A drippy faucet is one thing. But owner of Precision Plumbing, Dave Biegel, says plumbing your own house or fixing a water heater can be dangerous. "You can damage equipment, you can blow up your house if you're working on your furnace, water heater, or fire place or stuff like that." It takes a lot of work and time to become a master plumber.

Biegel owns a plumbing company and has been in the business for 30 years; he says he's still studying new codes and learning new procedures. "To become a journeyman plumber, it takes 5 years, you have to enroll in an apprenticeship program and then you have to be a journeyman for 4 years before you can take your master plumbers license." And getting your plumbing wrong can, well, stink. "I've seen people put plumbing in their houses and they don't put "p" traps on they're fixtures and they get sewer gas smells in they're houses."

Biegel says go ahead and fix your drippy faucet or toilet, they're pretty simple if you find the right parts at the hardware store. But if you're in an older house, simple projects get more delicate. "A lot of times you'll get into really old houses with lead drain lines, or cast iron drain lines. If you go in and touch them, they'll fall apart because they're so old."

Biegel says in the long run if you take care of your plumbing by not over using the garbage disposal and cleaning out the water heater every 2 years or so, you won't have to call in the professionals quite as much.