Boring health and safety of DIY at home you all need to know about.

It’s Christmas time and we all want our homes looking more beautiful than usual. We all know that buying new furniture or paying for builders and specialist is costly, so we turning into doing a DIY’s ourselves. You know, I am a huge fan of DIY and up-cycling so I will always strongly encourage you to do so, but also I always mention DIY health and safety in any of my posts. I tried to always remember to include simple safety steps like for example in my latest post Jazzing up Christmas stag head when I mentioned using spray paints outdoor only. I know it’s boring, I get that. No likes those health & safety classes, neither I like them, but it’s important to know what products, materials and surfaces you are working with to reduce a risk of getting yourself ill.

Not many people actually realise that doing DIY can be dangerous. I have to admit, I have personally done something completely stupid. When I started my adventure with DIY and upcycling and despite I had all health & safety talk in Uni, I have spray painted indoor. I wanted to cycle my old planters and believe me it was the worst I could do. The home was filled within second within the smell and paint and I couldn’t breathe. I opened the windows and balcony, hid cats in one room and left for few hours. It was very dangerous as I could inhale very toxic fumes then. So, please don;t follow my steps. Since then (it was 3 years ago) I am very careful, and unless it’s a child-friendly paint, I take all up cycling outdoor now. I found few spots I can do it now and leave under shelter in case if rains.

Apart from upcycling, people try to save up some money by doing some DIY at home like wallpapering, painting or even putting new carpets but forget about the DIY health and safety . It’s great if you got the skills but please be careful and get to know what you working with. There are homes that walls are covered with Artex which was a popular textured coating in 1970’s and 1980s’s and it contains dangerous asbestos.

Artex was used for creating decorative effects and textures on walls so be careful if you noticed walls like that if you move to a new home. Asbestos has been banned in the UK since 1990 and trying to do your own DIY including scraping the walls can lead the inhale of asbestos and therefore a serious health consequence with a long-term damage and you can develop mesothelioma. It’s been quite popular cases where people were receiving compensation for mesothelioma from solicitors, including a widow last year who got £150,000 in mesothelioma compensation from Slater and Gordon and you can read all about it in the case studies post.

I wanted to share this with you today, as I know many of you attempt to do your own DIY, especially before Christmas and I know, you rather save up and buy Christmas gifts or that beautiful Christmas party dress. ( I do that as well!) I have a very useful infographic for you that may be very useful and helpful so please read carefully and enjoy your DIY.