I haven't lost my touch

• It took me only about three weeks to replace burned out light bulbs in the spare bedroom, the family room, and the kitchen!
• The other day, Mary Elen swept up a cat toy into the vacuum cleaner, clogging the hose.  She and I spent an afternoon trying to dislodge it with a clothes hanger and our shop vac.  No luck.  So I took a deep breath and disassembled the hose, assuming that I'd probably destroy the thing in the process and have to buy a whole new $4 million dollar Electrolux.  But no!  I took it apart, removed the obstruction, put it back together, and it still works!  
  
• Our friend Cruz did a lot of yard work for us recently, filling (and I mean filling!) lots of big (and I mean big) plastic bags with weeds, dirt, and leaves. Our wheelbarrow picked that time to develop a flat tire.  I removed the wheel, took the tube out, found the leak, walked to Bikes@Vienna to buy a Rema TT01 Standard Patch Kit, applied said patch, mowed the front lawn while the patch set, put the tube back in the tire and inflated it, and put the wheel back on the barrow.  A day and a half later, after taking twenty bags down to the curb, the tire still has air in it! 
  

Spigots, pocket doors, and Handyman Dan

The cold water spigot on the laundry tub was leaking and the wonderful wife insisted we have it taken care of.  Personally, I didn't think it was a big deal and I would have let the darned thing drip from now until doomsday. But the nagging!  My god, the nagging!!  So, I essayed replacing a washer.  I approached the job with less trepidation than most of my repair efforts; after all, I had replaced washers lots of times in the past (with varying degrees of success).  A visit to Home Depot landed me an assortment of washers, and a visit to YouTube found me a refresher on how to remove the stem from a spigot.  I went to work.  Naturally, the assortment of washers didn't contain the size and shape I wanted, but I took the stem over to Booz Plumbing and found what I needed without any trouble.  Remarkably, re-installation of the stem presented no problems, the spigot doesn't drip and, most important, the infernal nagging has finally stopped!

Our dining room and breakfast room are separated by sliding doors — doors that slide into "pockets" in the wall.  "Pocket doors," get it?  Well, last time the cleaning ladies were here, one of them managed to knock a door off its track.  Just lift the darned thing up and put it back on, right?  Nope.  It's a heavy door, impossible to get a good grip on, and, most important, the wheels on the top of the door didn't line up with the track: If the track runs east to west, the wheels had somehow twisted themselves into a northeast - southwest orientation.  The handyman was stumped, so he did nothing, letting the untracked door stand in the middle of the doorway for a week and a half while wondering whom he could get to fix it.  (That "whom" really looks odd.  No one says "whom" any more.)  Or maybe the handyman's subconscious was hard at work the whole time.  Eventually, he slipped a strap under the door; it would allow him to lift the door and jiggle it around with one hand.  He also looped a thin gauge wire around one set of wheels on top of the door; it would allow him to use the other hand to pull the wheels into something more closely approximating the orientation of the track. The strap and the wire — and a good bit of dumb luck — took care of the problem.

Handyman Dan puts on his electrician's hat

The Advance ICN-4P32-SC flourescent light ballast is not identical to the Aadvance REB-4P32-SC ballast, but it's close enough, right?  I mean, they've both got 2 blue wires, 2 yellow, 2 red, and a black and a white.  They're not exactly the same width and thickness, but they are the same length.  And both model numbers have 4P32 in them, and that must mean something.  So they must be close enought, right? Right?

"Right," I can answer, after replacing -- with considerable trepidation --one with the other .

The toughest part of switching the ballasts was removing and replacing the light fixture's cover (diffuser).  The darned thing is awkward and very brittle and if, like Handyman Dan, you're feeling a little cocky about the wiring trick you just pulled off, you might rush things a bit putting the cover back on and that G*d d**n diffuser's going to crack.  And a replacement ain't cheap.  D**n!!!!!!!

============

A couple weeks ago, the Handyman essayed replacing a couple relays in one of his wonderful wife's kilns.  (Remarkably ambitious of him, since he didn't even know what a relay was.)  Specifically, he replaced two Omron & Arrowmat 240 volt relays like this:

with two Potter & Brumfield 240 volt relays like this:

Very tricky, trying to transfer wires from one to the other, given the different configuration of the terminals, and very awkward in that tiny, crowded switch box, but surprisingly, the kiln worked perfectly when the wife tried it yesterday and again today.  (The wife would have tested the kiln sooner, but I refused to even plug the thing back in until we bought a fire extinguisher and installed a smoke detector.)

Not So Handyman Dan — Fencing

At dinner on Friday, my friend Bob asked what I would be doing the next day.  I told him that I was going to try to repair a fence at Cassie and Roger's:  A post was wobbly, tree roots prevented the gate from opening and closing easily, and the "open" design virtually invited the dogs to stand there and growl menacingly (or bark deafeningly) at whatever caught their attention.

Bob wondered if it would be a big job.  My answer:  "Somebody who knows what he's doing could probably knock it off in a couple hours.  For me, it will be an all day job."

Once again I dramatically overestimate my abilities!  Three days later, however, the job is finally done.  (Well, at least until the whole thing falls down when one of the dogs leans against it.)

(No explanation for why the gate post sees to lean to the left in this photo and why the top of the gate seems to slope down from left to right.  I don't think it looks like that in real life.)

Tips from Handyman Dan — gardening equipment

Previously, I tipped you on how to get your self-propelled Toro mower to do a better job of . . . um, er, ah, . . . self propelling, and what to do if your mower doesn't shut off when you release the control bar. 

One final tip:  Make sure you've got oil in the *&%^* mower!  Otherwise you'll find yourself in the market for a Honda, model HRR216K9VKA -- and wondering where you're going to find $400 to pay for it.

On the bright side, the new HRR216K9VKA will start easier than any -- any! -- pull-start machine (lawn mower, leaf blower, weed whacker, chain saw, you name it) you've ever had.

Handyman Dan -- Lighting

A year ago I bragged about repairing the three-way switch on a table lamp.

The bragging was premature.  Within a week, it wasn't working.  Or, I should say, the "three-way" feature wasn't working, which was the problem that led me to attempt the repair in the first place.

Today I took another shot at it.  So far, so good.  But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Hints from Handyman Dan — plumbing

It's my pleasure to share with you a few things I learned recently — things I wish I'd known, oh, maybe 20 years ago.

• Quick-connect fittings on garden hoses are wonderfully convenient.  They're also leaky as all get out unless you use teflon tape and an extra rubber washer and make sure that both parts of the quick-connect are made by the same manufacturer.
• That spigot where the hose connects?  Dripping, is it?  Give that packing screw a good twist.  Problem solved!
• Replacing the washer and o-ring on the stem of the spigot at your laundry tubs is very easy,  Especially if you remove the stem and take it to Booz Plumbing to make sure you get the right sizes.  Who knows, the friendly guy behind the counter might just replace them for you!
• Did you get no sleep last night?  Instead, did you spend the night listening to the toilet refill every 2 1/2 minutes?  Maybe a new flapper is all you need.  The Kohler hinged flapper, model 84995, is waaaaay more complicated than a flapper needs to be, but be brave.  If I can do it, you can do it!
• Finally, know your limits.  If you removed the set screw from the single lever shower control and then spent 20 minutes trying to pull that thing of the stem, admit defeat.  Call a plumber.  It's worth the outrageous bill just to to hear him grunting and talking to himself and cursing as he spends another 20 minutes on it. 

Tips from Handyman Dan — gardening equipment

Struggling pushing that so-called "self-propelled" lawnmower of yours around your estate?  Thinking "My God, I'm old!"?  Ready to hire a lawn service — because there sure ain't no neighborhood kids looking to pick up some extra money?  Been having these thoughts for the last month and a half, have you?

Hold your horses!  Maybe all you need to do is adjust the speed on your mower.   On my Toro, the cables from the shifter and the speed lever and the control bar run down the handle and pass through a "control knob" and into the — what? body? patform? housing? — of the mower, like so:

Give that control knob a clockwise twist or two and you'll be amazed how much stronger and younger you'll feel.

===============

If that same self-propelled mower fails to turn off when you release the control bar, you've got several options:

• Spend a large fortune to have it repaired.
• Wait until the mower runs out of gas.
• Tilt and bounce the mower violently, in an attempt to keep gas from reaching the carbuerator.
• Pull the spark plug wire.

I think you'll find the last of these to be the easiest, cheapest, and most effective.  Eventually the connector at the end of the wire will no longer fit the plug tightly, but "eventually" might be a long time coming.

Not So Handyman Dan

The woodshed I built last week is cockeyed and ramshackle, not nearly as good as the shed I built a few years ago.  Oh, well.  At least they're the same color:

Doing-it-myself

• To replace the switch on a table lamp, you need a screw driver and 10 minutes to spare. So why, pray tell, did I put the job off for a month and a half?
• Fixing the door that was falling off our mailbox required the use of 1 screw and 2 nuts. So why, pray tell, did it take me the better part of an hour and multiple trips to the basement?
• Substituting chicken wire for window screen in the turtle pens called for a staple gun. I gave 2 or 3 away a couple months ago. Hey, you only need 1 right? Right. But why, pray tell, did I keep the 1 that didn't work?

The squeaky wheel gets . . .

If it moves and it shouldn't, duct tape;

If it doesn't move and it should, WD-40.

Not exactly on point, but close.

Since I last "fixed" our trash compactor 3 1/2 years ago it has made a hellacious noise every time we use it, striking panic into the hearts of "neighbors" far and wide. In fact, we are now required to notify Vienna, Fairfax, and Virginia police and fire departments before we turn the thing on, so they can bring on extra staff to deal with frightened callers: "Don't worry, it's just Dan's trash masher."

Well.

I got to wondering the other day, goodness knows why, "Could it just need lubrication?"

Answer: Yes!

A little white lithium grease on the drive chain and some wheel bearing grease on the drive screws and Voila! Now even Joey could nap in the kitchen undisturbed while we mash 2 cubic feet of detritus into a 2-inch cube.

And it took me only 3 1/2 years to figure this out! (God only knows how the wonderful wife puts up with me.)

What does Greg know?

Generally, great strength is a blessing I'm grateful for.  It does come with some drawbacks, however.  Like when you yank the pull cord on your Stihl BG 65 leaf blower . . . and the cord snaps in two.  (No, the fact that the cord was 10 years old, dry rotted, and badly frayed was not the reason it broke; I'm sure my almost superhuman strength was the cause.)

I'm also sure our neighborhood lawnmower shop would have been happy to replace the cord.  Maybe even for a fee of under $100.  Maybe.  But I decided to take a crack at it myself, anyway.  How hard could it be?

Greg the Gardener (who has performed the chore half a dozen times) responds, "It's damned hard, that's how hard."

So when I attacked the job, it was with the expectation that after and hour or two of serious cursing I would wind up tossing the whole thing into the trash can.  Not so.  After 15 minutes, the machine ran good as new.

I suspect Greg the Gardener would explain my success by saying that I cheated by not actually replacing the old cord but instead discarding the piece that had broken off and using the remainder (which was already threaded through the pulley).  Poppycock, Greg.  I did it so quickly and so well because I am a superior small motor repair specialist.

PS  I'm guessing that the thing the pull cord attaches to is a pulley.  I googled to find a schematic that would identify the part, but I found instead that "STIHL parts lists and service manuals are only available to our STIHL-trained technicians and Dealers."  The greedy, no-good rats.

Well, that was easy

The soap dispenser in our kitchen sink broke recently, so I replaced it on Monday.

And on Tuesday.

And on Wednesday.

The "job" is simple:

• Unscrew the bottle under the sink;
• Remove the nut (also under the sink) that holds the unit in place;
• Put a new unit in.

Who'd have thought it would also require the purchase of an angle grinder and 3 days of work?

Am I a handyman, or what?

Irene

Well, we dodged a bullet with Hurricane Irene, didn't we?

And do you know why?

Because I took precautions, that's why!

Click it for a larger version.

You're welcome.

Home improvement

New door handles for the shed!

Click it for a larger version.

Whoa, Dan! Slow down!

Maybe you should go sit down and rest a while.

We'll see

Handyman Dan replaced a fence post day before yesterday. A year from now we'll find out if he sunk it deep enough. (He doubts it.)

Dan, Dan, the Renaissance man

Today:

• Remove a virus from Barbara's computer;
• Cook Shrimp Paella for dinner (to rave reviews)

Yesterday:

• Probe the implications of "you are the light of the world"

Last week:

• Replace windshield wiper (in only about 25 minutes)

Hot water heaters

Replacing a hot water heater is no problem, not when you're doing it with a natural handyman like Roger . . . and when an expert like John is overseeing the work (and doing the soldering).

Burnt wires

What you're looking at is (a blurry iPhone picture of) a white wire from the source and a white wire from the dishwasher -- both of which have about four inches of insulation burnt off them -- and the wire nut that had connected the two, which is now burnt through. Below is the wire nut that had connected the two blacks; it's also burnt, presumably by the white from the source resting against it.

No wonder the dishwasher wouldn't work!

The dishwasher works now, thanks to handyman Dan, but we're going to have to get somebody who actually knows something to take a look at this thing and figure out why the wires burnt out in the first place.

My mind was in the gutter today

Well, on the gutter.

Before:

After: