Survey: So who does the DIY in your house?

Now, a new survey from Checkatrade.com – the website for monitoring the reputation of tradespeople – highlights a peculiar anomaly: women claim they actually do much more DIY than men say they do!

The research, conducted amongst 2,000 homeowners, found that the biggest gap in perception between the sexes was in the East Midlands. Here, just five per cent of men say that the woman of the house does the DIY, while 22 per cent of the women themselves claim to do the lion’s share.

According to the findings, men claim the fairer sex is less handy around the house than the women say they are - and that’s in very single region of the UK.

Nationally just 14 per cent of men admit that the woman of the house does the majority of the DIY. But when you ask women who do the most DIY, they believe it’s more like 28 per cent - twice as many.

The research also highlighted a startling disagreement between men and women regarding who makes the decisions on booking a tradesman.

Just a quarter of men (25 per cent) say it’s the woman who decides on the builder, plumber or sparky, while half of women (47 per cent) say, the truth is, it’s actually down to them!

Commenting on the findings, occupational psycholoist Alan Redman, said: “DIY prowess can be an important aspect of self-identity for men. This can lead them to unconsciously over-estimate their level of skill and under-estimate the DIY contributions of others, such as their wives and partners. This is a psychological effect developed to protect the sense of self from threatening thoughts, such as ‘my wife is just as good with a power drill than me’.

Kevin Byrne, founder of Checkatrade.com, said: “Going on our own experience, I’d have to say I believe the women!”

“We find when we talk to our trade Checkatrade members; they state that the initial call to them is almost always from a woman, they are savvy and very careful about how they choose tradespeople.”

“And often it’s a case of women resorting to picking up the power drill because they just want the job done without fuss – they’re fed up of waiting for their other halves to fix things!”