Working on your own renovation is attractive: you save labour hours, you keep a grip on the work and it is satisfying. Even so, not every job is suitable to do yourself. Some work you are legally not allowed to carry out yourself, other work you may do but is dangerous or, if you make a mistake, causes damage that your insurer will not cover, and yet other work is technically so decisive for the end result that a mistake only becomes visible years later. This article helps you draw the line: what can you safely do yourself, where does the law require a certified company, what does your own work mean for your insurance and the sale of your home, and how do you make good agreements with a contractor about who does what.
What you can easily do yourself
A large part of a renovation consists of work that mainly requires time and care, and little specialist knowledge. That is the area where doing it yourself pays off.
- Demolition of non-load-bearing parts: kitchen cabinets, ceiling panels, old floor covering, light partition walls of plasterboard or system walls, and removing tiles or sanitary ware, provided you first have the water and electricity shut off and know for certain that it is a non-load-bearing wall.
- Stripping wallpaper, preparing and painting indoors: sanding, filling, priming and finishing walls and ceilings. The result depends on the preparation, and that is mostly a matter of patience.
- Groundwork and garden: digging trenches for a foundation or pipes as instructed by the contractor, removing soil, taking up paving. Have it checked beforehand where cables and pipes run; a dig notification (graafmelding) to the Kadaster (Land Registry) is mandatory for mechanical digging and sensible for digging by hand.
- Clearing up and removing waste: separating rubble, filling a skip, leaving the work area swept clean every day. That saves the contractor hours and keeps the work safe.
- Laminate, click PVC and light finishing work: floating floors, skirting boards, a wall of flat-pack cabinets, door fittings and hanging things up.
A sober footnote on painting and plastering: if you have that work done by a painter or plasterer on a home more than two years old, the reduced VAT rate of 9% applies to both labour and materials, whereas you pay 21% on paint you buy yourself. The difference is rarely decisive, but take it into account; more on this in 9% or 21% VAT when renovating.
Where the law requires a tradesperson
For a number of jobs the choice is not yours. The law requires them to be carried out by a certified or expert company, or sets such requirements that doing it yourself is practically impossible.
Gas. Since 1 April 2023, the installation, repair and maintenance of gas-fired appliances, such as a central heating boiler, gas water heater or gas fire, and of the associated air supply and flue gas outlet, may only be carried out by a company certified for that purpose. This is laid down in article 6.45 of the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl, the Dutch Building Decree), which also reserves commissioning and releasing the appliance for use after that work to a certificate holder. Important: the first paragraph of that article is aimed not only at whoever carries out the work, but also at whoever has the work carried out. An owner who replaces a boiler themselves or hires a non-certified odd-job worker is therefore breaking the rule themselves. The background is carbon monoxide: an incorrectly fitted flue gas outlet is life-threatening and invisible. Work on the gas pipe itself is not covered by this certification requirement, but it is not work for a layperson either; leave it to a heating engineer or a recognised installer.
Asbestos. In homes built before 1994, asbestos may be present in corrugated sheets, window sills, vinyl flooring, stove rope and gaskets. Removing it is in principle work for a certified remediation contractor, after an inventory. For private individuals there is a limited exception (Bbl, article 7.10): you may yourself remove screwed, bonded asbestos sheets (not roof slates), asbestos-containing floor tiles and non-glued floor covering from your own home or outbuilding, up to a total of 35 square metres, in one piece and without breaking or sawing, and only after a demolition notification (sloopmelding) to the municipality via the Omgevingsloket (the national permit portal). Weathered or damaged material, nailed or glued sheets and everything above that limit are excluded, and you may not hire a company to do it. How to recognise asbestos and what the steps are is explained in Recognising asbestos when renovating: rules and steps.
Load-bearing structures. Altering a load-bearing wall, an opening, a joist floor or a foundation almost always requires a permit and a structural calculation. "Quickly" removing a wall yourself can cause cracks, subsidence and in the worst case collapse, and also puts pressure on your buildings insurance and a later sale. Read Removing a load-bearing wall: rules, risks and step-by-step plan before you touch so much as a single brick.
Electrics behind the meter cupboard. Unlike gas, the law has no certification requirement for electrics in homes, but the installation must comply with NEN 1010 (the Dutch standard for electrical installations), and everything up to and including the main fuse and the meter belongs to the grid operator and is off-limits to you. Extending or replacing a consumer unit is work for an electrician; connecting a light or moving a socket is something a handy DIYer can do, provided it is de-energised and done according to the standard. What is and is not sensible is explained in May I install electrics myself: consumer unit, NEN 1010 and inspection.
Allowed, but better not
In addition, there is work that you are legally allowed to do yourself, but where the consequences of a mistake are so great or become visible so late that a tradesperson is the wiser choice.
- Waterproofing the bathroom. The sealing tape, the waterproof layer under the tiling, the sloped floor and the pipe penetrations determine whether the bathroom will still be dry in ten years' time. A leak behind the tiles only comes to light once the floor underneath is already affected and the neighbours complain. Leave this, and the tiling that goes with it, to an experienced tiler or bathroom specialist; tiling a hallway or kitchen yourself is another story.
- Roofing. Working at height is the biggest source of serious accidents during DIY jobs. Companies are subject to strict health and safety requirements for edge protection and fall protection; those rules do not apply to you as a private individual, but gravity does. Roof covering, lead and zinc work and roof windows are moreover work in which a small mistake causes a leak that you only discover in the first downpour. Leave it to a roofer.
- Water and drain pipes within the structure and frames in the external facade. A leaking coupling in a closed-up wall or a window frame without proper water barriers and airtight sealing causes damp and draughts that only become visible later and are costly to repair.
Insurance, liability and selling
Your own work has consequences that reach further than the job itself. Many buildings and home contents insurance policies do not cover damage caused directly by your own DIY work; damage that occurs indirectly, such as a toolbox falling down the stairs onto a new floor, is often covered, and all-risk cover goes further than standard cover. In the case of damage caused by an installation that does not meet the standard, an insurer can limit or refuse payment. The conditions vary greatly per insurer; before the renovation, check how your policy deals with work you carry out yourself and whether the insurer wants to be informed of the renovation. Which insurance policies are relevant during construction is explained in Renovating and insurance: buildings, CAR and liability.
You are liable for damage to others, such as a leak into the neighbours' home or injury to a friend who is helping; a personal liability insurance policy generally covers this, but read the exclusions here too. And when selling the home, you must inform a buyer of what you know, including your own work that was not carried out according to the rules. A building survey quickly reveals a self-installed installation or a boxed-in opening without a calculation; that costs negotiating room or leads to an obligation to repair. So keep photos, drawings and receipts of everything you do yourself, and have critical work inspected afterwards.
Combining your own work with a contractor: how to make agreements
Most renovations are a mix: you do the demolition and the painting, the contractor the rest. That only works if the division is put on paper in advance. Without agreements, exactly the two classic conflicts arise: the contractor who has to wait because your demolition work is not finished, and the contractor who, when there is a defect, points to your work as the cause.
- Record per component who does what, in the quote or an annex, with a clear boundary. Not "demolition by client", but "client removes kitchen, ceiling panels and floor covering up to and including the removal of the rubble; contractor removes the non-load-bearing wall between kitchen and living room".
- Link your work to the schedule with a date by which it must be finished, and agree what happens if you do not meet that date: does the contractor wait, or may they finish the work themselves at a rate agreed in advance? That prevents surprises that later appear on the invoice as extra work.
- Arrange liability. The law places the consequences of defects in materials or work that you supply yourself with you (article 7:760 of the Dutch Civil Code), unless the contractor should have warned you about them. So agree that the contractor checks your preliminary work and reports any objections in writing before building on it. Then it is clear later on whose fault it was.
- Ask how your own work affects the guarantee. Many terms and conditions exclude defects related to work by third parties or by the client. That is reasonable, as long as it only applies to defects that were actually caused by your work.
- Hand over your part as a contractor would: go through it together, record that the preliminary work has been approved and take photos. That is your evidence if a dispute arises later.
- Respect the building site. Do not work in the same place at the same time without consultation, do not touch the contractor's work and stick to their safety arrangements; an accident on your building site is also your problem.
On VerbouwPro, agreements with the contractor are made via messages on the platform, so that the division of tasks, the schedule and the approvals of preliminary work are automatically recorded in writing. That way you keep the advantages of doing it yourself, without putting pressure on the renovation or on your relationship with your tradesperson.