|
plasticus posted:Carpet & Carpet Padding Oh God, don't tape the carpet down. It'll just yank up in a heartbeat. Get yourself a cheap knee kicker, or even rent or borrow one, and reuse the existing tackless strips if they're not too beaten up. Since the padding is already attached to the carpet, you should remove the old pad, otherwise the floor will feel "soggy" from having too much padding underneath, like walking in mud. Definitely don't tape the carpet down. I looked it up, and gluing is okay, although I don't have much faith in the pad part holding up will If that's what you go with, take everything up, and you'll have to clean the concrete using a mop, hot water, and muriatic acid to neutralize the alkali salts that can weep out of the concrete over time due to moisture. Otherwise the glue won't hold very well, and moisture will condense on the concrete and ruin the floor very quickly. Edited as I google up more information, my experience with concrete is limited to wood floors and tile. Sapper fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jan 9, 2008 |
#
¿
Jan 9, 2008 17:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:45 |
|
|
Blowupologist posted:Sounds to me like a problem with the switch then, especially if the other burners function properly. Probably a bad potentiometer in the dial, allowing the circuit to be closed all the time. You can probably get a replacement pretty easily, and if you're lucky the wires will be screw mounted on it, not soldered. Either way, you'll have to pull the instrument panel for the stove apart, which shouldn't be too difficult. You may even be really lucky (so to speak...) and just have something shorting across the in-out wires on the dial. If you turn the knob for that burner, does it change the temperature any? If not, either the whole dial is shot, or there's a short. A short could easily cause a fire.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2008 18:47
|
|
|
Flyboy925 posted:OK, I just installed a new Price Pfister Classic 3 or 4 hole faucet in my kitchen sink. It works great, but the sprayer doesnt work. It appears that there is some water in the tube, but it wont spray. I bought an identical faucet to replace parts, but I'm not looking forward to that. Is it possible that I just have lovely water pressure, and it wont work, or do I just need to suck it up, and start replacing it? Open up both hot and cold full bore, and then try spraying. If it still doesn't work, take the sprayer off the end of the hose and see if water comes out at a good pressure. The sprayer itself is most likely the hosed part.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2008 17:56
|
|
|
Zenaida posted:Anyhow, this is probably pretty basic stuff for anyone with the gumption to even bother trying it on their own, but I never would have thought of using compressed air to clean it out. It worked like a charm. Sure, it's a pretty basic job, but it's the same place all us shadetree mechanics started from. If you don't mind translating Limey -> Yankee, pick up a Haynes manual for your model year, it'll walk you through step by step (with pictures!) everything from changing the oil to rebuilding the engine, along with neat tips like blowing out the filter, using rope to hang the brake calipers while you work on them, and using a 50 pipe in place of $95 factory tool. At $16 they're a steal. That's pretty much how I learned to work on cars. You'll save a lot of money by doing even the simple things yourself, with less than $30 worth of tools. As a bonus, chicks dig guys who can take care of basic stuff on their cars. And if you're in college, you can make bank off other students who can't afford a real mechanic and can't fix stuff themselves.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2008 05:10
|
|
|
Hot glue?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2008 16:03
|
|
|
McSpankWich posted:I heard from a friend that you could remove (or adjust) some magical piece of the inside of a shower head to improve your water pressure. Said friend then moved to Wyoming and never showed me which piece to remove. Is this even possible? And if it is which piece to I remove. Unscrew the fixture from the pipe. Look inside the end of the fixture. It'll probably be a piece of plastic that occupies most of the pipe. Barring that, just take the thing apart and look for a plate or chunk of plastic that looks like it's designed to block the water flow. It's different on a lot of models, so you'll have to hash it out for yourself as to what piece does what. Not all shower heads have them, you might just have crappy water pressure.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 8, 2008 17:29
|
|
|
TLG James posted:Run hot water and plunger the poo poo out of it. And never pour liquefied grease/lard/fat/oil down your drain again, ever. You've gotten lucky the past times, but that poo poo sticks to the sides of the pipes and builds up over time.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2008 05:01
|
|
|
Yeah, just get a new carafe. Walmart should carry them, if not try Sears, at worst (I had a Krups cappuccino maker carafe my clumsy rear end dropped) hit the manufacturer's website. My dumbass coworker at the gas station used to boil his bowl in the coffee pot to get all the resin out, and must have cracked 3 of them at least, but Wally world had the standard ones. Word to the wise: If your gas station is on the main drag from the State Trooper barracks, and you work the 2-6 shift, you probably shouldn't boil your paraphernalia out in the open between 5 and 6pm. Lucky for him the trooper just shook his head, laughed, paid for his gas and left.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2008 18:35
|
|
|
Well, if you rigged up some kind of gear system with multiple chucks and everything geared to turn in the same direction...but you'd have almost no power behind the bits, anyway. And the spacing would be a bitch. So the short answer is: No. Not worth the time, effort, and cost. Out of curiosity, why do you need it? Maybe we could figure out a workaround.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2008 19:16
|
|
|
I usually melt the sheathing off with a lighter, stripping them tends to tear the wire. Make absolutely sure the ground wire isn't touching the other two leads of the jack. Hot glue gently melted on can act as insulation once it's soldered on, but you have to make sure you'll be able to get the housing back on over it.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2008 17:34
|
|
|
Doesn't look like any of those walls are load bearing, so that's not a problem. I'd say do it, but it will devalue your house. Unless you go down to the basement and put up drywall and carpet the floor(with plastic sheeting for moisture barrier), in which case you can frame in a few rooms and massively increase the value of your home. It's not hard, just a lot of work. If I were in your shoes, I'd do it.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2008 04:21
|
|
|
Blowupologist posted:That's pretty mean. And awesome. No, mean was finding people still logged in to the school email system and sending their dad a confession of their newfound homosexuality and a 'please don't call me, I'll call you when I feel ready to talk one-on-one'. Going to hell for that one.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2008 16:37
|
|
|
Death Pants posted:After replacing my carpet with engineered wood flooring, I now need to replace the baseboards/trim. I went to HomoDepot and the cheapest is around $1 a linear ft. Does anyone have any ideas on better deals? Can you just place shoe molding at the bottom of the baseboard to cover the gap between the floor and the old baseboard, stained/painted to match? Otherwise, you can be cheap and pick out the best 3"x1"x8(10,12,14)' stuff and use that as baseboard- I did that to finish off a few accessory rooms at our old place. Still costs, but not like baseboard does. Looks good enough if you stain/paint it. Do NOT get that cheap rubber stickyback poo poo. It looks terrible and peels loose quickly. kapalama posted:I am replacing a light switch. The old Switch has two blacks wires coming into it and one red. What does this mean? Can I replace it with a single pole switch? Sounds like a 3-way switch. Is there another switch that controls the same fixture? A picture of the the back of the switch, wires intact, would be helpful.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2008 17:49
|
|
|
kapalama posted:I have a multimeter if there is something I could do with that. Thanks in advance. Set it to 200V AC and see which one is hot, and which ones aren't. Then set it to continuity and ground the black lead to the metal box and see if one of those not-hots is a ground (Doubtful). Then kill the breaker and see if the bottom red and blacks aren't a straight through- looks like that switch might be wired to splice of an inline circuit to power the fixture. That's pretty hosed up looking. But if my hunch is right and the two bottom ones are a pass-through setup, you'll just have to tie them together and then run a lead off of that to the new switch, and the old wire from the fixture to the other pole of the switch. Still a pretty lovely wiring job- and you can expect many more throughout the house, most likely. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2008 21:29
|
|
|
kapalama posted:(First thank you again.) So what you assume is that the red and the black down next to each other are there as a junction point. So if the switch is off the wires those screws should be continuous, right? And essentially the two blacks on the opposite ends of the switch are the ones that are being connected by the switch? Exactly. Welcome to Hillbilly Home Ownership 101: Unfucking Old Work
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2008 22:35
|
|
|
Yeah, the flapper valve chain is really easy to adjust. Go ahead and pop the tank lid off and poke around in there, the modern flush toilet is a genius in its simplicity.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2008 01:46
|
|
|
Schizoguy posted:That's what I do each time it happens, but it happens pretty often. There's probably some other underlying problem, but in the meantime, I was looking for a more permanent solution. It's probably the flapper valve itself, scale and crud build up on them and they don't close properly or swing easily. They're cheap, why don't you go down to Lowes and get a new one (like, $2)? Another thing you can do is tie a large fishing weight to the flapper at the same place the chain attaches, but it may close off before the tank empties and you'll get a lousy flush.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2008 14:51
|
|
|
I managed to reuse a lot of trim at our old house. Just be really gentle as you pry it up, use a wide prybar, and work slowly getting it a little way out the whole way down, then a little more, the whole way down. It'll keep it from cracking and splitting. I would usually put a little number on the backside and a little number on the wall (where it'll be hidden), so I could match the pieces back up to their places. If a nail pulls through, just fill it in with wood putty and stain/paint to match. Tap the nails out from the backside, gently, and then use new nails (the same size) to reinstall it. It'll save you a ton of money because that poo poo's expensive. Since you'll be reinstalling it a tiny bit higher than before, the new holes will be fresh, but lined up perfectly on the studs (provided you put the same pieces back in the same places).
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2008 03:10
|
|
|
El Kabong posted:I've got some recessed bathroom ceiling lights that are missing several round pieces of glass about 5 3/8in in diameter. I called around, and to get replacements cut it's going to cost me about $20 a pop, which is more than I want to pay given the free time I have available right now to figure out an alternative. Dude, cutting circles in glass is damned near impossible without a compass tool, and doubly so if you've never cut glass before. Glass is a bitch to learn to cut. So why not get some Plexiglas from Lowes, draw you circles on it, and cut it with a scroll saw? Plexy doesn't melt until 265F, so you should be okay provided you're not using anything more than a 60 watt bulb. If you're using those fluorescent bulbs, you're totally good to go. kapalama posted:This is just a general question. There is a bit to attach to my toilet innards that stops the toilet from re-filling up if the water level drops. I guess it's there to keep the toilet from running continuously if there's a leak. But I cannot seem to get it to work reliably. Has anyone gotten this to work?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2008 14:32
|
|
|
Death Pants posted:So the fan on my outside condenser unit for the A/C has decided to stop turning on. The capacitor is good and the blades spin freely. I assume that the motor has burned out, but I'm not sure exactly how to test that. Make sure the relay's not hosed, too. Much cheaper to fix if it is. Basically, throw a multimeter on the leads directly to the motor- if they're not getting juice, it's relay issue.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2008 01:00
|
|
|
SynMoo posted:His end result was replacing the relay/board combo. He has the same initial relay/board combo that I do and replaced it with the same relay/board combo that I plan to. I had the same damned problem. And yep, replacing the relay fixed it. The home inspector had said, "Oh it's probably wired that way to keep air constantly circulating". Which is true, it kept the airflow circulating; it also kept my electric meter circulating. Trane is lovely, they take a basic relay and slap their proprietary circuit board on it and charge a fortune. You're lucky you got away so cheap.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2008 12:48
|
|
|
Wapp posted:I live in a small two-story town house. I want to put tile on the floors in the two small bathrooms upstairs. I've done a lot of research on tiling and I'm confident I know what I need to do except for where the tile meets the bathtub, door, and vanity. I can't seem to find anything online that explains these parts of the job. The tub is the standard wall-to-wall fiberglass type. The vanity is trimmed with quarter-round. The room on the other side of the door is carpeted. Thanks for any help. You pull the vanity up and put the tile underneath it. As well as the toilet (replace the wax ring, please don't try to reuse it, you'll just get pissed and have a lovely day). As for the tub, you take the tile as close to it as you can get, and then grout the remaining half inch or so. For the door, you have to put a transition edge between the hallway and the tile. I assume it's a carpeted hallway, so talk to the guy at Lowes or wherever and get a carpet to tile transition...thinger. It's basically just a piece of wood or metal that holds down the carpet edge on one side and makes a nice straight line for you to grout up to on the other. Also, do not forget to seal the grout. If you skimp on this, you'll be hating life in a few years when it's all nasty, mildewy, and filthy looking.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 18, 2008 16:27
|
|
|
And be damned careful, there's some bigass capacitors in there...and if you try loving with it while the thing is plugged in, bear in mind that they don't call them 'flyback' transformers for nothing. Also, even if it is hosed, there's a lot of neat components you can salvage out of there.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2008 16:43
|
|
|
Wapp posted:Thanks for the info, Sapper. One more thing- save yourself some misery and spend the cash on a tile-cutting table saw. They're $80-$100, but compared to the cash you'll save when you don't break 50 tiles trying to cut them with a damned coping saw cutter, sabre-saw tile blade, or score & split type, it's nothing. Alternatively, you could figure out all the measurements beforehand and the store will cut them for free when you buy them, but...best laid plans and all that. Be aware that the tablesaw-style tile cutters are water cooled- you fill the reservoir up before you start, and that water will go everywhere- nicely dyed with the 'sawdust' from the tiles you're cutting. So do the cutting outside, on something you can rinse. And don't let your plug lay in the water.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2008 14:52
|
|
|
Well...one way would be to basically burn brush and dry branches all over the yard, burning off any weeds and killing any seeds/roots/etc in the soil, then immediately (like, as soon as the ground is cool) spreading seed and laying down hay. Of course, this'll kill off worms and grubs as well. Also, probably not a good idea to do this near your house, and local ordinances might prohibit it. I used that method successfully at my old house where the white trash had spilled/dumped oil and gasoline into the ground, making dead patches where even weeds wouldn't grow, and other places where fuckin' thorns had an extensive root system. But it's risky. You could always try mowing the lawn really close, then planting a lot of fast-growing grass seed- the grass will choke the weeds somewhat. You could also lay black plastic down and let the summer sun bake the soil underneath for a few weeks- try to do it when the soil is already really dry, like summer drought weather. Lawns are actually pretty stupid and environmentally wasteful, if you really just don't want a weed field you could plant trees and make most of your lot wooded- it'd cut down on heating and cooling costs, and you'll never have to rake leaves. Plus you'd get lots of cute furry woodland critters to watch/feed/shoot. I'd do it to my back lot if it wasn't for the fact my property abuts other people's yards on all sides, and it'd be dickheaded on my part, even if the HOA permits it (which I don't think they've made a rule about that, they're pretty chill.) By the way, Roundup probably wouldn't do it anyway, weeds tend to be pretty damned tough, and they probably have well established root systems. Snap a coupla shots, let's see what you're dealing with.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2008 04:27
|
|
|
Haikeeba! posted:I use it to kill ... wandering jew, both of which are pretty indestructible to normal herbicides. You know who else used special chemicals to kill wandering Jews? That's right. I wonder how many of those are available over here in the US- whiny enviroweenies and all. I'll have to take a look online. That's a damned useful list, though, thanks. Fire is more fun, though 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2008 16:25
|
|
|
You can go to a bargain outlet like Ollies or whatever and get dozens of thick volumes for pennies. Not much changes in home repair, not quickly anyway. You could get a good, general DIY book and then a few smaller, specific tomes like siding, plumbing, etc. Better Homes and Gardens(I think) puts out some pretty good books. So does Black&Decker.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2008 12:59
|
|
|
Shouldn't be anything dangerous in there. There shouldn't be any high voltage anything unless the damned thing has a TV built into it.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2008 03:33
|
|
|
If you want a clear case, you can use a 2 part acrylic mix in a mold to make the difficult parts. Or get a large, thin sheet of plexy and heat it with a heat gun to bend it. If you search the web, you can find plans for building your own vacuum forming equipment. You could use that for any seriously custom parts.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2008 13:01
|
|
|
Triangulum posted:The output jack on my bass fell out and I was wondering if this is one of those things I can fix myself or if I need to take it in and get the jack replaced. If it needs to be taken in for repairs, about how much does this run? The whole jack, or just the nut holding it on? As long as you can solder the wires back on, shove a little Gorilla Glue into the screw holes and then screw it back in. Get us a picture of the damage, we'll square you away. And when you say, "Fell out"...what the hell?
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2008 17:38
|
|
|
It's really just an overgrown headphone jack, so it probably was just the nut. I'll have to wait to see pictures, but you'll probably just have to unscrew the panel in the back of the bass and push the jack back through the hole, then thread the nut back on and tighten it down. It's happened to my guitar a few times.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2008 20:53
|
|
|
Triangulum posted:Alright, I can't find the charger for my camera for the life of me. Basically where the jack used to be is just an open hole in the faceplate now. My bass seems to be missing all the external components of the output jack. Yup, you probably just lost the nut off of the jack. Look around and see if you can find it. Is the metal plate that is screwed to the body still there, with just an empty hole? Did it even have a metal plate to start with? All you have to do is find the nut, open the access panel of the bass, push the jack back out the hole and tighten the nut down on it. Put a little clear fingernail polish on the threads right before you screw the nut back down- it'll act as Thread-Lock.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2008 16:59
|
|
|
I wouldn't spend the bucks on professional grade tools. I've been using a Craftsman drill, a Black&Decker circular saw and Radial Arm Saw, a no-name jigsaw, and some of the finest socket sets Great Neck and Popular Mechanics have to offer. I've been using some of those tools upwards of 15 years. I haven't had many casualties, except for stripping out the drive gear in the drill (replaced with a better model for free(  Craftsman)) from driving a fuckton of concrete screws. I've used them at home, on the job, and in the Army; hell, my socket sets have been in more countries than most goons.If you were a professional contractor, using these tools day in and day out, for more than 500 hours a year, I'd say spend the cash on Makita and DeWalt. But for right now, just get the cheapies, Black and Decker is a really good brand. Most of the people you see with Dewalt, Snap-on, and Makita poo poo sitting in their home garage tend to be, well, idiots, more interested in having "The Best" rather than, you know, actually knowing what to do with the damned things. Get some Walmart/Sears brand tools, learn how to use them, then decide if you need better tools. And Snap-on will always be overpriced crap. Sapper fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 13, 2008 |
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2008 21:05
|
|
|
Lawn tractor battery? Hell, you can get a cheap car battery for about $40. Try going to a junkyard and getting one from a wreck.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2008 02:06
|
|
|
I assume you're pulled the shower head off? If you've pulled the valve stems, you could try to stuff stiff wire in there to break up the clump. Next time, use white bread. 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2008 04:53
|
|
|
Ballz posted:No advice for my thermostat replacement? Is that something that would probably warrant its own thread? I didn't post it in the electronics thread, because it seems to be like a relatively simple issue unless you're a total tard when it comes to electricity (like me). EDIT: No, you didn't read the manual. Section 1: This thermostat is not compatible with heat pumps or multistage systems You need to take it back and get one compatible with a heat pump system. Which is what you have. Sorry to be a dick, but you'll save yourself a lot of time, heartache and money if you always read the manual before opening your toolbox. This was a really easy mistake to make, especially since heat pump thermostats are a bit more expensive than others (but heat pumps are more efficient, so you save money in the long run). At least you were smart enough to not just try plugging and praying 
Sapper fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Aug 12, 2008 |
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2008 15:37
|
|
|
Ballz posted:I read the manual, but I didn't know what a heat pump system is or that I even had it. I just figured the big thing to keep in mind was if it was a gas or electric system. You'll pick up stuff as you go along, and in a few years you'll be the person everyone asks for advice. Sorry to be crabby, I got a call from a relative as I was going out the door to work this morning wanting to know if I could come hook their home stereo up this evening. "Did it come with a manual?" "Yes?" "Did you read it?" "No, I thou-*click*" I'm sure I'll be catching hell from my mommy tonight for that.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2008 23:50
|
|
|
Definitely stuff a rag in there- there's no P-trap in the toilet downpipe, all that is in the toilet itself (which he blew up). You don't want noxious, stankin' rear end sewer gases flooding into your house (The ones that you don't smell are the ones that can kill you. And explode. Taking a shower shouldn't cause a backup or anything, though. But still, block that pipe off. And for the love of God, use a new wax ring when you replace the shitter.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2008 05:01
|
|
|
kapalama posted:I see these new fangled-ish rings that are not made of wax. ANy experience with them? Nope, never used them. I imagine anything that is squishy enough to make a water-tight seal would work, though. I doubt they'd spend lots of time and money developing a new product to replace a simple $1 wax ring if it didn't work, though. Maybe I'm too optimistic.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2008 14:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:45 |
|
|
How the gently caress did I doublepost a minute apart? Maybe the database is loving up again.
Sapper fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Aug 14, 2008 |
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2008 14:09
|
|