DIY is a substantial part of U.S. home improvement, but professional work still accounts for most spending. The 2023 American Housing Survey counted 86.9 million U.S. homeowners, and homeowners reported 140 million improvement projects during 2021–2023. Of those projects, 50 million were completed by homeowners themselves.
Contents
- DIY participation and project volume
- DIY spending and market share
- What projects people undertake
- Typical improvement costs
- DIY patterns by homeowner age
- DIY budgets by household income
- Time spent on household work
DIY participation and project volume
The Census Bureau’s 2023 Home Improvements Infographic reports that 51.6 million U.S. homeowners made at least one home improvement during 2021–2023. That group represented 59% of the 2023 homeowner population. The period covers two years of activity leading into the 2023 survey reference point, so these figures describe participation across 2021–2023 rather than a single-year rate.
The American Housing Survey recorded 140 million home-improvement projects during 2021–2023. Homeowners completed 50 million of them themselves, meaning DIYers completed 36% of recorded projects. Professionals completed the remaining 64%. This project count is not the same as a count of households: one homeowner could undertake multiple projects during the period.
Energy efficiency was one identifiable part of that activity. Among homeowners who made improvements, 14.7 million completed an energy-efficiency improvement during 2021–2023. These projects were reported by 28% of improving homeowners. The statistic describes the share of homeowners who already reported an improvement, not the share of all homeowners.
DIY spending and market share
Homeowners spent $827 billion on improvements during 2021–2023, according to Improving America’s Housing 2025 from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Total homeowner improvement spending rose 22% from 2021 to 2023, or 9% after inflation.
DIY’s share of that spending was much smaller than its share of project volume. DIY improvement outlays totaled $64 billion in 2023 and represented 15.9% of aggregate improvement expenditures, a historic low in the cited series. DIY outlays fell 2% between 2021 and 2023, equivalent to a 13% real decline.
Professional installations accounted for 84.1% of aggregate owner-occupied-home improvement spending in 2023. Professional home-improvement expenditures totaled $340 billion that year. The different totals and percentages reflect the source’s separate measures of aggregate improvement expenditures and professional installations, so they should not be combined into a new estimate.
The typical DIY project cost $2,600 in 2023, compared with $7,800 for the typical professional project. That comparison describes typical project costs, not a direct estimate of average cost across every project. It does show why DIY can represent a large share of activity while representing a smaller share of total dollars.
Harvard’s 2025 report also separates DIY installation spending by project purpose:
| DIY installation purpose | Share of DIY installation spending, 2023 |
|---|---|
| Replacement projects | 40% |
| Discretionary projects | 36% |
| Outside-property projects | 19% |
| Disaster repairs | 5% |
For comparison, professional improvement spending allocated 50% to replacements, 29% to discretionary projects, 15% to outside-property projects, and 6% to disaster repairs in 2023. These are spending shares, not shares of project counts.
What projects people undertake
The 2023 Home Improvements Infographic identifies several common improvement categories during 2021–2023. Water-heater, dishwasher, or garbage-disposal work was the most common listed type, reported for 32% of improving units. HVAC work was reported for 25% of units that made improvements. Flooring, paneling, or ceiling-tile work was reported for 21%.
These percentages describe improving units and categories, not exclusive choices. A household could report more than one type of work, and the figures do not say how much of each category was DIY. They are still useful for showing where home-improvement activity concentrates: essential equipment, climate systems, and interior surfaces all appear prominently.
The category mix also helps distinguish project frequency from project cost. Water-heater, dishwasher, or garbage-disposal work was reported more often than several larger remodeling categories, but a common category is not necessarily the category with the largest total spending.
Typical improvement costs
Median expenditures varied considerably by improvement type in 2021–2023. The Census Bureau’s 2023 Home Improvements Infographic reports the following medians:
| Improvement type | Median expenditure |
|---|---|
| Security-system improvement | $400 |
| Plumbing-fixture improvement | $500 |
| Water heater, dishwasher, or garbage disposal | $800 |
| Electrical wiring or fuse box | $1,000 |
| Doors and windows | $2,800 |
| Flooring, paneling, or ceiling tile | $3,000 |
| Porch, deck, patio, or terrace | $4,800 |
| Bathroom remodel | $5,000 |
| HVAC improvement | $5,500 |
| Kitchen remodel | $8,000 |
| Roofing | $10,000 |
These are median improvement expenditures for the named categories, not DIY-only prices. They include the reported improvement expenditure measure and should not be treated as a current quote for materials or labor. For a DIY planner, the figures are best used to compare the relative scale of categories: a security-system improvement had a much lower median expenditure than roofing, while kitchen remodeling sat between those two extremes at $8,000.
DIY patterns by homeowner age
Homeowner age is associated with different housing situations and spending patterns. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reports that the number of U.S. homeowner households headed by someone age 65 or older increased 36%, to 7.7 million, between 2013 and 2023. These households made up 34% of homeowner households in 2023, up from 29% in 2013.
About 28% of owners age 65 or older undertook at least one improvement project in 2023. Their average improvement spending rose from $2,800 in 2013 to $3,800 in 2023 in real terms. Older owners had lived in their homes for an average of 26 years in 2023, compared with 11 years for owners under 65. Nearly 55% lived in homes built before 1980.
Replacement work made up 54% of improvement dollars for owners age 65 or older in 2023, compared with 47% for owners under 65. Among owners with an improvement project in 2022–2023, accessibility work was reported by 9.5% of those age 65–79 and 11.5% of those age 80 or older. The comparable figure for owners under 65 was 4.5%.
Younger owners showed a larger DIY installation share. Owners under age 35 accounted for 24% of their improvement spending through DIY installations in 2023, compared with 15% for owners age 35 and over. Owners under 35 spent 32% more per owner on improvements in 2023 than in 2015, reaching $4,200 in inflation-adjusted dollars. Their aggregate improvement expenditures reached $34 billion in 2023, 51% above 2015 after inflation.
DIY budgets by household income
Income changes both the amount available for improvements and the burden those costs represent. In the 2023 AHS, the lowest owner-income quintile included households earning less than $37,500. The highest included households earning $172,000 or more.
Nearly 69% of owners in the lowest income quintile invested little or nothing in improvements and maintenance in 2023, compared with 41% in the highest quintile. Among owners, 18% of the lowest-income quintile spent under $500 on improvements and maintenance, versus 7% of the highest-income quintile.
Average improvement-and-maintenance spending was $3,100 for the lowest-income quintile and $10,900 for the highest in 2023. Yet the lower dollar amount represented a larger income burden: spending equaled 16.3% of income for the lowest-income quintile and 3.7% for the highest.
The composition of spending also differed. Routine maintenance represented 27% of improvement-and-maintenance spending for the lowest-income owners, versus 16% for the highest-income owners. Replacement projects represented 43% for the lowest-income owners and 35% for the highest. Discretionary projects represented 18% for the lowest-income owners and 30% for the highest.
These figures measure household improvement and maintenance spending together, not DIY spending alone. They show why a DIY approach may be considered in different ways across budgets: the lower-income group spent less in dollars but devoted a larger share of income to the category, while the higher-income group allocated a larger share to discretionary work.
Time spent on household work
DIY projects sit within a broader group of household activities that includes lawn care and home maintenance. The American Time Use Survey 2024 A01 Results reports that, on an average day in 2024, 80.4% of people age 15 and over engaged in household activities such as lawn care or home maintenance.
People age 15 and over spent an average of 2.01 hours per day on household activities in the 2024 annual averages. This is an all-household-activities measure, so it should not be read as two hours per day of DIY construction or remodeling.
The survey reports different averages by sex. Women spent 2.34 hours per day on household activities in 2024, compared with 1.67 hours for men. On days when they did household activities, women averaged 2.71 hours and men averaged 2.26 hours. The “on days they did” figures exclude days without household activity, while the daily averages include all days in the annual measure.
Together, the time-use and home-improvement figures describe DIY in two ways: as a defined share of improvement projects and spending, and as part of recurring household work. The project statistics identify who undertook improvements and what those projects cost; the time-use statistics show how household activity fits into an average day.