Today’s guest post comes from Jim in Clark’s Grove.
I admire Scott and Helen Nearing, who wrote about their self-reliant life style in a book called “Living the Good Life”. They built their own house and raised most of their own food. Like them, I raise some of my food, but unlike the Nearings, I didn’t build my home. And although I try to do most my own repairs, most of these projects do not go smoothly.
A recent effort at taking care of a broken light fixture is a good example of what can happen. One of the three fluorescent bulbs in a light fixture would not stay on. I tried to solve this problem by replacing the flickering bulb, and the new bulb stayed lit for a while and then the problem returned – an indication that the fault was in the fixture itself. The next step was to turn the light off and look for loose wires. I knew some of the wires might be loose because I am the person who installed this light in the first place. But after a long struggle, the bulb still would not stay on. I thought I might be dealing with a faulty ballast so I returned to the store where I bought the light to get a replacement. The clerk said he was sure that he was selling me the right part.
Taking the fixture apart the second time became more complicated because now none of bulbs would light up and I couldn’t tell if the switch was in the off or on position. I ended up making many trips to the basement to find the correct circuit breaker, and after finally re-taking thing apart I discovered that the replacement ballast did not look at all like the one in the original light. In short, it looked like I would need to cut a very large number of wires and might have a lot of trouble getting them properly reconnected.
I decided right then that I am much better at installing new things than I am at repairing old ones.
The new light looks great, and I’m feeling surprisingly self-reliant, though not in the sense the Nearings intended. I relied on myself to declare defeat when the repair job became too complicated, and I relied on myself to decide to go out and get a new fixture.
Many of my other attempts at doing my own repairs have resembled this less than smooth effort. I suspect the Nearings would not have been so quick to buy a new product to fix an old problem. They were intent on insulating their lives from the culture of consumption, and I was intent on not spending the rest of my life struggling with this one stubborn device.
What happens when you do your own repairs?
Trail Baboon 
oh Jim – thank you for your honest story of the light fixture! you tried! i do our fixes (often, not very well – so i too know there are probably loose wires and some night we’ll just burn down and it’ll be my fault 🙂 i don’t know much about how things work, but i am curious and i like to take things apart. and before i do i always tell myself to notice how things went together – and i think “oh, i’ll remember” and then i forget and so…..
should be fun reading today. thanks, Jim
OT: mn firefly – i’ve tried Yogi Bedtime tea a few times…. i’m hesitating, but i’m thinking it works! will buy more on saturday (got four bags from a friend last week – she is trying it also) thanks for the tip!
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Been off the trail for a while and just now seeing this, barb…
SO glad to hear you may be on your way to some good sleep!
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I was born to it Jim. Reduce, reuse, recycle repair, do without, then I married a City Girl.
And I did build my own house, or rather buy a cabin on Lake Superior and rebuild it into a house. Then redid much of our N. Kato House. Then did maintenance on our townhome. Now I tell the pretty young woman in the office and they send someone. I think I feel a trend.
But, Jim, I am much more impessserd with your contribution to the world, not the electrical part.
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I figured out the trend: my next domicile will be a self-contained pre-fab unit.
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With your wood working skills, Clyde, you probably could build that unit you are talking about. However, that might not be the kind of project you would enjoy doing and I think tim bought many of the tools you once had for doing that kind of work.
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My son-in-law has a full shop, including some of my old tools. If my hands are up to it, I plan to do so this summer. Assuming I live that long.
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i love the prefab concept and have looked into it more than the average person. the premise is so open. the 400 -800 sq ft model makes you think one way and the other option is to build a 3000 ft+ model with some sense that the details will be looked after in the factory rather than shortcut by joe hammer with a friday afternoon beer prioritized in front of the long term vision
http://www.contemporist.com/2008/05/02/the-huf-haus/
is a cool one
http://prefabcosm.com/company/
is all of the rest of them. the choices are tremendous. the opposite of building it yourself but what the heck.
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Well, Clyde, if you build your own I guess you will be your own pre-fabricator or something like that.
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I say I have to urn the rite to be buried.
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My Dad was an electrical engineer and was able to do all kinds wiring, including all the wiring in a new home. I wish that I had spent more time learning about wiring from him. Electric wiring is mostly a mystery to me, but I can do simple repairs.
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Mine was a sixth-grade drop-out who could do anything to whom I tried to pay as little attention as possible.
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i am the father of my children and they have a dad from mark twains quote. i just had this very discussion last night with the 12 year old about how old and foolinsh and stupid i am. this was the night after school conferences when i embarrased her by wearing olden days jeans and out of style shoes with a shirt that didn’t match the outfit, then i had the audacity to question the assistant teacher who had been asigned us for this semester conference. she looked at the french class page and siad oh an a in french. do you like french? yes oh do you think you will stick with it? yes good (end of french review for the semester) oh band you play oboe? do you like oboe? yes good do you think you will stick with it? yes good i had a friend who played oboe and got a full ride to st olaf because not many people play oboe. oh (end of band review) cience and math the same english was omitted because the teacher has been sick and didn’t get in the review page turned in ( guess how this teacher feels about late assignments) i am so glad to be out of school and my daughter is so glad to have her fool dad only messing with her on a rare occasion rather than like it was in leave it to beaver of donna reed or father knows best days . my dad couldn’t cjhange oil but he got such a kick out of all the stuff i learned how to do and was very supportive(even when it turned into a six hour job with three trips back to the store on a 20 dollar light fixture that should have been easy if i had not been daydreaming whole i hooked up the wires)
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At least three trips to rhe store for more parts during any repair job I try is standard practice for me.
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I feel your pain, Jim. Husband has read a lot about Scott and Helen Nearing and greatly admires their self-sufficiency.
Many years ago, here on the West Side, I was part of a handy-woman’s group who, under the tutelage of a female contractor, did all kinds of works on each others houses. I remember tuckpointing the chimney in one woman’s house, hanging sheetrock in another’s, building a new front porch on a rehabbed house, and changing the flush-valve assembly in my own toilet.
When husband and I redid the two bathrooms and kitchens in our house, I installed all the ceramic tile. The floor in our downstairs bathroom is quarry tile, beautiful but very hard to cut. It’s a floor that will outlast everything else in this old house because, by mistake, I mixed the adhesive that holds the tiles in place with the grout between the tiles. I discovered this halfway through the job when I realized that the grout was hardening much faster than it should have, and it was damn near impossible to clean off the tiles. I just hope and pray that we’ll never need a new toilet because we’ll have to tear up the whole floor to get it out. It would be far easier to just move to a retirement home!
I don’t mess with electricity, too scared that I’d electrocute myself. I leave that to husband (the electrical work, not electrocuting me!) who is very handy. I’d say almost too handy! When we have hired contractors to do work on our house in the past, he is never satisfied and could have done it better. The trouble with that is, that projects take forever to complete. Scheduled family visits seem to speed things up a bit, but since both our families live in Europe, years go by without the proper motivation or incentive.
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I am a little afraid of doing electrical repairs because I am afraid of getting a shock. When my Dad was begining his career he did maintanence on electric power plants. He told me about one very dangerous repair he did when they wouldn’t let him close down the plant to repair equipment that carried a very high current. He was able to make the repair, but he had to use some very thick layers of electrical insulation and hope that they would protect him.
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i hung with the motor heads in elementary school. they started with a 55 chevy and cut a hole in the floor to put a 4 on the floor in instead of the standard 3 speed. then we put on the big carberator and the cool muffler then painted it flat black and put a scoop on the hood after we cut a hole in the hood for the newer cooler carberator and headers were installed. then knuckles in the rear springs to jack up th back end an paint the stuff that emerged from ubder the bumber when we jacked up the back end. we painted it red and white and it was the coolest cart around. we thought it was harassment when the cops would pull us over but got the hang of being wisenheimers when they were questioning the driver because we new even though we were annoying them we were legal.
then i hung with a buddy who was a plaster patcher and sheetrock guy son of a plaster patch sheet rock guy and i helped him rebuild 4 or 5 houses he went through in our early 20’s and he helped me and i discovered anything you can envision you can do but the path is often nothing you imagined. beware of what lurks behind the wall you have decided to cut down and enjoy the challange of figuring out wher to reroute the wiring and heat ducts to. plumbing electrical carpentry fencing tile setter carper layer lawn installer what else is ther but to build you own house…. actually i did that once for a gut too about 5 miles down the road form steves place in cornacopia. we got 5 guys and a bunch of lumber and built a house without plans. just started nailing. it was very cool and tunded out well. the pitch of the roof changed, the size of the house changed the placement of windows and the boundrays of the deck were modified but it was nothing anyone but the guy who owned the house and his band of weekend warriors would ever know. it didn’t have electricity or running water so that made it easier. it was like building a big fort with brand new plywood instead of the bits and pieces we were accustomed to building forts out of . i love handy stuff ut i long for the days of the 55 chevy when you could opn the engine compartment and see engine and make sense of it all. i must be getting old
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i see big borther is watching the site today. if you put in a link it has to pass the inspection and is awaiting moderation i would guess until it is deemed as permissible. god… but i suppose if we ever got inbedded by a newbie with a virus it would be a drag. than dale would have to pull out his tool box and fix it.
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Usually one link gets a pass but two gets you to moderation purgatory. Did you try to post more than one?
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Is that like passing a kidney stone?
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I did ceramic tile countertops in the kitchen. Tile is a pretty satisfying project. After twenty-some years, though, the grout is stained pretty badly and should be replaced. I don’t like to think about what it would take to remove that old grout.
In more recent years I successfully patched a pinhole leak in a water pipe in the basement, and installed a tilt-out panel in front of the kitchen sink. Also replaced a garbage disposal, and a storm door, and switched out the link chain in the toilet tank with a ball chain (less likely to kink).
I’ve called in professionals to replace faucets. I don’t think I have the right sort of tools to remove the old faucet. And like PJ I don’t attempt anything electrical – any trip that has a potential to take a wrong turn and go down a path to electrocution is probably one that I should avoid.
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My inchoate novel is a fictionalized version of my childhood growing up the Nearing life. I must decide whether to drop the fiction, and tell the Nearing tale or drop the facts and make it fiction.
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Your own home repair successes are satisfying; someone else’s disasters don’t hurt either!
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Oh no! I think I might be one of the people in that video..
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With the oil boom out here comes a construction boom, and it is near impossible to find a repair person for small jobs. I just pray that everything keeps working as it should for a while, since I’ve heard it takes weeks to get an electrician or carpenter to make a service call. can do some home repairs, but when it comes to electrical or plumbing or installing floors or countertops I like to leave it to the experts. My husband is not a repairman at all.
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Greetings! I am not handy at all — if I even try, it is practically guaranteed to go wrong. Jim is fairly handy at most small repairs and he knows electronics and electricity, too. But big repairs or any upgrades or renovations he has absolutely no patience to deal with problems. He is such a nice guy, but when he gets frustrated (quickly and often), the cussing and swearing worse than a Marine starts up. I can’t stand to be around him when he’s working on any household project.
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My Dad was not one to do much cussing. I did hear him cuss when he was having trouble with a home repair. I might let some cuss words out myself when a repair is not going well.
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remember the christmas with the dad cussing at the furnace. one of my favorites. i am afraid i am guilty of being that dad
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Too many years of my life were spent with a perfectionist – an ultra-perfectionist, the perfectionist who sets the standard for all other perfectionists. That has made me way too timid to either fix or install anything.
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make it up on the next one is my dads mantra (we were putting fence poles.) my dad was sop (son of a perfectionist) and he went the other way.
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Seems a like a lot of wisdom has been down through those imperfect genes.
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passed down…I swear that’s what I typed!
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agreed
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i am willing to attempt some things, and others I am willing to pay someone else to do. Most things electrical fall into the latter category (though I have replaced a few switches and done some minor work – but after a good shock in college working on stage light cables, I am wary of things electrical). Replacing the inner workings of a toilet is something I have done enough that I’d rather not do it ever again. Building a swing/climber set and adding a clubhouse to it is clearly something I am capable of – I have evidence of that in my back yard (any Baboons are welcome to come test the swings and slides if you like). But please, please, please don’t look at the ceiling in my bathroom. While the basics of taping drywall and spackling plaster are not too far different than applying dutchman to a stage flat, it has become apparent to me that there is enough that is not the same that I should stick to dutchman (where only the actors and techies see it up close).
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Anything that involves a ceiling is a good thing to hire someone to take care of for you, unless you can figure a way to suspend the law of gravity temporarily.
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It’s a low ceiling, so I thought I’d give it a go…alas, I have a ceiling that looks a little like the surface of the moon. I think I shall do a two-tone paint job on it when I get around to changing the paint color in the bathroom – that should hide the multitude of sins I have visited upon that poor ceiling.
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Now gather around this won’t take long
“Talking Home Improvement” is the name of this song
Do it yourself, and many try, as soon the ink on the deed is dry
They can’t wait!
Catastrophic Carpentry is what I call it
That’s when you learn that wood is sold by the foot
And ends up costing an arm and a leg!
I don’t know much about it myself
But I work on my home like everyone else
I feel like a sheriff in an outlaw town, I’ve got a hammer on each hip when I walk around
Just like in the movies
“All right water heater, this house ain’t big enough for the both of us. Ok, chimney…draw!”
When I’ve got to fix something I’m not scared
I have this great big book on home repair
Cost me sixteen dollars and it weighs ten pounds
But I’m saving money, they told me down at the hardware store
They know me on sight down there
I save hundreds of dollars there every week!
I’ve got a power sander, a power saw, a power drill, and a whole lot more
And every time I plug them in
My electric meter starts to grin
Sure saves me time though
I can make twice as many mistakes
I am a home owner, and I do it over
Look out you carpenters!
On the weekends if I’m not too tired
I take a trip down to the lumber yard
Walk through the sheds, and down the aisles
Buy stuff for my domicile
There is a whole bunch of us down there
Bandages on our hands, blisters, all milling around
Trying to find someone who knows what they’re doing!
So if you miss me hanging around
You’ll find me up in my part of town
Sanding a floor, putting up a shelf
Learning to do it all myself –
With a two-by-four, and a four-by-ten
Tuck point, baseboard, weatherstripping
Screwdriver, sheet rock, bit and brace
Nail set, hammer, chisel, hacksaw blade
Zip Strip, miter box, pencil line
And the banker says it will all be mine,
In about 30 years time…Whoopie!
I ought to have the kitchen done by then!
Then I can go out and mow the lawn!
– Charlie Maguire (of course)
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I love this song – it makes me laugh every time I hear it. Have hummed it a few times while I am walking the aisles of my local hardware store…
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With bandages on your hands? And blisters?
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good tune.
i do it to the house and i do it to the car . with the car if you oops it its a couplehundred bucks to fix that 10 dollars i was trying to save. brakes though, if you have disc brakes, 20 bucks front 30 bucks back and they charge hundreds. its worth the dirty knuckles. oil changes seem easy but the 16.99 specials are actually cheaper i think , brakes never a better deal than doing it yourself
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There’s an investment you have to make in the tools first though.
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Yes, yes indeed. 🙂
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for brakes its pretty cheap. you already have the jack and the tire iron to ge the wheel off. you need an odd looking vice grips to pinch the cylinder back after the pads have been changed (thats where the brake fluid gets squeezed out) and the wrench/socket required to take off the brake thingy. on a 1-10 it is about a 2 1/2 level of difficulty. tools required about a 1 1/2
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