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Survey: Boomers Are Masters of DIY Home Projects

Millennials more likely to end up in emergency room

by Randy Lilleston, AARP, May 21, 2018

A man is laying on a bathroom floor, looking up at a sink and holding a tool around a pipe

Getty Images

The "can do" approach by older Americans avoids injuries while getting the job done right.

When it comes to DIY home projects, almost anyone who has lifted a hammer knows that tools might teach you a few lessons the hard way. They also know that practice makes everything easier.

That bit of common sense is backed up by a recent survey of more than 1,200 consumers conducted by consumer finance company SoFi, which asked about the DIY home projects of millennials and boomers. Even in the age of highly detailed online instructions and YouTube videos, the survey indicates that boomers have a big advantage over millennials when it comes to getting through those projects relatively unscathed.

Among the survey's highlights (or lowlights, if you're a millennial):

  • Millennials were 119 percent more likely than boomers to have been injured by power tools in a DIY home-improvement project.
  • Millennials were 23 percent more likely than boomers to have needed emergency room treatment because of a home-improvement injury.
  • Millennials were 46 percent more likely than boomers to have required stitches due to a home-improvement injury.
  • Boomers were 22 percent more likely than millennials to actually finish their project.

It wasn’t all bad for millennials, though. They were 65 percent more likely than boomers to finish a project ahead of schedule (even if they were less likely to finish it at all). And when they did succeed, millennials also were more likely to do a little digital bragging. They were 145 percent more likely than boomers to post photos of a finished project on social media, the survey found. They also were 206 percent more likely than boomers to post those photos “just to show off.”

Finally, millennials seemed to be taking away a lesson from home-improvement failures, or even the pain of their successes: They were a whopping 448 percent more likely than boomers to hire a professional for their next home-improvement project, the survey stated.