The Unsure Handyman

Side step progress

2011-05-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Dad came by on my day off and we finished putting the decking on. I need about 18' of Evergrain to finish it off. Looks like I need to call Trendel Lumber again.

Framing is done?

2011-05-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

We'll see. I didn't write down any of my "calculations". I'll order the Evergrain Redwood decking tomorrow. I still have some facia left from the deck.

New side door steps

2011-05-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

I didn't get the before pictures, but the old steps needed to go. They had been chewed up by the dog and were put up half assed by the contractor.

I'll replace the whole thing and use Evergrain decking to match our new deck.

Slow draining bathroom sink

2010-06-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

I have a problem sink. Our master bathroom sink is always causing me fits. Usually it is a foul smell that just shows up randomly. I've been told that it is either a dried up P trap, or something foul in the overflow tube in the sink. Either way, that is not the issue right now.

Every so often it drains slow. Usually because I trimmed my sideburns or over my ears after clipping my hair, and some of it goes in the drain. Sometimes it is just a buildup of my wife's hair from making herself beautiful every morning. One time I took the P trap off to find a half moon sliver of soap/toothpaste/scum/calcium had been growing in the bottom.

Well a couple weeks ago after I had washed some hair clippings (not a lot either, I'm not a total idiot) down the drain, it started draining really slow. I mean not like minutes to drain, but slow enough that you couldn't leave the water running for very long. When you were brushing your teeth your toothpaste spit would just float around, pretty nasty.

So I took the trap off, and it was surprisingly clean. I pulled the drain plug out and UGGGHHH. Super nasty! I cleaned if off and using a hanger scraped the top portion of the drain itself clean. After that it was flowing perfectly. Until a couple days ago.

Slow draining once again and no real idea why. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and when I figure out what is causing this (probably later tonight) I'll post it. But I need to know how to really prevent this altogether! Garbage disposal in the bathroom??? They need to make a toilet with one of those, then we wouldn't need plungers.

Honesty during March Madness

2010-03-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

This was sent to me from a coworker. This is from another person here (I removed the last names to protect the innocent). It is nice that some people are afraid to be honest about why they are unable to work well during March Madness. Click the picture to see it full size.

Sink update

2009-10-27T05:39:00.001-07:00

I got this back from Thermocast support. I emailed them yesterday evening. Very prompt!

"Thank you for your e-mail. To restore the luster to your sink we recommend using just plain bleach and water or Clorox cleanup. Then follow up with a liquid based auto polish such as turtle wax, Maguire's cleaner wax or an actual auto "rubbing/buffing" compound. Do not use soft scrub, comet, ajax etc.. it will ruin the finish, if the above remedies do not suffice please contact us back."

I'll try it today.

Thermocast sink

2009-10-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

We bought our house new about 4.5 years ago. All the appliances are black, but the kitchen sink was the shallow contractor grade steel one. So we bought a nice Thermocast black sink from Home Depot. Within a few weeks the glossy shine was gone on the interior portion of the sink. The upper surfaces are still pretty but the inside is dull, and looks like the polish has rubbed off. Anybody know what I can do to remedy this?

Hanging a wreath on exterior stone.

2009-10-03T14:10:00.001-07:00

We have stone that goes around our front door. I'm not sure how thick it is. Each fall my wife asks me to hang a wreath on it and each year I rig something up with wire or cables and some hooks. I'm looking for a more permanent option. Perhaps a small hole on the top of a stone that I can put a pin in, or an anchor that I can put in a screw to hang the wreath from. Then when we take it down, I can pull the pin or screw out and the whole is not noticeable (because it is on the top of a stone above eye level).

Is this a good idea, or would the risk of breaking the stone be too great? Should I drill into the mortar instead?

Toilet Flappers

2009-09-13T20:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I've had 3 running toilets for a couple of months. They don't run constantly, I just notice them filling the tanks up from time to time. So I took a closer look at the one in our basement and noticed that there was a little drip that was pretty constant into the bowl. This mean that the flapper wasn't getting a good seal.

So I turned off the water and flushed the toilet to drain the tank. Then I took a paper towel and cleaned off the bottom side of the flapper and the hole in the tank that it covers (I'm not sure what the technical term is). I figured that maybe it was just some sort of buildup that had caused the failing seal. Then I turned the water back on and let it fill. No more drip! For about a day. Time to replace the flapper.

So there are about 5 different flappers at my nearby hardware store and the same number at Walmart. I chose one in the middle, not the cheapest, and not the $10 ones either. There are some that are for specific toilets, but I chose a universal fit. Installation was simple, just cut off the rubber ring that is for toilets with brass drain tubes and hook the new flapper on. I then had to hook the "chain" which was rubber on this one, to the flush lever and we are back in business. No more leak! However, it turns out that when I was putting the toilet back together, I didn't get the float screwed back on very well and when somebody flushed one day it fell off. That meant that the toilet WOULD run constantly. It just kept draining down the tube.

Since then I bought 2 more flappers, this time from Home Depot. I bought a little bit fancier models this time, $6 each. These have some sort of float on them to adjust the amount of water that is used during each flush. They also are made from some material that resists chlorine and other common chemicals that would break down rubber. I don't think it was the chemicals that caused the original ones to fail. When I finally got the old one off, I could see that it just wasn't flat anymore. Somehow it had warped a little, and I guess the water pressure wasn't enough to keep a good seal. I'll let you know in about 4 years if these are any better than the originals.

New Blog!

2009-09-13T20:29:00.001-07:00

This is a brand new blog for me. I have several others, but this one is more general. Here I will discuss my various projects around our house. I'll talk about things I've already finished. Stuff that I'm still in the middle of (the deck). And projects I've only starting thinking about. I welcome any comments and will try to get pictures up when I can.