Looking to save on home repairs? Your labor is free; 2 Cleveland-area nonprofits offer great resources to hel – cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio When youre broke, you learn how to fix things. When you have money, you pay a pro.

Thats the wisdom my dad shared with me once, probably when my first car was leaking coolant and overheating. And I stubbornly thought changing the cars thermostat would fix a much larger problem.

Sometimes the pro is worth it. Other times, it pays to be resourceful. With rising prices from groceries to energy bills, many of us are more worried about money.

Buying my first home recently has given me plenty of things to fix but feeling broke didnt make unclogging my sink any easier. But two local nonprofits I didnt previously know about could have made it much easier.

These two organizations, Home Repair Resource Center in Cleveland Heights and LakewoodAlive, offer a variety of classes to teach people how to make common fixes around the home. You dont have to live in these cities to attend.

Theres no question that if you can paint and scrape your own home, youre going to save thousands of dollars, said David Brock, education and outreach coordinator at the Home Repair Source Center.

Saving You Money is cleveland.coms and The Plain Dealers new column about saving money. If youre feeling the pinch of record inflation, youre not alone. The goal of Saving You Money will be helping readers save and highlighting resources that can help, maybe with some bargain bin shopping in between.

We want to know how we can help you save money. Send your questions and comments to smcdonnell@cleveland.com.

Both LakewoodAlive and the Home Repair Resource Center work toward similar goals. Teach people about their homes. Show them how to make fixes and perform maintenance. And create educated consumers so that they know how to shop for contractors when need be.

There are plenty of helpful videos and articles online, and even friendly workers at local hardware stores. But its hard to beat local people ready to help or provide hands-on learning at a small fee.

The savings in some cases can be substantial.

Take tuck-pointing, which is fixing the mortar joints between bricks. If you spend four hours fixing your homes front steps or brick faade, thats potentially $100-an-hour in savings, Brock said.

A plumber usually charges $100 to $150 just to show up for a clog, which you may be able to handle yourself.

A leaky faucet might be fixed with a $20 part, rather than buying a whole new faucet.

Learning how to caulk, sealing cracks around windows and doors, can save 15% on energy bills, Brock said. And regular maintenance can prevent costly projects down the road.

Little projects add up. And you can start small.

Matt Clark, the Tool Box coordinator at LakewoodAlive, said outdoor projects are a good confidence builder. Doing some landscaping or building a stone patio can get you started before you paint accent walls or hang a big TV.

It really depends on your comfort level, but Clark and Brock recommended a few projects to start.

Basic plumbing is good to learn. Everyone gets a clog at some point. So is drywall patching and painting, and maintenance to keep water out of the basement.

Even minor electrical work, like replacing an outlet or a light fixture, can be done with the right precautions. Clark even fixed a refrigerator, what would have been a $200 repair, with a vacuum and a YouTube video.

Both Clark and Brock stress safety. If the project can hurt you, you need to rent heavy equipment, or if youre just in over your head, you should start smaller.

Its better to start with projects where you can stand or lay down, rather than going on a ladder.

You can build that comfort over time. I feel comfortable on the roof, but if I see wires I freak out. For others its the reverse problem.

A display at the Home Repair Resource Center in Cleveland Heights is used to teach homeowners about circuits and electrical work.Sean McDonnell, Cleveland.com

Part of what makes hands-on classes great, Brock said, is people can fail in class rather than at home.

Both the Home Repair Resource Center and LakewoodAlive have services open to anyone, but residents can get discounts and have access to the tool libraries.

Hands-on classes at the Home Repair Resource Center cover a variety of topics like installing locks on a door, wiring light fixtures, looking for studs and tiling walls.

A single repair class is $25 while an advanced repair workshop is $40. A six-part womens how-to series is $150. Residents from partner cities (Cleveland Heights, Euclid and Shaker Heights) are eligible for discounts, and added discounts of 50% to 100% are available to low-income residents.

The Home Repair Resource Centers extensive tool library is temporarily closed until a new person is hired to run it. When open, its only for residents. You can reach the Center at 216-381-6100 or find it at hrrc-ch.org.

LakewoodAlive is holding Knowing Your Home series that runs through October.Courtesy of LakewoodAlive

LakewoodAlive has a Knowing Your Home educational series running through October that is in-person, and held at different locations depending on the class. These are free and open to the public, including non-Lakewood residents. Readers can find classes at lakewoodalive.org/knowing-your-home-educational-series.

The Lakewood Tool Box is available for just city residents, tenants and landlords. Residents can get a membership for $30 while landlords pay $75. Theres a refundable deposit to borrow tools.

You can reach LakewoodAlive at 216-521-0655 or visit lakewoodalive.org.

While I think these nonprofits are a best bet, there are other resources to turn to.

Lowes and Home Depot both have workshops livestreamed on their websites. They offer in-person workshops that vary by store.

The internet is obviously full of information. Brock recommends starting with Google, rather than YouTube, because youll get a broader set of results.

A YouTube channel I often turn too is I Like To Make Stuff. The host builds a wide-range of things but has lots of home-specific videos in his archive. Obviously, PBS This Old House is a classic that you can turn to.

The most frustrating thing for me, whether its fixing my home or any other skill, is Im bad at most things the first time I do them.

Clark says Im not alone. He learned the hard way on his first house, too. To get it right, you just have to keep doing it, he said.

And nothing is perfect. Youll notice that most walls arent square, straight, or flat. And wherever you see molding, like around windows and doors or on the floor, it covers up gaps you dont want to see.

An important step Clark recommends that I shouldnt have skipped: Do your research first.

After painting but before writing this, I took an online paint seminar from Home Depot. While the hosts had too many bad jokes, they also pointed out several things I wish I had done.

Same goes for unclogging my sink. I tried snaking it and throwing every chemical or homemade concoction I could think of down the drain. I learned from Brock and Clark later that some of those chemicals could eat away my drainpipe.

People can almost always redo something that didnt turn out well. Clark, who worked in construction himself, said the pros make mistakes too. And they also look things up online from time-to-time.

It can seem daunting, but youll get better at doing-it-yourself overtime. And youll save in the process.

Consider these online retailers for your DIY needs:

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Looking to save on home repairs? Your labor is free; 2 Cleveland-area nonprofits offer great resources to hel - cleveland.com