Heh.. yeah, I hate plumbing with a passion, mainly because I get roped into doing it so much. The way we were raised is that you do everything you possibly can yourself and to call a plumber or handyman is a "waste of money" unless it is absolutely necessary. I've ended up doing about everything at one point or another.
I used to have that kind of mentality until I opted to replace/repair a section of wall due to termite damage. What should have been a 2-6 hour repair ballooned out into a three (or was it four) day job (and I still have to replace the metal trim) that resulted in a busted toilet, a shattered candle holder, a pierced water pipe with a small investment in a handful of concrete chisels, copper preservative, a call to an old school plumber (because the new school plumbers refuse to use a blow torch to repair plumbing

) and about oh IIRC.... $800 less in my bank account? Over $1000 if I count the money for the bug guy that started this whole thing. I felt like I was right in the middle of a bad episode of Home Improvement.
And yes, I do have my own blow torch and related tools for plumbing work but at the point I pierced a supply line I decided to do something my dad taught me. If you have a severe string of bad luck, quit for the day and start fresh the next. I opted to quit before I broke out the fire.
Now I do a cost/benefit analyses to decide if the amount of work, time and money I would invest in a DIY job outweighs what it would cost to call in the handyman or whatever. Even if I have the tools and know how, sometimes the "technician" has access to the parts at a much cheaper price than what I could pay for and paying the person + cost of parts is still cheaper than if I tried to buy the parts myself. Case in point, I had a fan fail in my Toyota and Toyota wanted over $150 (MSRP) for the part (at the time no one else carried the part

). I talked to a mechanic and for a six pack of beer, $80 (with his business license) for the Toyota replacement, and a hour or two of work, I got a free lesson and my truck repaired. If I did the repair myself, it would have taken at least several hours of research just to figure out the fan was the problem plus however much time to find out where the damn fan was located plus the time it would have taken to remove and install the part
and I would be out $150 bucks.
DIY is no problem, but I'll happily pay for the lesson if it's cheaper.
On a side note: I'll have to double check but I've been told there's something on the books about working on anything connected to the gas lines in California. At least that is what was claimed about why it was a PITA to buy a new electric igniter for my gas furnace. No one would sell one to me without a business license.

That was one DIY I could have easily done if I had the parts.
