Pro Handyman Blog

If you have a ceiling fan that operates using a remote, and it no longer operates, there are a few things to check.

The very first thing to check would be the power. Make sure that a breaker hasn’t tripped off . Also make sure that someone hasn’t pulled the pull chains at the fan, essentially turning them off. This will happen if someone, who is not aware the fans operate by remote enters the room and assumes the chain will turn the fan on. Then check the battery in the remote. Some remotes are hand-held and some are mounted in the wall. Each style has a door that slides off to allow you access to the battery. The battery will be a 9-volt that just pulls out from the terminals.

If replacing the battery doesn’t work, it’s time to investigate the remote itself. It may be that the remote is broken and needs to be replaced, or that a wire has become disconnected. You will need to get access to the receiver at the top of the fan. Loosen the cover and slide it down. You will see the receiver inside the ceiling fan’s mounting bracket. Check to see if any wires are loose. If they are, reconnect them. Also check the dipswitches at both the receiver and the remote. The dipswitches must have the same positions at both the receiver and remote. It would be unusual if the positions didn’t match, particularly if the ceiling fan was working before, but it may be that someone was tinkering with the remote. You may end up replacing the remote and receiver.

If you have a leaking sprinkler valve, you may be able to pull off a handyman quick fix, if the leak is in the right spot. A sprinkler valve is made up of two halves, a top and a bottom. If the damage to the valve, usually a small crack, is in the bottom half of the valve, you will have to cut out the valve and replace it. If the damage is in the upper half, you can buy an identical valve and just replace the upper half of the valve. The benefit with this method is that you don’t have to cut out the valve and splice a new one in. This saves a lot of aggravation because working in a sprinkler box, a foot below ground, is very tight quarters which sometimes leads to removing all of the valves just for access.

By being able to replace just the upper half you can gain access without cutting out the valve.

Turn off the water to the sprinkler system and loosen the bleed screw to remove the water pressure. Then remove the screws that hold the top half to the lower half. You will also need to remove the wire nuts that hold the sprinkler valve wires to the timer wires. Pull off the top with the rubber diaphragm and replace the parts from the new valve top onto the old valve bottom. Tighten the screws with uniform pressure and then reattach the wires back together. Turn the water back on and check for leaks, then run through the timer to make sure everything functions.

If you live in an association, at some point you will get a letter saying you have to paint your gate. In iron gate is a little different than a wood gate in that there is a lot of open space. I wouldn’t want to use a brush to paint it, nor would I want to break out the airless sprayer, but a spray can works well.

The problem is that most of the paint that you spray will end up being spraying on everything beyond the gate with only a small amount of paint contacting the gate. There isn’t a lot you can do about that though, but you can protect the area behind the gate from getting paint on it.

Cut a piece of cardboard to fit your needs. I find that two feet by two feet seems to work well. You can hold the cardboard behind the gate as you spray paint. The cardboard will get paint on it rather that the house or landscaping behind it.

Use light passes rather than one heavy pass of paint. Follow the bars of the gate with successive passes until you get a good coat of paint on it. Your finger will get fatigued by continually pressing down on the button, so you might consider switching fingers. They make a trigger that snaps on to the top of a spray can, but I don’t much care for them as the ones I’ve used break easily.

If you are working on a carpentry project, you might consider adding a piece of glass to the top. A glass table top not only will protect the piece, but can also hide imperfections. This works especially well for tabletops.

A glass shop will have plenty of suggestions for you. The larger the piece of glass the thicker it needs to be. A glass shop will have thicknesses and different styles for you to choose from. Thicker glass is better, but it is also heavier, so make sure the piece will support the extra weight. They will cut the glass to your needs, so measure the surface carefully and bring in your measurements. If you have a decorative edge on your piece, use the measurements from the very top of the surface. You don’t want any glass to be hanging over the surface.

Have the glass shop treat the edges of the glass. This will make it so the edges won’t cut anyone and be attractive as well.

Lastly, before you set the glass on your project, clean it and let the glass thoroughly dry. You don’t want to set damp glass on top of wood since it may smudge, and trap moisture on top of the wood.

A pull chain light fixture is a no frills light fixture. It’s cheap and is easy to install. You usually find these in an attic or a utility room. Pull the chain to turn it on, and pull the chain to turn it off.

As you might guess, since they are cheap, they don’t stand up to much abuse. If you pull the chain too hard, it may come right out of the fixture. The fixtures come in plastic or porcelain, but I would buy the porcelain as it will hold up a little better.

Make sure the power is off and loosen the two screws that hold the fixture to the box and remove the light fixture. Remove the wires from the fixture by loosening the terminal screws and grab the new fixture. The new fixture will be wired the same way as the old fixture. The black hot wire gets secured to the brass terminal screw and the white neutral wire gets secured to the silver terminal screw. Wrap the wires clockwise around the screw terminals and tighten firmly. If you have a ground screw terminal, attach the green or bare copper wire to it, although some of these fixtures don’t have a ground screw.

Place the fixture up to the box and secure it with the two screws and then turn the power back on.

Repairing a crack in your plumbing is not a difficult thing, but getting access to it might be. Copper piping is tough. Usually, when you get a crack in a length of it, mother nature has had something to do with it, such as freezing pipes.

To repair a crack in a copper pipe, you will need to cut out the damaged area. You may not need to cut it completely out if the pipe is still perfectly round, but this is seldom the case. When water freezes, it will expand against the pipe walls and the pipe will not be round where the break occurred. So you will likely have to cut out the damaged section, which will amount to a few inches.

You will be left with a gap in the piping. You can repair this gap using a repair coupling. The repair coupling comes in different lengths to accommodate different sized areas of damage. You will need to clean and flux each mating surface before you apply the torch to heat it up. Here is an article on how to solder copper pipes.

You will clean the outside of the copper pipe’s ends that you previously cut, as well as the inside ends of the repair coupling. Use emory cloth for the outside of the pipe and a wire brush for the inside. You want the cleaned surfaces to shine line a new penny. Then you can flux and solder the repair.

If you are installing a swamp cooler you will need to connect water to it. Mobile swamp coolers have a hose thread that you simply connect a garden hose to. For larger non-mobile coolers, you will have to run a water line to it.

You can buy a valve that screws onto your standard hose faucet. This valve is designed just for this purpose. It has a female threaded fitting built into the side so that you can add a needle valve to supply the water to your swamp cooler. It’s a good idea to have an anti-siphon device connected as well.

Screw on the valve to the hose bib and wrap the threads of the needle valve with Teflon tape. Screw the needle valve into the threaded port until snug. Connect either a copper line or a poly tube to the needle valve using a ¼” nut, ferrule and brass insert. Tighten that until snug. Roll out the water line to the swamp cooler. It’s probably best to keep the line as close to the base of the house as possible.

Run the line into the swamp cooler and connect it to the float valve, again using the insert, ferrule and nut. Turn on the hose faucet to supply water to the swamp cooler valve and then open the needle valve. You should have water flowing to the swamp cooler. Adjust the float in the swamp cooler so that the water is between 2 ½” to 3” deep.

One of the handyman projects we get called on to complete is repairing house number signs. In many communities, homeowner associations have consistent address signs on homes that are illuminated. Occasionally, these will get damaged and need to be replaced.

The address signs are basically small light fixtures with a plastic cover on them. There is a single bulb that illumines the plastic cover. Vinyl numbers are placed on the cover which are backlit by the bulb. Whether it’s the wind or neighborhood kids, these covers will fall and break. If you don’t replace it soon, you will likely get a letter from your friendly HOA saying you need to fix it quickly.

I would first call the HOA and see if they can direct you to a supplier of these covers. Although you can buy generic covers and numbers at a home center, you want to make sure it matches the neighboring houses. If you install a new cover and numbers that are different than your neighbors, you will probably get a letter from your HOA saying that you are in violation of your community’s standards, etc. So if you can get the information directly from the HOA, you will be better off.

If you are lucky enough to find the correct parts at a home center, it is nothing more that peeling off the correct address numbers and sticking them onto the cover. Then just snap the cover onto the base.

Depending upon what kind of carpentry project you are doing, you may not want the heads of the screws to be visible. If you are installing garage shelving, it probably doesn’t matter if the screw heads are visible. If you are installing shelving inside the house, it’s probably a good idea to hide the screw heads. It is much more attractive.

The way to do this is to use a countersinking drill bit. When you pre-drill the hole for the screw, this bit has a small burr that cuts a larger hole for the head of the screw to enter. You can cut it shallow or deep to hide the screw head. Once you use the counter sinking bit, you install the screw and then you can add a plug to cover the hole. If you are painting the shelving, you can use a plug made from any wood scrap laying around. If you are going to stain and varnish the finish, try to use a plug from the same species of wood with a similar grain pattern. I know this sounds picky, but the goal here is to make the fastener and the plug disappear.

You can cut your own plugs with a plug cutting bit. That means you get to choose the material from where you will cut the plug. This is a huge benefit when you are trying to match the grain. Once you have the plug cut, you can use a small amount of glue to secure it.