Five home repairs are too dangerous for most homeowners to learn on their own house, no matter how good the YouTube video is: electrical panel work, gas line modifications, structural changes to load-bearing walls and beams, steep-pitch roof work, and asbestos or lead paint removal. These are the ones I bring up every time a client asks if they should just do it themselves. It isn’t that they’re technically complex. It’s that the ways they fail are severe and the room for error is too small, and here in Colorado Springs, PPRBD requires permits and inspections on most of them for exactly that reason. A mistake here isn’t a redo. It’s property damage, injury, or death.
1. Electrical Panel Work
The electrical panel is where power from the utility meets the wiring that feeds your home. At that point, no breaker protects the electricity yet. Nothing stands between you and the full current coming from the transformer on the street.
I still won’t touch a live panel without killing power at the main first, and I’ve been doing this a long time. DIY work inside an electrical panel exposes you to live wires carrying enough current to stop your heart. That includes adding breakers, replacing the main breaker, raising your service amperage (the total power your home can draw at once), and moving circuits around. It’s true even when the main breaker is off. The service entrance wires, the thick wires coming in from outside, stay live no matter what position the breaker is in.
The danger goes past a shock. A breaker installed wrong may not trip when a circuit overloads. A wiring error can cause arc faults, which are sparks that jump between wires behind the wall. An overloaded circuit can heat up for months before it starts a fire. These problems often don’t show up right away. They show up later, under load, when you’re asleep.
What homeowners can reasonably do themselves: Replace a standard outlet or switch (with the breaker off and a non-contact voltage tester confirming no power). Swap a light fixture for a like-for-like replacement on an existing circuit. Everything beyond that should involve a licensed electrician and a permit from Pikes Peak Regional Building (PPRBD), the agency that permits and inspects this work in Colorado Springs.
2. Gas Line Modifications
Natural gas has a smell added to it on purpose so you can catch a leak. That smell is the early warning system, and I treat any whiff of it as a full stop, no exceptions. But at the right concentration in a closed space, a single spark from a light switch or an appliance can set it off. The explosion can be powerful enough to level a house.
DIY gas work needs special tools, leak-testing equipment, and a PPRBD permit with an inspection. That includes extending a gas line, moving an appliance connection, or adding a gas stub-out (a capped pipe left ready for a future hookup) for an outdoor kitchen or fireplace. There is no room for error. A connection can pass a visual check and still fail a pressure test, which means it will leak. In a closed space, gas can build up over many hours and still stay below the level where you’d smell it.
Colorado Springs context: The city and El Paso County require a licensed plumber or gas fitter for all gas line work beyond hooking up an appliance. Even appliance connections need a permit when they add a new stub-out. The rules exist because the worst case is catastrophic.
What homeowners can reasonably do: Shut off the gas valve to one appliance for maintenance. Replace a gas appliance when the flex connector (the flexible metal hose to the appliance) is in good shape and the shutoff valve works. Anything involving pipe, fittings, or new connections: hire a licensed professional.
3. Structural Changes: Load-Bearing Walls and Beams
Open-concept remodels are one of the most requested projects in Colorado Springs, right after kitchens, in my experience. Homeowners want to take out the wall between the kitchen and living room, make bigger openings, or add windows to outside walls. Many of these projects are doable. The danger is in figuring out what a wall is doing before you touch it.
A wall that looks non-structural can still be carrying weight in a hidden way. It may carry weight from above through nearby framing. It may support a point load, which is a heavy weight concentrated on one spot, like the end of a beam bearing down on it. It may brace the house against side-to-side movement. Take it out without knowing what it does, and the structure may not fail right away. It may sag. It may creak. It may hold for months, until a heavy snow load on the roof pushes it past its new limit. At 6,035 feet, snow load is a real Colorado Springs concern.
What the check actually requires: A structural engineer who looks at your house, your framing, and your exact plan. This is not a YouTube diagnosis or a quick look from a contractor. An engineer is legally on the hook for the assessment in a way that a contractor or a Google search is not.
A structural engineer’s review runs $300–$500. That’s worth every dollar before you open a wall that might be holding your roof up.
4. Steep-Pitch Roof Work
Falls are the leading cause of construction deaths. A steep roof, one that rises about 6 inches or more for every 12 inches across (a 6:12 pitch or steeper), is genuinely hard to stand on. Working it safely takes fall-protection gear, experience on angled surfaces, and the fitness to do it for hours at a time.
A homeowner who climbs onto a steep roof to check or fix shingles is up there with no fall protection, no practice moving on a slope, and none of the body awareness that comes from doing it every day (I’ve been up on plenty of steep roofs over the years, and I still rope in every time). A slip up there does not end in a bruise.
What homeowners can reasonably do: Walk a low-slope or flat section of roof to look for obvious damage. Use binoculars from the ground to inspect a steep roof. Go into the attic to check the roof sheathing (the wood panels under the shingles) from below.
Colorado Springs specifics: Roofs here take extra stress from hailstorms (3–4 per year on average), heavy wet snow, and sun damage from the strong UV at altitude. It’s worth having your roof checked after every big storm. Have a roofing pro do it, not you.
5. Asbestos and Lead Paint Removal
Homes built before 1978 in Colorado Springs may contain asbestos in insulation, floor tile, drywall joint compound, and pipe wrap. That includes much of the Old North End, Manitou Springs, and older Broadmoor neighborhoods. These homes almost certainly have lead paint on the original woodwork, and possibly on outside surfaces too.
Asbestos and lead paint are not dangerous when left alone and intact. They turn dangerous when you disturb them by sanding, drilling, breaking, or removing them. The particles they release are tiny and invisible. You breathe them in without feeling anything, and with enough exposure they cause permanent harm.
Removing asbestos or lead materials yourself isn’t just a bad idea. In many cases it’s illegal. Rules from CDPHE (the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) and the EPA control how these materials must be handled, contained, and thrown away.
Before any remodel in a pre-1978 Colorado Springs home: Have suspect materials tested. Asbestos testing runs $25–$75 per sample at a certified lab. If a test comes back positive, hire a licensed abatement contractor, a specialist who removes it safely. Abatement costs real money. But spreading asbestos fiber through the rooms you live in is a cost you can’t undo, and it’s one gamble I won’t let a client take.
Being a capable DIY homeowner means knowing what you can handle and what you should step back from. The repairs above are worth handing off. Not because you aren’t capable, but because the cost of getting them wrong is far more than any money you’d save. The licensed pros who do this work every day have the tools, training, and insurance to do it safely.
Jonathan Shea is the owner of The Colorado Handyman, serving Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region. Flat-rate written estimates, no hourly billing surprises. Licensed and insured with $2M general liability coverage.
Get a free written estimate: Contact The Colorado Handyman or call (719) 243-9718.
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