I was about to buy a whole new kitchen faucet for $80 at the big box store, but this guy at the Ace on 3rd Street stopped me and said 'hold up, let me see what's wrong.' He handed me a rubber O-ring from a drawer behind the counter and said, 'this is your problem 9 times out of 10.' Took me 10 minutes to swap it and the drip has been gone for a month now. Has anyone else had a hardware store clerk save them from buying something they didn't need?
I was grabbing some PVC cement for a leaky sprinkler line last Saturday and this older guy saw me staring at the fittings. He walked over and said 'son, you're overthinking it - just sand the inside of the coupler before you glue'. I shrugged it off at first but tried it on my repair and the thing hasn't dripped a drop in 5 days. He told me he learned that trick in 1978 working on a high rise in Chicago and never stopped doing it. Kinda made me wonder how many little tips like that get lost when folks retire. Has anyone else gotten advice from a stranger that ended up working way better than the manual said?
I picked up an old Craftsman table saw off Facebook Marketplace for like 40 bucks three weeks ago. The thing was covered in rust and the blade wouldn't even spin more than half a turn. I spent last Saturday taking it all apart, scrubbing everything with vinegar and a wire brush, and greasing up the moving parts. After I got it reassembled and put on a new blade I found at a garage sale for 5 bucks, it fired right up. The fence is still a little wonky but for the price I cannot complain. Has anyone else brought an old tool back from the dead like this? Any tips on straightening out a fence that seems to drift a bit on one side?
I kept patching it with hydraulic cement thinking that was enough but water found its way through anyway and ruined a whole wall of drywall and some storage bins - has anyone else had luck with epoxy injections for those hairline foundation cracks?
I kept stripping screws on a deck rebuild in my backyard. After ruining 12 screws I finally paid attention to the clutch setting. My buddy laughed and said 'you been running it wide open the whole time?' Now I dial it back to 5 or 6 for softwood and haven't snapped a single one since. Anybody else figure this out later than they'd like to admit?
I pulled apart my bathroom faucet in Toledo last month thinking it was just a worn out rubber washer. Turned out the whole cartridge was fused in from hard water buildup and I ended up having to cut the brass fitting out with a mini hacksaw. Has anyone else had a simple fix turn into a nightmare because of hidden corrosion?
I see people online all the time saying you need to use a wide 12 inch knife and do 3 thin coats to get a good drywall repair. I tried that and the first 4 patches I did had ridges and little bumps I couldn't sand out flat. So I went against what everyone said and used a 6 inch knife with one thicker coat of hot mud instead. On my 5th patch it was completely flush with the wall. No sanding needed and the texture blends right in. It saved me about 2 hours of work per patch. Has anyone else found that the common advice just doesn't work for your specific wall situation?
Was about to buy this big electric drain snake for a clogged kitchen pipe, but the old worker there stopped me. He said try a 25 foot manual one first and pour boiling water down after. Worked like a charm and my sink drains fast now. Anyone else get talked out of spending too much on a tool you didn't really need?
I've been doing my own paint matching for like 8 months now after getting tired of spending $45 a gallon at the hardware store. Last week I went through my receipts and added up what I would have paid versus what I spent on tint and base. Came out to $1,200 saved and that shocked me since I only do small rooms and furniture flips. Has anyone else tried mixing their own colors and actually tracked the savings?
Tbh I was always the guy who ripped out a whole faucet when it dripped, spent like $80 at Lowe's every time. Last week I rebuilt my kitchen faucet with a $12 cartridge and o-ring kit in 20 minutes, saved myself a ton of money and hassle. Anyone else find themselves googling repair kits before buying new now?
I was building a small shed roof in my backyard in Phoenix about 2 years ago. This retired carpenter walked by and said ditch the fancy angle finder, just use a speed square for the birds mouth cuts. I told him that thing was for basic cuts not rafters. After fighting with my digital angle finder for an hour and getting it wrong, I grabbed his speed square and had both rafters cut perfect in 20 minutes. Has anyone else found that old school methods actually beat modern tools for certain jobs?
I replaced the fill valve and flapper in my bathroom toilet back in April with a $9 kit from the hardware store. Now the flapper is already sticking and the fill valve whistles like a tea kettle. Anyone else have these knockoff kits crap out way faster than the OEM parts?
I used to just snake everything and move on. Now I gotta watch 4 YouTube videos, try baking soda and vinegar, then buy some fancy enzyme cleaner that does nothing, THEN finally snake it. What happened to just brute forcing it with a snake and calling it a day? Has anyone else noticed they overthink simple plumbing jobs now?
I've been fixing up my old house in Buffalo for about 18 months now. Last Saturday I counted the drywall patches I've done and it came to exactly 100. That's from water damage, old cable holes, and just bad work from before I moved in. I started off making huge messes with mud everywhere, but now I can do a small patch in under 15 minutes with no sanding needed. It surprised me because I never thought I'd get that good at something so tedious. Has anyone else hit a repair milestone that made them realize how far they've come?
Back when I first started fixing my own basement leaks about 5 years ago, I would just grab a tube of caulk and smear it over every hairline crack I saw. I thought it was good enough and it would hold for a while, but come spring rains I would find damp spots again in the same places. Then my buddy Mark, who does concrete work out in Denver, told me I was wasting my time and I needed to use low pressure epoxy injection kits. He said caulk only seals the surface while epoxy actually bonds the crack shut from inside. So last month when I found a 4 foot long crack in my foundation wall near the sump pump, I spent two full days drilling injection ports every 6 inches and mixing epoxy. It cost me about 60 bucks for the kit but the crack feels solid now and I am not worried about water sneaking through. Has anyone else made the switch from quick fix caulk to doing full epoxy repairs?