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?