the estimate.

It is often forgotten that repairs will require additional costs, and do not include some materials and tools in the estimate, and then they cannot understand where several thousand have gone. It seems that little things cost a penny, but in the end, going beyond the budget is serious. The following subjects are usually not taken into account:

Rollers and brushes

Levels and roulettes

Buckets

Protective glasses

Gloves

Ladder

Protective clothing

Consumables for power tools

Spatulas

Dismantle yourself

It is often forgotten to include work such as dismantling and garbage collection in the estimate. Meanwhile, the prices for preparing the premises for work at construction crews are not at all low. You can remove wallpaper, old tiles and plaster, you can also remove the flooring yourself. Sometimes this requires spending a day off. Sometimes - buy multifunctional tools.

No two repairs are the same, so it is very difficult to tell which tools will be useful to you.

It is better to take one, albeit expensive, but multifunctional and high-quality tool, than to recruit many specialized and cheap ones that can quickly fail.

For example, using a drill and additional equipment, you can hammer (if the drill is a percussion drill), mix the solution, polish, grind, tighten screws. A hot melt glue gun is indispensable for interior decoration if you have a lot of design ideas and little experience.

At the same stage, you need to take care of the safety of your belongings so as not to restore furniture that was damaged during the overhaul.

Watch the video to see exactly what you are heading to the store for.

Life hacks for saving

Find out in advance about free services, which provide some large construction hypermarkets.

For example, in hypermarkets for repair and dachas OBI, such services as delivery and interior design (when buying from a threshold amount), sawing wood, tinting paints, overlocking carpet, master classes in construction, repair and gardening, assistance with plant transplantation are completely available. is free. In addition, OBI has master consultants who will help with calculations of building materials, if you come with measurements of your rooms, arrange delivery, advise on the range of any department.

Take the fixing tool one by one. If you buy a package of self-tapping screws for a modest repair, after the completion of the work, two-thirds of the pack will lie somewhere on the shelf. If you know exactly what kind of work you need, count the number of bolts, nails and screws to buy them individually with a small stock. Perhaps you will save a penny, but you will not have to figure out what to do with the leftovers. But with a margin, you always need to buy wallpaper: even the same pattern may differ in shades in different batches. If you don't have enough canvases or you ruin one of them, it will be difficult to find a replacement.

Use phosphated (black) fasteners, and not galvanized or cadmium plated (shiny), if you close the heads: save up to a thousand rubles.

Use markdowns. For ancillary work, buy goods in departments where there are trimmings and discounted goods. Especially if you need wooden blocks.

Take advantage of discount programs for buyers. Many of them really work, especially if you are planning large-scale work: you just need to figure it out and count. Let's see this with an example of a progressive discount, which is valid until the end of October at OBI.

Conditions of the promotion: make a purchase for 2,000 rubles and get a card with a 5% discount on your next purchase. For the second and third purchases for 2,000 rubles each card is issued with a 7% and 10% discount, respectively. Make a purchase with the last of the cards and you will receive an OBI Club loyalty card with a 10% discount until the end of October, and then with a 5% discount until the end of the year.

We take a calculator and see how you can gradually re-glue the wallpaper in three rooms if you have a limited budget. First, you need to buy glue, some tools and gloves for 2,000 rubles. The specified amount is just enough for this, and the next purchase will be at a discount. We buy affordable wallpaper for a small room. Everything is individual here (the calculation rules are described below), the purchase cost me 3,213 rubles, the discount on the card is 160 rubles. Expenses for wallpaper in other rooms amounted to 5,685 and 4,390 rubles. The discounts were 397 and 439 rubles, respectively. Savings - 996 rubles, and this is only on the cost of the already inexpensive wallpaper. The numbers speak for themselves.

Invest in wiring and pipes

The laying of cables and pipes, as well as all electrical work, are expensive. This is just an axiom, and it is difficult to come up with what you can save on. There are only general tips that help you not to spend money on unnecessary things:

Don't start work without a very detailed plan. Only with a well-developed project can you calculate running meters of cables and pipes.
Buy materials with a 10% margin.
If you are doing wiring, think about where the furniture and appliances will be in order to bring out the sockets in the right places. Be sure to calculate the load with a margin so that you do not have to change the wiring when you buy new powerful devices.
If you are going to make a suspended ceiling, run the wires in the space above the sheets. So you can save on meters of cable and on the cost of wall chipping.
Do the wiring for lighting and for sockets on different machines, then you will not need to turn off the lights to repair the sockets.
If pipes are to be replaced, try to reduce the number of joints and connections in order to increase the reliability of all structures.
Do not hide pipes in walls. It may be beautiful, but it is much more expensive. In addition, in the event of breakdowns and leaks, even minor repairs will cost a pretty penny. If you don't want to look at the pipes, cover them with a box.
Buy materials in one place, you can take advantage of discounts on large purchases.

OBI has a loyalty program for regular customers. With a one-time purchase of 10,000 rubles or more by the end of December, you will receive an OBI Club member card, which gives you a 5% discount on the entire range of goods, and also provides a number of privileges, for example, the opportunity to receive individual advantageous offers. For new settlers, the program with OBI Club cards operates on a permanent basis.

If you do not remember how zero differs from phase, and have no idea what a fitting looks like, and how a clamp looks like, do not try to become an electrician and plumber using master classes on the Internet. As a result, it will be more expensive than the work of professionals. It is better to show independence when buying finishes, furniture and sanitary ware. Learn to make the right choice:

Floor screed: choosing technology

The screed is very necessary if you have to put boards under the furniture legs, and the tea spilled on the floor does not lie in an even puddle, but flows away to one side. Which screed option you need to choose depends on how large the height difference in the room is.

Take measurements yourself using a laser level (you can borrow from friends or neighbors) or an ordinary bubble level. By doing the calculations yourself, you will be sure that the craftsmen will not try to inflate the price of materials.

Measurement scheme:

After the level of the even floor has been determined, it is necessary to check if there are any elevations of the floor above this boundary. To do this, the ropes are pulled at the height of the level you drew, and if the floor does not touch them anywhere, you can choose the type of tie and work on.

Screed type	When to use	pros	Minuses
Self-leveling mixtures	If you need to correct minor irregularities in the floor	Small thickness of the screed layer, high drying rate	High price, complexity of installation
Plywood floors	If you need to correct minor irregularities in the floor	Good heat and sound insulation of the floor	Cost of work, raising the floor level
Dry screed	With large differences in elevation	Clean installation work	High cost of materials, long installation time, possible surface deformations in the future
Cement and concrete screeds	With different elevation differences	Inexpensive materials. With large differences, you can lay the screed on expanded clay (to reduce the cost of mortar)	Time consuming work

Save on wall alignment

You can save a lot on leveling the walls if you calculate which method and which materials will be cheaper for you. To do this, you first need to find out how crooked your walls are, that is, take the correct measurements. On the cleaned wall, place the beacons on a level (or using a plumb line) and determine at which points you will measure deviations from the plane. Sum up the results and divide by the number of points.

If your result is less than 3 cm, then you can safely give preference to plaster, as it will go away a little. If more, then think about installing drywall sheets.

To find out how much plaster you need, look at the package. Manufacturers indicate how much mixture is required per square meter of area, if applied in a layer of 1 cm. Multiply this indicator by the figure characterizing the deviation, then by the area of the walls. Add another 5-10% of the material to the resulting number.

There is a third way to save money. If perfectly smooth walls and corners are not important to you, it is enough to take liquid wallpaper, which will mask small irregularities by themselves. The material itself is not very cheap, but you will save on additional work. But what can happen:

Install windows yourself

We have already written about what can be done with the old door in about economical repair. Actually, old wooden window frames can also be stripped of paint and renewed.

If you decide to buy new windows, save on installing them. Firstly, the cost of work is expensive. Secondly, many firms openly cheat, and you pay for low-quality work.

There are enough lessons on the web that will help you cope with the task. Here's one of them:

Mix and match different wallpapers, tiles and flooring

Go to the departments that sell ceramic tiles, wallpaper, laminate and linoleum. See which product has the biggest discounts. That's right, for the leftovers. This should be used.

In a room, all surfaces do not have to be the same color and texture. They can be combined, so much so that the result will look like a real design solution. If you take the product from the leftovers for a combination, then the savings will come out rather big, especially if you need to arrange a tiled apron in the kitchen or a small room.

In order not to turn the room into a patchwork quilt, calculate the material consumption.

Wallpaper

To find out how long the canvases are needed, add to the height of the room the size of the drawing step (indicated on the package) and another 10 centimeters for trimming. The number of canvases is calculated as follows: the perimeter of the room is divided by the width of the roll. The length of the roll, also indicated on the package, is divided by the height of the canvas. We get the number of canvases in one roll and calculate how much you need to buy. Do not subtract the area of windows and doors, but rather add 10% to the total number. It is better to buy a little more than then look for the desired pattern in all the shops in the city.

An excellent decoration for the walls of a child's room is an engraving with an imprint of your baby's handle or foot. On August 30, Moscow OBI hypermarkets will host an action dedicated to the Knowledge Day, where such an engraving can be made absolutely free of charge!

Tile

Calculate the area of one tile you are going to buy. Divide the surface area that you cover with tiles by the area of one tile. Round the resulting figure up to a whole number and add another 10% for consumption.

Plastic panels

They have long ceased to look cheap. They are much easier to install than tiles, especially if you choose wide panels. The number is calculated in the same way as the number of tiles.

Linoleum

The most democratic and comfortable coverage. Measure the length and width of the room. Add 10 cm to each side (for trimming). If you buy linoleum with a pattern, add one more step length of the pattern. Calculate the floor area and separately - the area of each niche, or better take a room plan to the store. Divide the width of the room by the width of the selected covering, round the result up - this is the number of stripes that you need. To calculate the flow rate in linear meters, multiply the length of the room by the number of lanes.

Here are some ideas for using the tips: