Knowing how to do things yourself is a great way to save money—and it means you're less reliant on repairmen and buying expensive replacements. Increase your DIY knowledge for free with these handy resources.


Photo by fotographix.ca.

Increasing your DIY skills is a great way to decrease the amount of money you spend paying other people to build and repair things for you. You don't have to commit yourself to a career as a handy man or join a trade organization to pick up lifelong DIY skills. You can find a diverse and wide pool of learning opportunities in your local community and many of them are available for free or very cheaply. Browse the following list to find a method that works for your schedule and budget.


Volunteer

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Volunteering is possibly the best way to learn new skills. Not only are you increasing your own knowledge base but you're donating your time to the community and helping others.

Habitat for Humanity is a large non-profit organization focused on home construction. They have chapters all across the United States—and world!—and are always happy to have new volunteers. Habitat for Humanity is highly organized and you won't be doing anything beyond your skill level right away and will have supervision by a more experienced volunteer when learning new skills. Volunteer with them consistently and you'll add all sorts of great DIY skills to your arsenal like carpentry, drywall hanging, electrical work, and so on. If it's involved in the construction of a basic home you'll eventually end up doing it.


If you don't have a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, don't worry. Many churches and community centers across the country have similar programs where local residents, usually elderly or disabled, can submit requests for help with home repairs and maintenance.

Smaller scale than volunteering in the greater community, don't overlook the chance to volunteer with friends and family. If your neighbor is rewiring his garage or putting in a new fence, volunteering on a Saturday to help out not only builds a relationship with your neighbor but lets you learn a new skill or practice an existing one.


Seek Out Workshops and Faires




All around you people are sharing DIY knowledge—you just might not be aware of it. Opportunities vary widely based on the size of your locale but you can almost always find something going on for free.

Hardware and craft stores frequently run free workshops and demonstrations. Lowe's and Home Depot for example almost always have some sort of basic DIY workshops going on showing you how to use certain paint techniques, install a new light fixture, or such. While their hope is that after learning how to install a new light fixture you go over the lighting aisle and buy a new one to take home, nothing says you have to do so. Craft and hobby stores offer similar DIY workshops on everything from arranging silk flowers to detail painting die-cast miniatures. It's worth calling around or visiting the websites of local stores to see what is being offered.


Even better than a store-sponsored workshop are group-sponsored spaces for sharing tools and DIY knowledge. Growing in popularity thanks to publications like Make Magazine that encourage and highlight such community DIY activity, these spaces go by various names like Maker Groups, Hacker Spaces, and such. They're tougher to find than heavily advertised workshops at places like Lowe's, but thankfully you can find directories online. Make Magazine keeps track of groups and group indexes here.

Also sponsored by Make Magazine—if you've noticed a Make magazine trend here it's because Make has done an enormous service to the DIYers and tinkerers of the world through the publication of their geektacular magazine and their intense support of the DIY community and ethic—are Maker Faires. Maker Faires often have little mini workshops and activities but the larger focus of the faire is for showing off awesome DIY creations and networking with other tinkerers. You can check out upcoming faire dates here. Photo by Urban Data.


Teach Yourself




The internet has been the best thing that has ever happened to the DIY community. With a good search engine on your side you can find out how to do nearly anything, find any part, and find people who can offer advice all at once. A perfect micro-example of this in action are two repairs I made on an aging washing machine several years ago. While setting the wash cycle the cycle knob snapped off. Traditionally I would have had to call a repairman who would pay a house visit, bill me for the visit, and bill me for the replacement part. Using the model number of the washer I was able to search out a parts list for the washer and get the part number for the knob.

One Google search later for the part number and I ordered a replacement for $10 with free shipping. Later that year—same washer!—during the spin cycle it sounded like a jet was taking off in my laundry room. I researched the problem online and used an exploded parts diagram to take the shell off the washer and assess the problem. Thanks to a post on a repair/DIY forum I took the metal wash tub out of the plastic wash tub sleeve to make sure the noise wasn't being caused by anything actually caught in between the two. The noise was in fact caused by two finishing nails that I hadn't taken out of the pocket of a pair of jeans before throwing them in the wash and not, thankfully, by the motor of the machine dying. I don't even want to think about the price of the billable hours and actual repair for outsourcing that job to an actual repairman. My total expense for both repairs, besides less than 2 hours of my time, was only $10.


With that in mind there is almost nothing you can't look up online and get some solid answers and even diagrams for. Whether you want to know how to safely wire a light switch, flush your sprinkler system for winter, stop your garage door from squeaking, or anything else that someone before you wanted to know how to do, you can find it online. Starting a search query with "how to ..." opens up a world of learning. Photo by kodomut.

Sign Up for Classes




The only entry on our list of suggestions that costs money, signing up for classes is sometimes your best option. Depending on what you want to learn how to do, disbursing the startup cost to a classroom or learning center is sometimes desirable to purchasing all your own equipment.

Let's say you want to learn how to weld. You'll need a welder, accessories, access to lots of scrap metal to practice with, and so on. You could try to find a friend with a welder and some metal you could practice with but in terms of the speed with which you'll acquire the skill, instructor competence, safety, and an adequate supply of materials to practice with, it may end up being a better value to take a class at a local community college or vocational school or even metal working art class through a community center. Hit up Google and search for community centers, community colleges, and continuing education courses in your area to see what the offerings are. Photo by tm_lv.


If you have a technique or suggestion for learning new DIY skills for free or on the cheap, let's hear about it in the comments.