Gen Z and DiY

[Spectric]

There is more to DIY than just working on a house. You learn skills because you have a desire to learn and achieve which should begin at at young age, just getting kids interested in books and being inquisitive would be a good start. Many of us would have started by making go karts and fixing our bikes and helping our dads with things on the car and around the house and then progressed into whatever floats the boat. I was really young when I first started playing with old radios & Tv's and making crystal radio's but then the local radio / Tv shop proprietor was so helpful and off course we all had chemisty sets to experiment with and no health and safety to restrict us.

 

[David Lloyd01]

I've been retired for 16 years, I was a maintainence engineer on sewage treatment plants and pumping stations, all heavy and messy engineering. Just before I retired I had an apprentice for a short while who was utterly clueless. If I asked him to pass me a 22mm spanner he offered me a handfull from 10 to 30mm, he didn't know the difference between stillsons and an adjustable spanner, watching him with a screwdriver was painful. He hadn't got a bloody clue. The really bad thing was he was in his second year, he'd been with another very good fitter in another area for 12 months! He was glad to glad to be rid of him.
The apprentice was a nice enough lad, completely clueless both practically and theoretically in all things engineering, but he could sort out any problems on a mobile phone in an instant.

 

[Doris]

I'd say it's not the generation but the individual upbringing. We either learn to follow on or rebel from our parents.

My Dad once built a large shelving unit for the garage out of cardboard once and he was from the boomers 1 generation, had tools and some DIY experience etc.

As a Millennial I now make my shelves not out of cardboard.

 

[glenfield2]

I don’t think lack of DIY is much to do with age. I’m 75+, restored several old houses during my life, rewired, replumbed, rebuilt etc. Last one I fitted UFH, pressurised HW, Aga etc.
These day we are beset by regulations and potential insurance issues. Buildings Regs are incredibly complex. Fiddle with something without being ‘qualified’ and you can invalidate your house insurance. All no doubt sensible but deters the DIY man.
As for cars - did up loads in my youth - now I wouldn’t have a clue what to look for under a bonnet. Thanks heavens for my vintage diesel on our canal boat.

 

[pe2dave]

Seems to me 'our' generation sat back and watched a tiny minority completely dominate the internet and associated technologies. That minority's done very well out of it (currently playing with rockets etc) but our children are now at constant risk of being reduced to passive receivers of the dysfunctional claptrap they're fed by those technologies, 24/7. And the nonsense is getting worse.

Grossly incorrect Chris. Bit of research on W3C and TimBL et al would show that.

 

[Chris152]

Grossly incorrect Chris. Bit of research on W3C and TimBL et al would show that.

Is that a joke?

 

[pe2dave]

Is that a joke?

No.

 

[Blackswanwood]

I'd say it's not the generation but the individual upbringing. We either learn to follow on or rebel from our parents.

My Dad once built a large shelving unit for the garage out of cardboard once and he was from the boomers 1 generation, had tools and some DIY experience etc.

As a Millennial I now make my shelves not out of cardboard.

I just clicked on your website … you produce some beautiful and interesting work.

 

[Chris152]

No.

Point me to the info you think relevant. I see no sign of it.

 

[HamsterJam]

Several years ago Father Christmas bought tools for our offspring. My lads had some basic tools already so their kits were expanded and my daughter, who didn’t have tools, was delighted to receive a basic set of tools in a bag. She has blossomed into a competent DIYer, now in her early twenties and owning her first home, she has fixed minor problems on her car, put shelves up, fixed minor plumbing issues etc.
My lads are similarly competent, in fact one much better at fixing vehicles than I am.

 

[Ross Buchanan]

Of course, another perspective is that we're nearly all a bit rubbish at diy these days. Who among us builds their own house, kills and farms their own food? Very few. We browse the aisles picking up carrion, pressing buttons to get our veggies delivered, allow our standing orders to pay for our warmth. It's all rather relative, this diy thing.

I have produced my own food.
The problem is, you need a £10,000 acre to support a single beef animal or 3 ewes and a ram. You have risk, and obligation, paperwork. You need a building to store feed, and to house the animal in winter. You need expensive equipment to pen the beef animal for tb testing. You need an approved trailer to get the beast to the abattoir, then you have 800lb of beef, so you need a couple of chest freezers to store it.....which means a bigger house.
Except one beef and 6 lambs and a couple of pigs feeds your family for one year, and beefs take 30months minimum.
Then you need an acre to feed your pigs off, an acre or two of wheat, and one of potatoes and roots
So 10 acres, or £100,000+£10,000 of sheds and handling gear, and £10,000 of tractor and machinery and a full time obligation to animal welfare. If you have a full time job, you never, ever get a single day off.

Or you go to Tescos and buy what you need when you want it, and get to stay in bed on the weekend

 

[Chubber]

I have produced my own food.
The problem is, you need a £10,000 acre to support a single beef animal or 3 ewes and a ram. You have risk, and obligation, paperwork. You need a building to store feed, and to house the animal in winter. You need expensive equipment to pen the beef animal for tb testing. You need an approved trailer to get the beast to the abattoir, then you have 800lb of beef, so you need a couple of chest freezers to store it.....which means a bigger house.
Except one beef and 6 lambs and a couple of pigs feeds your family for one year, and beefs take 30months minimum.
Then you need an acre to feed your pigs off, an acre or two of wheat, and one of potatoes and roots
So 10 acres, or £100,000+£10,000 of sheds and handling gear, and £10,000 of tractor and machinery and a full time obligation to animal welfare. If you have a full time job, you never, ever get a single day off.

Or you go to Tescos and buy what you need when you want it, and get to stay in bed on the weekend

Very succinctly put.

We kept rabbits for meat when I was boy, could never find the wish-bone when Mother told me it was chicken.....

 

[niall Y]

I think that it is ultimately down to how one is wired. We are not all equally gifted at everything. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Being good at making and repairing things is not something that all of us can do. Being academic doesn't necessarily preclude one from being good with ones hands, though this is very often the case.

The academics have largely won as far as what is being taught in schools. If I had not been able to experience metalwork , technical drawing and woodwork at school. I would not have had the career I did have or be able to do the things I can do. For which I thank the educators of my day.

There are not enough hours in the school day to teach everything that would be of use to us in the modern world. Being taught more about money and how it works would certainly have been of benefit to my generation. But this was against the backdrop of very few people even having bank accounts.

Present day economics, also plays a part in what is deemed important. Should we teach things that will no longer bring in the financial returns they once did, or equip people for industries that no longer exist in our country?