The Big Read: DIY culture slowly but surely gaining ground as Singaporeans go green, tighten purse strings

SINGAPORE — A pinhole leak in a pipe leading to her bathroom sent Ms Sabine Chen into a state of panic one night in April.
Apart from being clueless about plumbing, she also did not have any tools for quick fixes, such as sealing tape or a clamp.
“It was a lost cause,” the 25-year-old public relations executive admitted. “We tried to fix the situation by using sheets of flexible plastic and zip ties to contain the leak, but it didn’t work.
“We even taped a sanitary pad around the area to try and absorb as much water as possible.”
When her father called a handyman the next day, it took the latter less than half an hour to fix the leak — caused by a rusty pipe — for S$80.
The incident served as a wake-up call for Ms Chen on the need to have some basic do-it-yourself (DIY) skills, and she is now trying to find time to take up courses on basic home repairs.
Her DIY journey in fact has already started, with Ms Chen learning how to sew, patching up clothes that she might have otherwise thrown away.
As for Mr Dylan Chan, a YouTube video and a read of his air-conditioner’s manual gave him the confidence to take apart his AC unit and clean it in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the process was not as easy as it had seemed when the maintenance workers did it. Mr Chan struggled to close the air-conditioner’s lid after painstakingly reassembling the cleaned parts.
“I did worry for a second, thinking that I broke my air- conditioner. But luckily, I managed to force it shut,” said the 27-year-old job seeker, adding that the cooling system still worked well after that.
With four years of practice under his belt, Mr Chan now does all the routine cleaning for the AC units in his home, saving his family hundreds of dollars in maintenance bills.
“But the knowledge I have is really basic as I only know how to clean it. I will still need to ask for a repairman if the air-conditioner fails,” he said.
While Mr Chan is motivated to DIY by the cost factor, others are driven by the desire to live more sustainably, such as 45-year-old Issac Lim, a sociologist and founder of human insights company Anthro Insights.
“When I was younger, if the fan or lights were broken, people would try to fix it. We taped things up, bought our own screws and made things work,” Mr Lim recalled.
Such self-repairs led him to appreciate that “resources don’t come by easily”.
He added that it is a waste to throw things out, and that he involves his kids in his DIY activities to instill that same mindset in them.
His three children, who are under 12, may not be able to do heavy drilling or saw wood, but they get involved by painting lacquer onto furniture and sometimes helping to screw things together.
“Involving them may make a DIY project a longer process, but it’s part of building memories with them and showing them the fun in DIY,” Mr Lim said, adding it also teaches them the importance of sustainability.
The trio are part of a growing number of Singaporeans dabbling in DIY pursuits to save money amid concerns about the rising cost of living and growing environmental awareness, several hardware stores and community group leaders told TODAY.
The DIY activities include furnishing their home and repairing household goods.
“We provide suggestions on what they can do if something breaks in their home if they ask,” said Ms Sandra Lee, 62, who runs David Hardware and Electrical in Marsiling with her husband, 63-year-old David Neo.
“Sometimes they just don’t know what works better, or where to even begin. And that’s where we can try to give some advice,” she said.
A rising number of social media influencers and users who have been documenting their journey in renovating their homes all by themselves — garnering millions of views and thousands of followers along the way — have also given the DIY movement here a boost in recent years.
“We always get questions about how we do things, how much we spent, what the colour code for our paints are,” said Mr Izwan Firdaus, 38, who runs social media account The UnderWanRoof with his wife Nadirah Baharin, 32.
Documenting their DIY renovation journey on TikTok, the couple have garnered over 53,100 followers. Their most popular video, which shows the couple refurbishing an old cabinet using vinyl stickers, has 5.2 million views.
TODAY looks at Singapore’s DIY culture, long viewed as a niche area due to its people’s busy lifestyles and availability of professional help.
While slowly but surely on the rise, the DIY culture here still pales in comparison to that in countries like Australia, the United States or New Zealand.
Back in 2019, the lack of interest in DIY here was seen as contributing to the demise of household name Home-Fix, a hardware chain.
Retail experts told TODAY then that the consumer base in Singapore interested in DIY home improvement and repairs was too small. 
Months prior to its closure, Home-Fix founder Low Cheong Kee told The Business Times that while older generations are “competent with tools and woodworking”, younger persons do not have these skills and would rather pay for a service.
After all, finding a handyman is a phone call or message away, DIY enthusiasts and hardware stores told TODAY.
Such convenience and the time saved from fiddling with a broken device or building a new one also deter many from trying to take on DIY work.
Hardware store owners and employees also told TODAY that they carry some household items, such as fans and brooms, because it can be cheaper for consumers to buy new ones than to repair their old items.
Even if one is keen to breathe new life into old appliances, there are several barriers to repairing them on one’s own, noted Mr Zames Chew, 25.
Beyond needing time to make repairs, finding the parts can be a hassle.
“For one, it’s quite hard to get parts. Sometimes people will go to a manufacturer to try and get their items repaired but get told it’s an outdated model and the part needed is no longer available,” said the founder of Repairs.sg.
Mr Chew started his company with his younger brother eight years ago. Having loved to tinker with items out of curiosity as a child, the satisfaction of repairing and building something on his own inspired him to become a handyman.
“Being on the job, you learn from other uncles (handymen) on where to find places that scrap electronics for working parts so you can repair your clients’ items,” said Mr Chew. “But most people don’t know or don’t go to these places because they are often in industrial complexes which are harder to get to.”
Mr Danny Lim, 55, one of three partners of DIY community space EDR2, added that the lack of space is another reason why many Singaporeans are not into DIY.
“We don’t have garage space to house equipment (for DIY work). Most people have a drill and that’s about it,” he said.
“But now there’s several makerspaces around and we’re (EDR2) building a community workspace so people can get the equipment and also learn how to DIY.”
The community workspace, located in Pasir Ris, will allow people to visit to build their own items they might have otherwise been unable to because they don’t have the right tools. This includes a 3D printer, among other things.
EDR2 also organises events and workshops to encourage people to DIY items, such as portable charges.
A very hands-on person since young, 40-year-old Shaun Chong loves taking on random DIY projects. They include creating and programming lights that “chase you” as you walk up stairs and his own hydroponics system.
His biggest DIY project is a concrete wood-fired pizza oven, said the chief technology officer of logistics company Ninja Van, which he built on the company’s former premises.
Weighing over 500kg, the oven took him and a friend two months of trial and error, and nearly S$2,000 in materials.
“The cement for the oven had to be heat resistant as temperatures can rise to 1,00, 2,000 degrees. But since nobody here builds kilns or such ovens, we had to find a replacement material to add to the cement to make sure we could fire it up,” he said.
Although he had to dispose of the oven — it was too heavy to transport to Ninjavan’s new office — he said the hundreds of pizzas he made in it were worth the hassle.
As for The UnderWanRoof’s Mr Izwan and Ms Nadirah, YouTube tutorials were their best friends as they turned their five-room flat into a home.
“It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” said Mr Izwan of their home which they bought in 2021.
“When learning how to cut the vinyl flooring to fit our home, accidents definitely occurred. And when we realised that we had made a mistake and needed to redo the DIY — that’s where the tears came in.”
But with a little bit of creativity and a lot of perseverance, the couple received many compliments from family, friends and internet strangers for their DIY efforts.
“We posted our renovation journey to record this for memory’s sake,” said Ms Nadirah. “But people are so interested to do the same, and they comment asking how we did things and for tips.”
While there is some renovation work that they are not able to take on — such as electrical and plumbing work that requires a licence and can be dangerous without the right expertise — the couple are continuing their DIY journey.
“I’m hoping to change the tiles in our bathroom, and I’m still trying to figure out if I can simply overlay with the new tiles or if I need to hack the current tiles out,” said Mr Izwan.
“There’s a greater sense of satisfaction knowing that we put in the effort and this is the home we built on our own.”
For Mr Izwan and his wife, doing their own renovations helped to ensure that the quality was up to their standards.
While their DIY process had its fair share of mishaps and redoes, it also meant that they knew how everything would play out step by step.
However, the couple acknowledged that cost was the main reason behind their decision to go DIY for their flat.
“When we asked a few interior design companies, we were quoted S$25,000 to S$45,000 for some basic furnishings. For our ideal home, it would have easily been S$70,000,” said Ms Nadirah.
The quoted figures were a far cry from the roughly S$5,000 they had spent on their home thus far.
Hardware stores told TODAY that reducing costs is a major factor behind the slowly growing DIY culture here.
“Nowadays it’s so expensive to hire someone to do up something in your home because labour cost is expensive,” said Mr Boon, an employee at Yong Heng Hardware Engineering in Marsiling.
“We get a lot of young couples in their 30s looking to do some simple work in their new homes when they move to their BTO (build-to-order) flat. Because they need to save the money for the house,” added the 50-year-old who did not want to give his full name.
Ms Lee of David Hardware and Electrical added that while DIY tools sold online might be cheaper, some customers do not mind paying a bit more at a hardware store since they can examine the items before buying them.
“Even then, it’s cheaper to do it themselves because they can save on the installation cost (of a new product) and maybe use the savings for other things,” Ms Lee said.
Growing concerns about wastage and sustainability are also pulling people into the DIY space, said some enthusiasts.
Mr Issac Lim, the sociologist, said: “It’s really a waste of resources, from an environmental point of view, to chuck something out just because a small part is broken.
“I think fixing it is less wasteful, and at least something can last longer. It’s both cheaper and environmentally friendly.”
A spokesperson from SG Climate Rally, which organised a rally that saw over 1,400 attendees last September, noted that daily domestic waste generated per capita in Singapore was 0.88kg in 2023.
While the figure had gone down from 1.08kg in 2013, DIY work can reduce the amount of waste generated daily further.
Fixing broken items can also reduce the demand for new consumer products, “saving the emissions involved in making such products”, said the spokesperson.
However, the climate activist group noted that there can be some negative impacts of DIY culture.
“If untrained people try to DIY projects that are beyond their capabilities, they might waste the repair materials and end up having to throw away the items anyway, increasing consumption as a result,” said the spokesperson.
“Another possible negative impact is that electrical devices are getting more energy-efficient. Therefore, using old products that are not so energy-efficient for long periods may end up consuming more electricity and generating more emissions than switching to a newer, more energy-efficient device.”
SG Climate Rally suggested conducting research on how long a product is energy efficient. Through that, a “suggested period” to use older devices can be implemented.
The group’s spokesperson also said that a right of repair legislation should be “carefully crafted” to allow people to repair their products without breaking the warranty.
Right of repair is a growing worldwide call for companies to produce parts that allow people to repair their devices or appliances without needing to replace them entirely.
This movement is gaining momentum alongside increasing criticism of planned obsolescence, where companies are accused of contributing to electronic waste by making certain electronic devices unrepairable.
“However, legislation should be carefully crafted to ensure the companies that produce these products price the spare parts needed to repair the products fairly, and also that they do not lower the price of the original products unfairly to incentivise buying newer products over repairing, defeating the purpose of such legislation,” said the spokesperson.
Singapore enacted the Lemon Law in 2012, which gives consumers “the right to request repair, replacement, reduction in price or rescission of contract for goods that do not conform to the contract” according to Consumers Association of Singapore’s (CASE) website.
However, consumers who try to repair the item themselves or had someone else try to repair it, and in the process damaged it, are not entitled to use the Lemon Law.
SG Climate Rally’s spokesperson also called for ensuring sufficient training classes are available to equip people with the skills to DIY so there is less waste.
This, they suggested, could be done by enhancing programmes in schools to inculcate DIY culture in Singaporeans from young.
Mr Danny Lim of EDR2 said that the group’s initiative was born from the Singapore Home DIY Facebook group, which has over 100,000 members. In it, people can share about their DIY struggles and also give tips.
The EDR2 team is still building the community workshop in Pasir Ris — such as making benches for the workspace — but Mr Danny Lim hopes that having access to equipment that can be too bulky in a typical HDB flat can help grow the interest in DIY among Singaporeans.
EDR2, which started in May, has also organised several events to encourage people to explore the DIY space, such as a portable charger building class.
“The motivation is just that we have this hobby that we love a lot and want more people to get to know and learn about doing things themselves,” said Mr Danny Lim.
He added: “A lot of the time people just don’t know where to start. But there’s groups like us out there, and online resources. They just need someone to guide and teach them, and that’s what we hope to do.”