Tricks for the Beginner Handyman
Being handy with equipment is much more than revealing. Being “that guy” in your group of friends is nice-if not a little tiring, what with all the demands to fix everything-but for anyone who wishes to end up being the guy you never know how to repair little problems here and there, there’s usually one obstacle.
How the hell do you learn? Watch reruns of Bob Vila on TV? (Who was unavailable, very regrettably, for this piece.)
Occasionally, it’s speculated and appearance. Sometimes it’s gaining knowledge from your old man. In other cases, you’re simply the only guy who reads the instructions. Regardless of what, though, knowing the right path across the toolbox is definitely the best thing. These listed below things can help you around the house-and may spur you on to find out more.
Listed below are a few tips shared by the Handyman professor that your beginner handyman should follow.
- Pull the Ole Nintendo on Your Garbage Disposal
A damaged garbage disposal is really a huge headache. Sure, you may have gotten along fine before you decide to had one, but those were the days that meals took a year to do.
Before beginning, make sure you get under the sink and disconnect the disposal unit itself (Many sinks have an outlet underneath them, just open the door and poke around for it.). In the event you can’t discover that, flip the circuit breaker that provides capacity to the disposal. Seriously. You can’t skip this task because, if for whatever reason it turns on while you’re getting rid of any stuck-on food in there, you will be sorry.
When the power is off, duck underneath the sink again and discover a button beneath the cylinder that houses the disposal mechanism. This is actually the reset button. Push it. You need to hear a click to inform you you’ve tried it.
Up coming, try to locate any debris stuck inside the mouth of the fingertips. This is where you have to be very sure that no power is going to it. Remove all you can.
Flip the power back on and examine if it’s operating. If that’s the case, congratulations. Otherwise, there is certainly still one last thing you can do: manually dislodge what’s maintaining your blades stuck. For this method, you’ll need an Allen wrench/hex key. There’s a small socket in the center of the bottom of the disposal unit the important thing can squeeze into. Turn the key either way-this is basically moving the grinders of the unit by hand. Turn back and forth a couple times to make sure you got that which was maintaining your grinders stuck and check out flipping the switch again. This will look after it.
- Stop a Toilet that Doesn’t Stop Running
That seems. It’s a torturous sound that may have a guy up during the night. Sure, the severity varies (there was once a toilet in the basement of the apartment building by which I was living that blew something so difficult – it had been spraying water up with enough force that it hit the roof – and shook the floors of my first-floor apartment), but a toilet’s importance can’t ever be modest.
A continuously running toilet not just drives you nuts, it may waste money, too-flushing dollars to waste and into the septic system whenever your water bill turns up.