Struggling with that DIY job? You’re not alone. Experts predict that the home improvement market will grow through 2024 as home sales decline and disposable income rises. And folk are using government home repair assistance programs such as rehabilitation and repair loans to make up the difference. All in all, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts that Americans will spend $485 billion on improvement and repair this year.
So you’re not alone. But it can sometimes feel that way when cornered by a tricky task and the sudden feeling that you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s when millions of budding Al Borlands turn to YouTube tutorials or a live video chat with one of Frontdoor’s home repair experts for help.
But just how many homeowners are out there struggling with the same home repair job as you? To find out, we analyzed viewing figures from top YouTube DIY help videos to see which home improvement and repair tasks we need the most help with.
What We Did
Data analysts at Frontdoor found the number of views for “how to” videos on YouTube for over 100 of the most common DIY home improvement and repair jobs. We then ranked each category by the combined total of views for the top ten videos for each task.
Key Findings
- The repair job we need the most help with is door repairs, with the top ten videos on this topic totaling 34,380,000 views.
- The top home improvement job we are trying to figure out with YouTube’s help is building a fire ring, with 38,785,000 views across the top 10 videos.
- The most common bathroom DIY help request is how to repair a toilet (25,500,000 views).
- How to repair and paint kitchen cabinets are the top kitchen jobs we need more help with (over 20 million views on YouTube).
The 10 DIY Repair Jobs We Most Need Help With
What could be simpler than a door, right? Wrong. That great big slab of wood is the home improver’s worst nightmare, and we have the data to prove it: the top door repair videos have a combined 34,380,000 views, which is more than any other job.
Locks, handles and hinges are fiddly devices that need precise attention. And if you need to take the door off to mend or replace it, putting it back up can be a complex combination of elbow grease, careful alignment and maybe even planing the wood.
There are five plumbing-themed tasks in the top ten DIY jobs we need the most help with. And there are two toilet-related tasks in the top five: repairing and unclogging a toilet.
How To Repair a Toilet is the second-most watched DIY video theme of all. There are so many interconnected parts and so much that can go wrong. One home improvement site lists 21 issues, from a sticky toilet handle to “phantom flushes.” And yet, “some common problems are so easy to fix that you'd be flushing money down the toilet if you put off fixing them yourself,” says Ace Hardware’s Lou Manfredini.
The 10 Home Improvement Jobs We Most Need Help With
While DIY repair jobs often crop up at a moment when we have neither the time nor money to hire a specialist, home improvement jobs are a challenge we take on out of choice (albeit that it may be our partner who made the choice).
The one that needs the most help is building a fire ring — an enclosure to prevent outdoor fires from spreading from barbecues or campfires. Naturally, homeowners are concerned about getting the safety aspects right. Aside from the risk of human injury, the heat or sparks from a fire ring can potentially damage the ground below, walls and fences nearby or foliage above.
Five of the top ten home improvement jobs we need help with are exclusively outdoors, while wall fixing and painting can also be outdoor jobs. Replacing a toilet is in tenth place, although it has fewer views than mending a toilet. Still, the top ten videos on this topic have an average of 1.48 million views each.
Fixing Toilets and Replacing Tiles Are the Top Bathroom Repair and Improvement Jobs We Most Need Help With
The bathroom is a tricky spot for repairs and home improvements. Even those tasks that don’t directly involve plumbing need to take into account the potential water damage from those who prefer to bathe ducky-style (i.e., with a splish and a splash).
So, while How To Repair a Toilet (25,500,000 views) and How To Unclog a Toilet (20,107,000) are the most-watched repair video themes, folk are also looking for advice on tiles, grout and sealing bathtubs. According to Leah Bolden at See Jane Drill, one key to getting it right is to “just make sure that you follow the directions on the grout that you're using to make certain that you're allowing enough time for the joints to set.”
Among improvement videos, an apparently smaller issue arises: replacing a tap washer. We all remember Homer Simpson potentially letting his whole house sink into the ground for fear of being ‘upsold’ a 50¢ washer. But replacing a washer is “one of those easy DIY home repairs that most people can absolutely do themselves,” according to Ideal Home — and far from just stopping a drippy tap, a new washer can indeed prevent more substantial leaking that could create more extensive, and expensive, damage.
Repairing and Painting Cabinets Are The Kitchen Repair and Improvement Jobs We Most Need Help With
How To Repair Kitchen Cabinet is the home repairperson’s biggest concern in the kitchen, with the subject amassing 20,732,600 views among the top ten YouTube videos.
Of course, a cabinet has — in miniature — those doors that give DIY enthusiasts so much trouble (see The 10 DIY Repair Jobs We Most Need Help With, above). And in the kitchen, they are also at risk of water damage as well as the wear and tear of life in a room full of knives, heavy pots and barely supervised toddlers. For this reason, one common cabinet repair job is the ‘fix-up,’ since there’s something very charming about well-lived-in kitchen cabinets.
Cabinets are also the chief concern of those making home improvements to the kitchen. Three of the top five videos involve painting, installing or adding lights to a cabinet. Also, up near the top is building a butcher’s block. This can involve varying levels of complexity depending on whether you’re building a butcher block countertop, a loose butcher block or one that’s freestanding.
Fixing Patchy Lawns and Building Fire Rings Are The Backyard Repair and Improvement Jobs We Most Need Help With
The great outdoors is by far the most popular area to seek help for home improvements, but where homeowners seek the least help for repairs.
However, among those seeking repairs, the most common theme of DIY videos watched is How To Fix a Patchy Lawn, with 15,438,200 views. Fixing a lawn can be an intricate act of horticultural surgery, depending on what the issue is — and indeed, the first thing to figure out is why your lawn is patchy to start with. The next thing is to correct, if necessary, the issue that is causing the patchiness — be it disease, lack of light and water or your dog’s bathroom habits. Then, you can get to patching with either grass seed or sod grass.
Talking of that dog, some 24,616,000 people have watched the top ten videos on How To Build a Dog House. This raises the question of carpentry skills, which can be a sore point — and cause sore thumbs — around suburban homes. Luckily, there is a wide variety of dog house architecture to consider, and even the least handy with a clamp and saw are sure to find something they can put together, having got the pieces pre-cut at the DIY store.
Uncovering The Smaller Repair and Improvement Jobs We Most Need Help With
How about those other troubling little tasks that need doing around the home? Some families go for years treading on squeaky floorboards, although there are plenty of solutions for silencing them. These range from filling the gaps between supports and boards to lubricating the joints. However, the smaller repair job we need the most help with is How To Repair Doors, with 34,380,000 views across the top ten videos.
Doors and floors are also a concern for those making smaller home improvements, but the walls are the most troubling feature. Some 24,301,000 people have watched the top ten videos on How to Replace Wall Fixing, and 18,400,000 have watched How To Paint Walls.
Wall fixings include bolts, boards and anchors for strengthening the grip to a wall when you want to hang something heavy — be it a painting or a bike frame. This means that you’re worried about two things at once: damaging the wall during installation or the whole thing falling down if you’ve not done a proper job. However, with care and forethought, it needn’t be a difficult task to do well.
A Million Hammers Hammering
Close your eyes, and you can imagine millions of homeowners around the world raising their hammers in unison on a Saturday morning: you’re far from alone! But best open those eyes again to be safe — and to watch a video tutorial or chat online with an expert so you can complete your job with the care and pride your home deserves.
Open the Frontdoor
With the Frontdoor app, a better way to home repair is here. You can video chat with plumbing, electrical, appliance, HVAC and handyperson Experts in real-time for all your home repair needs. They’ll give you step-by-step guidance to complete the repair or help you find the right local Pro when in-home help is needed. Download the Frontdoor app today to start taking control of your home repair to-do list. Your first video chat is free!
Methodology
We started our research by building a seed list of over 100 of the most suggested DIY home improvement and repair jobs (interior and exterior) in relevant publications.
We used the number of views for “how to” videos on YouTube for a certain task to be a proxy for how much help homeowners need to carry out that task. To make a fair comparison, we recorded the combined total of views for the top ten videos that YouTube showed when searching for the task as a search term in the “video” tab.
This then allowed us to rank the tasks we most need help with overall and by area of the house.
This data is correct as of February 2024.
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