Teaching My Daughter To Fix A Puncture

SO, I'm always looking to teach the kids stuff - even if it's a subject I don't know too much about! 

I think it must be over 20 years since I fixed a puncture in a bike tyre!  

But my eldest daughter was dead keen to fix it with me, so I showed her how to take the wheels off, disconnect the brakes and get the tube out. 

Mechanical Thinking

 It's funny, my dad always sees me as non mechanical, mainly because I chose to work with wood rather than metal. But, looking back, I'm always fixing machines or maintaining them, changing batteries or topping stuff up, there is always something breaking and although I do phone dad for advice I quite often get things going again myself. 

My little old blue digger is a good case in this one, I've bled it numerous times when there has been problems with the fuel line, replaced pipes, and now dealt with the track coming off. 

Everything is Breaking!

 Argh, it's been one of those weeks! 

Frist the fridge freezer decides to pack up. We;ve had it just a little over 2 and a half years, guess how long the warranty is?

Yep, 2 years. It's a large American style fridge freezer and was about £700, a replacement cost we could do without! It wasn't totally broken though, things at the bottom were frozen (both sides) and at the top was about 17 degrees. 

I decided to do some googling of common faults and then set to work with a multimeter to see if I could find a fault. Luckily I did!

The fan at the back of the freezer used to make a noise at times, and no longer was. So when I tested it and no voltage could get through this bit I thought I'd found the problem. 

Unfortunately the part number on the fan didn't match with anything, so I had to order one that looked like the right part! Risky at 45 quid, as it could be throwing good money after bad. 

Luckily when it turned up, I changed out the old unit and by the end of the day the fridge freezer was acting normally again. I'd honestly be willing to pay a lot more for appliances if they'd just last a bit longer. Imagaine this going to landfill for the want of a fan!

Then I flooded my boys room out by leaving a valve open. A silly mistake and one I won't be making again! 

Thirdly my (very expensive) sander broke this week. Again I was annoyed, but could soon see what had broken luckily. I ordered the part at 1pm on Friday and had the new bit by 11AM on Saturday! Talk about good service!

This tool gets used a lot and has a hard life so I'm not mad that it broke in the first place, being used for hours at a time can't be easy on something like this. 

Replaced it and now working fine and will hopefully provide many more years of service! 

Anyone else been fixing things lately?

Fixing the Car When On Holiday

It had to happen whilst we were away, the car broke. Not seriously but the electronic boot catch stopped working, a bit annoying when you're on holiday and using the boot (trunk to the Americans) lots. Luckily it was just after I got all our luggage into the holiday house.

Now I've got no idea why this catch is electronic as the switch is just above the catch and a button would do the job just as well, but I guess a button has less chance of going wrong so a repair is less likely, or maybe I'm just being pessimistic. 

Boot stripped of covers

Googling the problem showed it to be a fairly common fault with two options an easy fix or a tricky one. I hoped for the first one and checked the fuses under the bonnet and in the boot. None had gone, this meant it was the harder fix. 

Switch at the bottom

I had to strip off all the covers to expose the switching mechanism. So I went and brought a set of screwdrivers and bits and set to work. I used a large flat head screwdriver to manually open the boot and then it didn't take me too long to have it all apart so I could see what the problem was. I think that the switch was pressing against the metal work of the boot and this caused it to stop working. So using my girls scissors I cut some plastic spacers out of a yoghurt pot and put them in before putting it all back together again. 

It worked fine then and we could get the pushchair out of the car when we wanted - a big deal when you're on holiday with two little ones! 

It's funny because the thought of taking the car to the garage to get it fixed didn't even cross my mind and I'm sure my wife didn't even think to suggest it! 

i guess I try to be as self reliant as possible on holiday as well as at home. (next time I'll take a few more tools with me though!)

Repairing The Dishwasher

Sorry to have another post so close together about fixing appliances, but during last week the dishwasher kept flashing with an error message. There's not many days I could live without our dishwasher - there's just nowhere to stack anything, as can be seen in my kitchen video.

 I did a quick search on the internet and found out the most likely cause of the problem. Emptied the fridge, lifted it down and then tipped the dishwasher over. I removed the underside cover and then traced back the pipe for the waste water to the pump.

I opened the pump up and found the little bit of plastic that had been causing the trouble!

  It must have slipped through the filters somehow. I put the machine back together and it all worked fine. I was pleased we didn't have to fork out for a new dishwasher and this one will last a little bit longer yet.

The Internet is such a a great resource if you're trying to do things yourself. Years ago you would have had to have phoned someone (if you knew anyone who knew about these type of things) or just open it up and hope that you could find the problem. At least I knew what I was looking for and had some instructions on how to fix it. I bet many would have called someone out to fix it or, due to the age of the machine, replaced it.

What was the last appliance you repaired? And did the internet help you fix it?

Combi Or Not?

What a great response from everyone yesterday! I couldn't believe what good replies I got to my questions. Thank you!

I had my thoughts about biomass confirmed and I think we'll be changing the boiler for another oil one, but situating it outside. Hopefully I'll be able to fit this with the help of a friend I've just done some work for, so plumbing costs should be minimal for the straight boiler swap, just the extra pipe work to take it outside (which I can do as well). 

I also need to concrete a little pad outside and install drainage under it for a downstairs loo before I do, so it will have to wait until it's dried up a bit first. In the mean time I'l do a little maintenance on the oil boiler to keep it running until then and use the wood burner as much as possible.

Ripping up floor boards in our last house to change the system to a combi.

 But that poses another question - to change to a Combi boiler or keep with the hot water tank system we've got? A combi heats the water as you need it for hot water, whereas the system we've currently got keeps stored hot water in a tank in the airing cupboard, indirectly heated by the water from the boiler.. I'm not sure I want to change the pipe work around to have the combi system as it means ripping up carpets and floor boards, although I'm sure a combi would be more efficient. We only use the hot water for washing our hands, baths for the children and washing up so having a tank might not be the best but if I start altering upstairs before Christmas it might cause a divorce! And it''s more work than I've currently got time for.

Thanks again for everyone's advice and experiences on the last post, I really enjoyed reading them and they all had some good advice in.

A Little Self Reliance

We woke up on Tuesday morning and all we could smell was heating oil. The boiler was leaking.

Not great.

I didn't have time to deal with it then so I turned everything off and went to work hoping there wouldn't be a massive oil slick when I got home.

When I got back I went about finding the problem, cleaning off all the oil and then letting it leak again. I found the problem straight away, someone in the past had used a hydrolic pipe to from the filter to the boiler instead of the proper braided pipe, this had worn through and oil was starting to weep onto the floor of the boiler.

My dad picked up a new pipe for me the next day and I fitted it and had it working again that night. The pipe cost £5.01 but I'm sure if I got a plumber out it would have been over £100 to have the problem sorted, with call out fees and the like.

I can never understand how people that can't do things for themselves afford to live, that said I'm lucky this was an easy problem and one I could manage.