repairing things

both of my exterior door frames are trapezoids

hwat

there is a gap above the door because the top of the frame is not quite horizontal

that is much less bonkers than i hoped it would be

I'm now almost into a week with a knackered boiler but i've remembered and relearned that a cooker is also central heating!

Is it possible I’ve got 1” drywall in my ca 1950 Southern California house? Trying to patch holes and the existing drywall seems extremely thick. I thought 1/2 or 5/8” was standard? Could it be two 1/2” sheets? This is ceiling and interior wall.

Never heard of 1" drywall, but with older houses, anything goes. Our house is from 1928 and when we gutted our bathroom years ago, you could see the label on the back of the adjoining walls and it had a label with the year 1928. Our contractor could not believe there was drywall that old.

I think it would be unusual for two sheets to be used back to back and that would be easy to figure out.

i was getting a roof resealed today but now the roofer guys say the wood underneath is soft and they have to entirely redo the roof :(

Oh no. Get a second opinion! We have two quotes for some roof repairs, one over 1700, one less than 600. It's a small flat section in front of a recessed dormer window, the second guy says it should be done with scaffolding but he can do it without... might have to get a third quote.

yeah we will. i’m almost more skeptical of low estimates than high. in any case i feel very much like i have zero leverage or knowledge to evaluate what’s been proposed

i fixed the cold tap and my bf's laptop

that little red/blue pvc tab on top of the tap can be a bugger to remove!

oh it was FAR more dramatic than that

you got the adjustable spanner of mass destruction out?

no

but i did try to change the cartridge without turning off the water at the mains (i did it with the other one on the other side but the pressure was much lower) as i thought the mains were under the bath and would require cutting a siliconed in panel out and i was hoping to avoid it.

lol nothing worse than water spurting everywhere combined with panic. It might have the potential to kill you 18 times, but at least electric current stays in the copper wire and behaves itself. Water spurting everywhere is just chaos!

and siliconed bath panels are bastards. Anything mechanical under a bath should be accessible via a panel that can be screwed on/off ffs

oh its just ridiculous!

but i did try to change the cartridge without turning off the water at the mains (i did it with the other one on the other side but the pressure was much lower) as i thought the mains were under the bath and would require cutting a siliconed in panel out and i was hoping to avoid it.

― plax (ico), Wednesday, December 8, 2021 5:09 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yikes, wet and wild.

We had to have a cartridge replaced in our shower (which is a bitch because of how the screws on the shower body have to be screwed in). The plumber recently did it wrong and it failed several days later when my wife turned the shower on. Luckily she hadn't stepped in yet, because it blew the entire handle and cartridge off the body and a firehose of scalding hot water shot everywhere. I had to fly down to the basement to shut off the main.

Lol dname

you know how people justify the high cost of Dualit toasters by telling you that they're easily repairable? well, the timer broke on our 20 y/o one the other day; I ordered a new part for £11, watched a video on youtube, and did the whole job in five miinutes.

i have a dualit and my heart rose in my throat after your first sentence.

Ya i dont even have one but was very shook by that intro

oh i hate my dualit toaster, literally the worst toaster i've ever had

I'm always planning on getting something else but i only do toast on the grill bc of it

classic plax kitchen utensil opinion, how does he do it

sounds too John Lewis for me as well, not the good John Lewis, the bebop neoclassicist with the golden fingers from the MJQ either. The cunt who sells toasters for 200 quid!

they are insanely expensive. but i went through three toasters in like… six or seven years? and was like, this is ridiculous.

american toasters are all massive and i hate them and miss £14.99 plastic argos toasters every day, but this is nice ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y

they mangle yr bread

like they look nice-ish but then they just pincer your toast to the side of the toaster when its finished

my £20-30 russell hobbs toaster is nearly 3 years old now and still going strong, and doesn't mess with my toast.

no honestly i used to have a tesco value one before and i wish i'd just bought another one after that died

i do like my fancy kettle though

it is true that fragile stuff does not fare well in a dualit. it will get mashed. i use tongs to get that stuff out.

Lads what’s the point of having an expensive toaster though

Heh. One of my neighbors asked my how everybody's favorite local watering hole prepared food. I asked another guy and he told me "I think they have a small toaster oven behind the bar." Then I was in there on Tuesday and saw what looked like a pretty extensive piece of equipment with the brand name Merrychef and later the owner proceeded to tell me all about it.

My bf is always saying we should get a little table toaster like they have in 1930s movies

replaced the 2 igniters in our old gas oven. Previously took 40 minutes to reach 300F. Now takes 8.5 minutes.

Lubricated the street door cos I'd noticed it was sticking again. Seems rlike it's not getting done apart from by me. Surprised it's lasted a yearand a bit if so.& idiot next door is still going to the mindless bother of lining up latch handle so it looks like door locked when it isn't. Noticed that as soon as they started but douche anyway.

Finally fixed laser lens on cd player last week. Found out how to remove case and wiped out the cradles. Plugged in the player and saw how a cd was picked up for play. Tried using a disc cleaner but it read as No Disc then wound up taking a qtip with isopropyl alcohol and wiping the lens then clearing off excess with the other end of the stick cotton wool.
Nothing much in the unit otherwise. Did think there might be 15 years worth of dust accumulating. But no, a couple of long hairs but otherwise no.
Did find laser has a shutter that I hadn't anticipated so maybe cleaning disc just not getting to it.
Anyway playing ok now. Not skipping discs either.
Biggest chore was getting to plug and moving the unit. Probably not been moved in a decade. Plus I had a pile of boxes trapping the plug that I had to move then put back.
So got music now.

patched the drywall holes mentioned upthread. followed recommendations here not to bother with patch kit 👍🏻

replaced flush valve in toilet (american toilets boy, i don't know).

What, caek, can’t handle all that freedom?

Flush valves, flappers, and freedom

my toilet was struggling with all the freedom sauce

I once discovered a dissolving tank-to-bowl gasket that caused the water to run depending on how the flapper hit. The toilet wasn't ancient, but the average lifetime for these things is 4-5 years! Who wants to troubleshoot their running toilet twice per decade?

I replaced gaskets and washers on one of the bolts holding the tank to the bowl and no longer find tiny mysterious pools at the base of the toilet … we won’t go into how many years it took to figure out the problem

the paperwork for the flush valve on my thing said "replace all toilet cistern fixtures and supply lines every five years" ?!

this is Big Plumbing's scam. Same goes for shower valves that start letting water leak through after a bit of deposit build up on the mechanism.

you’re also supposed to clean the filter on your dishwasher after every cycle lol