I just returned from an extended weekend at my family cottage in Northern Ontario, with my older brother. In addition to the usual springtime chores of moving furniture and turning on the water, we dug up heavy muck.

A lot of it.

The long explanation: We repaired concrete supports on our front porch, which had been leaning dangerously. That entailed lifting the porch with a heavy-duty car jack, digging about a metre into the wet and sometimes frozen ground, removing the existing cinder blocks and then building new supports with 6x6 wooden posts.

The shorter explanation: We are DIYers.

Well, my brother is; I mostly just follow along. Together, though, with some help from an AI chatbot, we extended the life of the porch and likely saved thousands of dollars that would have gone to a team of pros using big machinery.

Clearly, this do-it-yourself approach is not for everyone. I burned through a few precious vacation days and emerged with a sore back.

But as any DIYer will tell you, the satisfaction you get from completing a job yourself is an important source of motivation here.

The other important source: Big savings. (My colleague, Erica Alini, wrote about renovating her office last year for under $3,000.)

Today, embarking on unfamiliar projects has never been easier, thanks to artificial intelligence. For our cottage project, we frequently consulted an AI chatbot – Claude Opus 4.6 – for advice on everything from buying the right cement to constructing foundations.

It could even tailor its recommendations to our location in Ontario and tell us what went wrong with an original support, based on a photo.

“Worth noting it’s sitting directly on soil with standing water around it, which isn’t ideal long-term due to frost heave and erosion,” the chatbot said.

It recommended replacing that muck with gravel, which we did. You could maintain a conversation thread, and refer back to it, or provide additional information for a more tailored response.

It was a little like having an experienced pro standing beside you, although one that needed some oversight along the way.

“As almighty as it can seem, it can make crazy simple mistakes, mostly related to logic and basic math,” my brother said.

Chatbots can’t do the heavy lifting, either. And assembling the correct old-school tools – from shovels to drills to electric saws – for a job can be expensive.

But I look at the expense this way: A tool will probably cost a small fraction next to the money spent on hiring a pro. If I can use the tool again, or share it, the upfront cost grows far more reasonable over time.

As I suggested earlier, I’m not obsessive about embarking on projects on my own. With limited confidence and a history of panicking when I hit obstacles, I’ve stuck to modest projects around my house.

That means interior painting, installing ceiling lights and faucets, replacing planks on our deck and building stone walkways.

Despite this limited commitment, I’ve easily saved $10,000 or more over the past decade or so (more if you add DIY investing to the list). AI should help me push the boundaries.

Role models help, too.

My father did just about everything. He essentially built the family cottage (please note: He was not responsible for the leaning porch supports), maintained his home furnace for 45 years, repaired cars and once single-handedly dug a deep trench around his home to repair a leaking basement.

Nothing was chucked; everything was fixed – or improved. And that was well before the arrival of AI.

It’s hard to underestimate the financial benefits of DIYing over decades. Just about every dollar saved on a plumber, electrician or contractor went toward building a comfortable retirement that lasted three decades.

Our weekend project replacing porch supports at the cottage won’t do that. But it’s one small step along the way.

Are you using AI for assistance in your DIY projects? Send your biggest accomplishments to dberman@globeandmail.com.