All wet areas in your home, such as the kitchen and bathrooms, should be protected by Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs). You’ve seen them. They’re the big square looking plugs with the light and two buttons in the middle. Anyone that has ever overloaded a bathroom circuit by using a hair dryer too long has probably tripped a few of these before. The reset button to restore power is usually very handy.

If you’re using GFCIs, you should push the test button at least once a month to check if it’s operating properly.

Use the safe light bulb wattage for each light fixture. This is one that many people tend to ignore. With every light fixture there is usually a sticker somewhere near bulb area that tells you what the highest voltage that fixture can safely handle. Follow it, especially if you’re using regular bulbs. If you need something brighter in there, get a mini-spiral bulb that are low wattage to begin with but has a high wattage output.

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In September, my sewage drain backed up into my basement. That was a nice little surprise one morning. Luckily, there wasn’t much water damage since the room with the sewer drains is off to the side.

My first course of action was to vacuum up as much of the water with my Shop Vac and dump it outside. Then it was off to Lowe’s to see what they had. After looking around, I ended up with a pipe snake with a tipped end.

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So one Sunday out of the blue, my water heater decided to die. There weren’t really any warning signs, I just noticed there wasn’t any hot water in the morning. After going down into the basement, there was water everywhere. 40 gallons! It looked like the bottom of my water heater just gave out.

That’s my old unit. It was installed in November of 1996 and lasted until October 2007. Not a bad run I suppose, but I didn’t like that it died on me after 3 years of my ownership. Those dents in the side display my frustration.

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After 2 years (where did the time go?!) of being on hiatus, this blog is back. I’ve completed a lot of projects since the last posts and will be posting details and money saving tips about each of them in the coming days.

The Handyman Club of America. Be careful if you subscribe to this magazine. You fork over 12 bucks for the yearly subscription, but then they will bug you endlessly with offers to upgrade to the Handyman Club of America membership for an extra $24.00.

On the bright side, it seems like a decent deal, since supposedly you become a lifetime member and get free products to test out. However, one letter or two with the offer is enough. I swear on my life these people seem to send one every few weeks, some of which look like invoices and past due notices! I might get the lifetime membership eventually once I read up on the catches of the “free product testing”, but right now it’s the principal of just getting badgered endlessly that makes me angry and resistant to it.

If you’d like to subscribe to Handy/Handyman Club of America, this is just a bit of info informing you of what you’ll be in for.

In Summer 2005, I replaced the cheap dawn-to-dusk garage light with a new dawn-to-dusk flood light to illuminate both the driveway and some of the backyard, which is kinda freaky at night. It worked fine, no problem… except that it likes to come on in the evening about 60-90 minutes before it gets dark and shuts off about an hour or so after day has broken in the morning. Can you say waste of electricity?

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I learned something today. If you have a damp basement, the worst thing you can do is open the basement windows in the summer time.
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I love latex caulk. The stuff can fix or patch just about anything. The guy who installed the side door calls it “miracle wood in a tube”. Now there are all types of caulks out there. Maybe I’ll get into the different ones in a future post, but until then I’ll focus on the water-based latex one. Here are some things I’ve used it for, and a basic rundown of how to use it.
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Buffalo Tools might just be the cheapest, most crappy products on the planet. You really get what you pay for with junk made by this company. It seems like they produce just about everything, from dust masks, tape measure, brushes, to power tools. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve gotten into the habit of trying to sign and date everything I do to this place, and leave things behind. There is a local flyer/newspaper that comes out almost every day in this area. It contains various things like the weather, local news, lotto numbers, etc. Since it’s basically only one page long and free, I’ve started folding those up and stuffing one into spots where I’ve renovated or fixed something. Silly? Maybe. If the house is around for another 100 years and a wall is removed or insulation is replaced, I think people (or aliens) will get a kick out of it.

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