DIY costs people £169m to fix

Figures from Santander Insurance has also revealed that one in six Brits would use the Easter bank holiday weekend to undertake some form of home improvement and three quarter of these would do so without any form of expert help.

Proving that DIY is far from a man’s task, 3.9m of those carrying out the work by themselves over the bank holiday will be female.

Colin Greenhill, director of Santander Insurance, said: “The Easter bank holiday weekend is a golden opportunity to get stuck in to some long-overdue tasks around the home.

“It’s good to see that so many people are planning to use their time off so productively, but we also know from past experience that there is a tendency among DIY enthusiasts to underestimate the difficulty or length of their home improvement projects.

“Our research highlights that a significant proportion of DIY jobs go wrong; during one of the Bank Holiday weekends last year we even saw a 44% increase in accidental damage claims.

“Our advice to anyone attempting home improvements over this weekend is to be realistic about whether they have the skills and the time to undertake such a task, to make sure that they have insurance that covers them if things don’t go to plan and to seek help from a tradesman where necessary.”

Over the Easter bank holiday, of those who are planning to do DIY/home improvement the most popular tasks will include gardening, painting and decorating, and doing up the bathroom.

A significant number of people will attempt more advanced DIY including lighting and electrics, laying carpeting/tiles, plumbing, and wall tiling.