The Dangers of DIY Projects

While many people have become interested in do-it-yourself projects, the dangers of DIY projects have fallen out of notice for those who want to try and make something with their own hands. Sometimes, people get clumsy. Other times, they don't take into consideration the full dangers associated with their particular project.

Whatever the case, even if you can do it yourself, that doesn't mean there isn't a risk to the task. The dangers of DIY projects have a high cost – and, it's a cost you can easily avoid paying with a little bit of preliminary knowledge and research.

Rushing

The dangers that come with rushing are two-fold. Let's start with the one you are immediately aware of: doing a half-arsed job. If you rush a project, especially one that deals with decorating your house, you're going to end up with a less-than-stellar final product, which just isn't something you really want, right? If you're constructing a tree house, you don't want the house to fall apart the moment you set foot in it, unless you want to plummet twenty-five feet into the solid roots. Head-first. Your skull would crack open like a watermelon.

On that note, rushing can also lead to getting tangled up in equipment, which can cause some lovely injuries. Ah yes, injuries. Carving a hole into your hand, drilling open your leg, lobotomizing yourself with the foot of a hammer – there remains countless grotesque ways of maiming yourself because of carelessness and stupid mistakes. Trust me when I say that each one is more gruesome and grotesque than the last.

So, please don't rush. If you take your time, you will avoid at least 50% of the dangers of DIY projects.

Forgetting Safety Glasses

Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? You need those special safety goggles if you hope to do anything sciencey. This includes using power tools, dealing with glass or wood, or anything that can splinter off and stab you in the iris.

The dangers of DIY projects are, in many ways, similar to the dangers in shop class (you younger kids missed out on that). If you wouldn't do it in shop class without protection, don't do it yourself without protection.

Hell, why don't you just wear protection anyway just to make sure? Just a good plan. You never know when an accident may happen, one that can ruin your life forever, when it all could have been avoided if you had just worn those protective goggles, like any smart DIYer.

Forgetting Ear Protection

You're eardrums are sensitive. They can only take so much bombardment from sound before they burst. And, once you're deaf, you're deaf. To avoid blowing out your hearing, we advise you to wear protection for your ears.

Whether its chainsawing, mowing, or just testing out a loud electric guitar, all those decibels can't be good for you, so don't mess it up by forgetting ear protection. A lot of the dangers in DIY projects are not immediately obvious from the outset, but if your ears are hurting from all that noise, it's proof that some damage is definitely being done to your hearing.

Not Wearing (Good) Work Gloves

You ever cut your hand open with a saw? Not fun, right? There's blood everywhere. Severed arteries. Nerve damage. Not a fun time.

If you don't want to spray blood all over your work table, it may be a good idea to wear gloves. There are, of course, other reasons, too. You don't want to touch toxic chemicals with your bare skin, after all. But, you need good gloves if you want to keep yourself safe.

Work gloves. Not your winter gloves. Not mittens. Work gloves. Good work gloves that won't tear, rip, or burn. Rubber, sturdy gloves. The dangers of DIY projects do not wait for you to put on good gloves. You wear inferior hand-gear, and you are asking for your skin to blister, or your fingers to be carved off.

Letting Your Hair Down

You ever hear of Petra Novotnz? She was a Czech woman who ended up coming too close to a power drill. The drill caught her hair, and pulled. But, rather than just pull a few strands of hair out, the force of the drill ripped her scalp clean off her skull, leaving half of her face uprooted and bloody, sprinkling the ground with drops of red.

Don't be Petra Novotnz. Tie down your hair. Don't let it get caught in power tools.

When considering the dangers of DIY projects, please consider if it has the capability of literally pealing the flesh from your skull like an orange.

Proper Ventilation

When doing construction projects, there's going to be a lot of waste floating around in the air. If that lands, it's going to make a mess. If you breathe it in, though, things can be much worse. Breathing in dust might make you sneeze, but breathing in paint chips can result in permanent brain damage.

To avoid either outcome, please ventilate your room. While many of the dangers of DIY projects are hard to avoid, this one is easy. Open a window. Have air filters available. But, also keep your vents shut, or else you'll be blowing toxic fumes throughout the house, turning your home into a chamber of toxic chemicals from which you cannot flee.

Do something to filter out the garbage in the air before you breathe it in.

On that note...

Not Wearing a Mask

Masks are here for a reason. Do you know how easy it is to break open a pipe full of carbon monoxide during a complex DIY project? Hell, you don't even need that extreme of an example. Spill certain chemicals in your paint, and a chemical reaction can occur that will make your entire house a death trap.

Hell, even less than that: what if a fire breaks out? Most people caught in a house fire don't die from the flames licking their bones clean. They die thanks to smoke inhalation.

Wearing a mask might be the thing that saves your life. This may be the most terrible of dangers in DIY projects.

Leaving the Power On

When you're finished with a DIY project that requires power tools, for God's sakes, turn the equipment off before you are done. It may seem like an obvious step, but people leave power tools running far too often, and things can go very wrong when emulated.

Like, burning your house down.

Of all the dangers in DIY projects, this hazard is the most foolish and easiest to avoid. Just unplug your devices. Remove the batteries. Turn them off. Don't leave things running unattended, unless you actually want to damage your house.

Forgetting to Clean Up (Properly)

So yeah, not cleaning up can kill you, or your loved ones, too. Didn't think I found enough gruesome ways to disturb you into not screwing up your DIY projects? What if you leave a nail sticking up on the floor and, as you walk barefoot with a cup of warm coffee one cold morning, that nail drives itself between your foot bones, and up the other end, staining your new floor scarlet, leaving you in excruciating pain? Or you forgot to clean up chips of glass, and now you have a wedge-shaped valley in your foot that can't be stitched properly, with splinters driven between the fibers of your musculature?

Okay, so you vacuum a little. Don't leave trash laying around. You'll be safe, right?

Well, what if you're using chemicals? Shouldn't you clean them up, too? Oh, and don't mess up by using the wrong chemical to clean with, because that's the way you make poison gases. You know, the kind of gases so horrible and terrible that they are literally illegal to use in warfare?

So yes, be careful. Have fun. Be wary of the dangers of DIY projects, or the suffering you may experience in your last moments will be legendary, even in Hell.