Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[Time2]

Could you bring up a thick pillow or folded blanket to put over the metal ribs ?

I will do that to put the last piece on today. I woke up with sore ribs this morning.

 

[gutterman]

The TP roll under the sink was severely soggy (weighed a pound) and so had a spontaneous leak. It was the hose between the hot cutoff and the faucet. More specifically, the crimp between the hose and the fitting.

I ordered a new hose ($5 off Amazon) and replaced it.

The new hose said "replace every 5 years"! Ain't nobody got time for that! I have been thinking about water/moisture alarms. They're cheap, but you gotta keep working batteries in them, I suppose. This cheap bathroom cabinet is particle board and swelled up a bit, but not bad enough to replace.

I put one of those water alarms in my hot water heater pan and forgot about it. About a year later I am in a museum several states away and my phone starts beeping like crazy. I finally figure it out it's the water alarm and call a neighbor. Sure enough my water heater is leaking. When I got home I bought four more and put them under all the sinks. I get an email when the batteries are low, but I go around and replace all of them at once, The battery lasts about a year if it doesn't go off, which seems to kill the battery. Mine are AA

 

[John Galt III]

Update!
- Re all had previously troubleshot to a bad power relay for the compressor and condenser fan ... got working by tearing top off the relay to be able to sand points that were burned - $2 relay arrived via Chinese ebay seller with 5.50 for shipping, total about $7.50. De soldered the old one, soldered in the new - works fine, now.
- icemaker also had a issue

Well done !


I have a similar scenario. Tracked a 'no fan coming on' problem with the heating system down to an arced relay contact. Like you, I sanded down the contact, and the unit worked fine for 2 weeks, then same problem.


Looked online for a new relay. Using the original part number I found plenty of relays for sale. All ranging from $75 to $84. Just for one relay. Well, must be supply and demand, I thought. After all, the relay has a unique mounting setup: a little tab on it that fits into a slot on some sheet metal, and a threaded hole on its side to accept a screw.



I couldn't see spending $84 for a 'supply and demand' type relay, though.
After ages of searching online, I accidentally searched by generic characteristics, like double pole double throw 24 volt relay, and came up with lots of reasonably priced relays that were just fine. I would just have to accept the fact that I would not be mounting it in its original location. Fine.


Ended up getting one for $15 all taxes and shipping included. Just waiting for it to arrive.


I found great advice out there on the internet, but it was few and far between, and the guys sometimes disappeared and came back days later.

Not complaining though, lol.

 

[CO-guy]

We had family visiting over the holidays that are exceedingly rough on things: Broken doorknobs, clogged toilets, etc. It's never their fault. It's always, "look what happened."

This trip we had to replace the cartridge in the guest bathroom sink from them yanking on the handle. Ironic that the Moen cartridge that had been in there is called a "Duralast."

It had been working fine for over a decade, but according to them it, "must have been defective." *sign

 

[skyking1]

I will do that to put the last piece on today. I woke up with sore ribs this morning.

I have an old large couch cushion that my wife hates, for working under sinks and the like. It sits on an antique two drawer commode and the dogs like to sit on it and look out the window. Yesterday she wrapped it with one of her quilts and is now satisfied. PHEW!

 

[jimbee]

Last March my mini-fridge stopped working. It was only 22 years old and I bought it from Walmart, so it was top quality.
I pulled it out, did some testing, and found the PTC (positive temperature coefficient) relay was bad. Ordered a new one from eBay for $5 and the fridge is still working today. Hope to get many more years from it.

 

[Time2]

We had family visiting over the holidays that are exceedingly rough on things: Broken doorknobs, clogged toilets, etc. It's never their fault. It's always, "look what happened."

This trip we had to replace the cartridge in the guest bathroom sink from them yanking on the handle. Ironic that the Moen cartridge that had been in there is called a "Duralast."

It had been working fine for over a decade, but according to them it, "must have been defective." *sign

Take a deposit next time they come, show them everything is working and if it is that way when they leave the deposit will be refunded!

It was and now that my kids are grown, still is a running line, "quit playing with it, your just going to break it" But now instead of me saying, it is them saying it to their kids.

 

[euro]

Too late, but I got 6 for $36 on Amazon. They come with the 9 volt battery and they'll chirp when the battery is low. I hope the battery lasts a good while.

I have those and the batteries have lasted many years. In fact, every now and then one will start to chirp, telling me to change the battery and happens infrequently enough that it takes me a while to figure out what the chirp is and where I put the water alarms in the first place....

 

[homestead]

Yesterday the dryer belt snapped while drying a load of towels. Went to the appliance store 5 min away and thankfully they had one left for $15. Got home and 35 min later we were back in business.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Yesterday the dryer belt snapped while drying a load of towels. Went to the appliance store 5 min away and thankfully they had one left for $15. Got home and 35 min later we were back in business.

This is one of those satisfying repairs that is fairly easy. Impresses the hell out of the spouse, too.

I've done this three times in the 27 years I've lived in my house. My old mid-90's Maytag dryer keeps on going. I'm also shocked at the sheer simplicity of this old dryer. Not much to see when you take off the front panel.

 

[CO-guy]

Take a deposit next time they come, show them everything is working and if it is that way when they leave the deposit will be refunded!

It was and now that my kids are grown, still is a running line, "quit playing with it, your just going to break it" But now instead of me saying, it is them saying it to their kids.

If only it was that easy. It's always a, "something happened with this." No matter how many things they break, they insist they're wonderful houseguests.

 

[Tom52]

Our 11 year old Electrolux dryer quit drying. Display showed an error code E64 and a phone number to call for service. DW was anxious to find someone right away to get it fixed. She didn't think I was up to the task but I didn't want to pay for and expensive repair and a marked up spare part. I YouTubed the E64 error code and found several videos on how to replace the heating element. I ordered the part on Amazon, $128.00 for the OEM part. I am happy to report dryer is Working well. I only suffered two minor sheet metal cuts.

 

[ncbill]

Replaced a 35-year-old Leviton single-pole switch for $1.39 from Ace Hardware.

Its (Leviton) replacement appeared nearly identical to the original.

But has added a screw for a ground connection.

Both made in the USA.

Though I'm sure the original cost closer to $0.39!

 

[stephenson]

Neighborhood's HOA board forgot to turn the water off for the entrance irrigation system - a "hard" freeze cracked the casing on one of the two shutoffs on the backflow preventer - and several sections of PVC pipe.

I had two previously broken preventers from rental houses - so, I combined the three into one good one - a FrankenPreventerValve (sounds German, huh?).

All glued back in and operating. One estimate was $350 and one via a large irrigation company was $685.

A new backflow preventer is $115 and it took about an hour (but, I was messing around a bit and also repaired the faucet's cracked piping).

 

[CosmicDreamer]

Last March my mini-fridge stopped working. It was only 22 years old and I bought it from Walmart, so it was top quality.
I pulled it out, did some testing, and found the PTC (positive temperature coefficient) relay was bad. Ordered a new one from eBay for $5 and the fridge is still working today. Hope to get many more years from it.

That's impressive, @jimbee! Diagnosing and fixing the fridge yourself is no small feat. I can only do simple repairs, like fixing a leaky faucet and repairing a door lock this past Saturday.

 

[sengsational]

^ One of my old dorm fridges quit and I tried the same trick as Jim. There's really not much to these fridges that can be fixed. In my case, the only thing that could be replaced was this $5 gizmo, so, without knowing anything about anything, I replaced it. I've probably owned 6 or more dorm fridges over a decade (long story) and I fixed one by this method. The other one I tried to fix ran for a few minutes, and that $5 part blew up again (compressor was bad), so had to toss that one.

 

[njhowie]

That's impressive, @jimbee! Diagnosing and fixing the fridge yourself is no small feat. I can only do simple repairs, like fixing a leaky faucet and repairing a door lock this past Saturday.

Mini fridges are actually quite easy to fix. There are only two parts which go bad and are responsible for probably 95% of the failures. The PTC relay is one of them, the overload protector is the other. These failures are so common that they are sold on Amazon in pairs:

https://www.amazon.com/mini-fridge-relay-switch/s?k=mini+fridge+relay+switch

So, if you have a mini fridge and it stops working, replace these two and the very high likelihood is that it will resolve the problem.

 

[mountainsoft]

Replaced Water Heater

I just finished replacing our water heater. It was working fine but the average life span is supposed to be 7-10 years and ours was 20 years old. So we figured we would change it out before we had a problem.

Our old Whirlpool model was 80 gallons, but thanks to newer insulation requirements the largest we could get that would fit in the space is 55 gallons. So far we haven't noticed any difference for showers and general use, but I'm still curious if it will be enough capacity to fill our master bath tub.

I thought it would only take a few hours, but it ended up taking about three days. For one, it took about two hours just to drain the old tank. I wasn't expecting that to be so slow.

I also chose to repaint the inside of the water heater closet while we had the tank out, since I'll probably never get to that again. I also refinished the trim around the opening when I was done as it got a bit dinged up trying to get the old heater out.

I also replumbed a section of our recirculating line to clean it up and ran into a couple of issues with that and had to redo it a second time.

Then I had a number of persistent leaks I struggled to resolve. It took about four trips to Home Depot and Lowes to get new parts as solving one leak turned into finding another one.

Overall it was a much bigger project than I envisioned, but the final result is nice and seems to be working well with no leaks. With any luck maybe this will last another 20 years and I'll never need to do this again.

 

[John Galt III]

Way to go, Mountainsoft ! Good job !

 

[Sue J]

Our house is from 1955 and has some of the original plumbing, including the cast iron waste pipes (much bigger than regular pipes, I might not have the correct term) in the basement. This is a large hunk of cast iron pipe hanging under the joists, collecting EVERYTHING from the tubs, sinks and toilets from two bathrooms and sending it out to the sewer system. Big, IMPORTANT piece of the plumbing!

This is all accessible from the laundry area in the basement. DH had noticed a little seepage. Not a drip or a crack, just a sign of something happening. A plumbing company came and gave an estimate. They see a lot of old cast iron showing signs like this, just stuff corroding. Lately, a good portion of their repair work is replacing old waste lines like this.

They warned us that it would mean approximately 4 to 5 hours without being able to use the bathrooms. So the day we had the work done I took myself out for breakfast, ran some errands and then waited at the library until DH texted that it was done.

They did a great job and the cast iron was replaced with ABS. It all looks much neater and modern. Our five year old grandson is into how things work, especially plumbing, so DH took lots of pictures of the progress.

This was not an emergency, nothing was imminent. But we are trying to be more proactive in taking care of house things as we get older. When we were a young family we couldn't always take care of things ahead of time. Now, we are older and have different priorities and the money to take care of things.

Cost was $1760 which seemed very fair. Two guys, four hours plus parts. They also had to remove the first floor toilet, add support underneath and reinstall it.

 

[njhowie]

For one, it took about two hours just to drain the old tank. I wasn't expecting that to be so slow.

Great job! Ours is 20 years old as well, and I've similarly been pricing a replacement over the past month. We decided we'll just wait for it to fail as the best price for the same tank alone today costs almost $2500. When we had it replaced 20 years ago, the entire job including the tank, a new burner (it is oil), and plumber was $2000. If I were doing it, I'd just get the tank and reuse the existing burner. We're just not ready to lay out $2500 when the one we have is working fine and many folks with the same make/model indicate lifespan of 20 or more years.

Did you have some hot water faucets open in the house so air could enter? If not, certainly it would take much longer to drain.

 

[Timeisprecious]

Our home was over 60 years old when we bought it but was in pretty good shape. We had someone remodel our upstairs bathroom, complete with a new walk-in shower to replace the bathtub. Well, long story short, apparently some not-so-great grout was used on the shower floor. Thus, we're now dealing with our third attempt to fix a leak which frequently ends up in a puddle in the downstairs laundry room. We're hoping the third time's a charm.

 

[Sunset]

Our home was over 60 years old when we bought it but was in pretty good shape. We had someone remodel our upstairs bathroom, complete with a new walk-in shower to replace the bathtub. Well, long story short, apparently some not-so-great grout was used on the shower floor. Thus, we're now dealing with our third attempt to fix a leak which frequently ends up in a puddle in the downstairs laundry room. We're hoping the third time's a charm.

There should be a pan or rubber sheet under the tiles to catch water. But water leaks are notoriously difficult to trace to the origin in many cases.

 

[MC Rider]

Our house is from 1955 and has some of the original plumbing, including the cast iron waste pipes (much bigger than regular pipes, I might not have the correct term) in the basement. This is a large hunk of cast iron pipe hanging under the joists, collecting EVERYTHING from the tubs, sinks and toilets from two bathrooms and sending it out to the sewer system. Big, IMPORTANT piece of the plumbing!

This is all accessible from the laundry area in the basement. DH had noticed a little seepage. Not a drip or a crack, just a sign of something happening. A plumbing company came and gave an estimate. They see a lot of old cast iron showing signs like this, just stuff corroding. Lately, a good portion of their repair work is replacing old waste lines like this.

They warned us that it would mean approximately 4 to 5 hours without being able to use the bathrooms. So the day we had the work done I took myself out for breakfast, ran some errands and then waited at the library until DH texted that it was done.

They did a great job and the cast iron was replaced with ABS. It all looks much neater and modern. Our five year old grandson is into how things work, especially plumbing, so DH took lots of pictures of the progress.

This was not an emergency, nothing was imminent. But we are trying to be more proactive in taking care of house things as we get older. When we were a young family we couldn't always take care of things ahead of time. Now, we are older and have different priorities and the money to take care of things.

Cost was $1760 which seemed very fair. Two guys, four hours plus parts. They also had to remove the first floor toilet, add support underneath and reinstall it.

That not not sound too bad, and now it is fixed for good. Imagine the cost if you had a sewage leak in the basement. Ack!

 

[Time2]

This is just the start of repairs to a home my son just bought. A tornado damaged the roof, ServPro came out and dried the house and rebuild part of the roof, replaced maybe ten sheets of plywood and ten 2 x 4 lookout boards on the Gable end. The was done several weeks before he bought the house. The more we looked the worse we found their work, in fact is is very, very, poorly done. The lookout boards do not have 24" centers. That means where two sheets of decking butt of to each other, there is nothing under the joint. ServPro covered the roof with temporary rain barrier, but did such a poor job the roof leaks, luckily, it leaks in a room that is already missing the ceiling. I'll attach a couple of pictures, I won't bore you with all 11 picture each showing it's own problem. OK, I posted 3 pictures. We worked today from 8 to 2 installing additional lookouts where they should be and fixing other things that were poorly done. At 2pm we started reinstalling the rain barrier back it into place and by 3pm we were done and the Rain started. Weatherman said 3pm has was not off by 2 minutes!