Pro Handyman Blog

If you’ve ever installed window coverings, the hardware that comes with the kit is very poor. Use drywall screws instead. The screws that the manufacturer includes are not only very short, but they threads are small and don’t have much bite.

Most of the methods of mounting the window coverings, whether they are mini blinds, faux wood blinds or vertical blinds, are the same. The manufacture includes a bracket that mounts to the wall and has a small swinging door that closes to hold the head rail in place. Installing these with drywall screws is very easy, not so much with the manufacturer supplied screws.

Drywall screws are very hard and brittle. They are great for holding things to the wall, but their shear strength is poor because they are so brittle. The point on a drywall screws is very sharp and it goes into drywall and the wall studs behind it very easily. It is very fast to hold the bracket in place with one hand and drive the screw into the wall with a drill driver. Make sure both brackets are level and screw them into the wall. Then just place the head rail into each bracket and snap the bracket closed.

If you have a kitchen faucet that leaks around the base of the spout, you should be able to repair it with some new o-rings. We see this most commonly with single handle faucets that control both the hot and cold temperature.

You will need to remove the handle for this. After turning off the water to the faucet, pry up the cap on the top of the handle and remove the screw that holds the handle to the faucet. Lift the handle off of the faucet. Place one hand on the spout and the other hand where the spout mounts to the faucet and gently move the spout from side-to-side while lifting up. The spout should lift off rather easily. You will be looking at the body of the faucet.

There are two o-rings that you need to replace on the faucet body. One is down low on the body, and the other is closer to the top. You will probably have to pry these out of their grooves with a small screwdriver or the corner of a credit card. Don’t scratch the body while doing this. Use dishwashing soap and lubricate the o-rings. Push them into place without twisting them. If they twist the spout will leak. Once the o-rings are in place, push the spout back on and reconnect the handle.

Many shower handles are plastic these days, and any handyman has had plenty of practice replacing them. As you use the handle to turn the water warmer or cooler, over time the parts in the shower valve (the cartridge or the stem and seat) will get corroded, causing you to use more force to turn the handle. This extra force can easily crack a plastic handle.

So when your handle cracks it won’t be long before you have to replace it. You will end up moving the handle but not being able to regulate the water. You may not even be able to turn the water on.

Replacing a plastic handle is very easy and all you will need is a screwdriver. You will need to pry off the cap on the front of the handle. A small standard screwdriver is perfect for this. The cap blends in very well with the handle so you will have to look and feel for it. Look for a ridge and pry it off.

Underneath the cap will be a single screw. Use a Philips head screwdriver and remove this screw. The handle will pull right off. Place the new handle onto the end of the cartridge or stem and reinstall the screw snuggly but don’t over-tighten it, you don’t want to crack the new handle . Push the new cap onto the handle to conceal the screw.

You don’t need a handyman to clean the coils on your refrigerator. This is a five minute job and will help your fridge run better and more efficiently. You will need a coil brush and a vacuum to suck out the debris is loosens.

These coils cool and condense the refrigerant for your refrigerator. On a standard fridge, they are found either on the bottom or running across the back of the unit. If they run across the back, you will need to pull the fridge out from the wall. If they are on the bottom, you will have to remove the grill to access them. The grill will probably just pop out, but you may need to remove a few screws. It’s a good idea to unplug the refrigerator while you work on it.

Use a coil brush and gently run it across the coils. It will collect some of the dirt and debris, and the rest will fall to the floor. This is where the vacuum comes in. Use the skinny nozzle attachment and suck up any debris laying on the floor or clinging to the coil area.

While you have the tools out, you might as well check the condenser fan and clean it too. If your fridge has the coils on the bottom of the unit, pull the fridge out from the wall and remove the back cover at the bottom. You will see the fan near the condenser. This fan blows across the coils keeping them cool, but it can get clogged up with debris as well. Clean it and vacuum it out and make sure it runs properly.

You should probably do this twice a year or more if you have pets that shed.

We get many calls to correct minor electric wiring issues. One of the most basic is either adding a junction box or even just the junction box cover.

I see it all the time. Go into an attic where a homeowner has added a light, a switch, or anything that would require him to cut into an electrical cable and you would see danger. Homeowners generally mean well, but there are some practices that are frightening.

Take for example the practice of taping wires together. I’m not talking about taping wires together inside of a junction box (which still isn’t safe), rather these wires are just taped together hanging freely inside of an attic. Wow.

When you make an electrical connection you need to place the cables inside of a junction box with a cover. At the point the cables enter the junction box, they are held in place with cable clamps. The cable sheathing extends past the clamps to protect the wires. Inside the box the sheathing is removed and the ends of the wires are stripped of the insulation. The wires are connected with the appropriate sized wire nut. The wires are carefully folded inside the box with no sharp bends, and the box cover is installed.

A ceiling fan turns on and off by either a wall switch, remote switch, or pull chain. The pull chain is attached to a switch inside the ceiling fan that will sometimes stop working. The switch is plastic and repetitive pulling or yanking will crack it which necessitates replacement.

You can buy a new pull chain switch for just a few dollars and will take under 30 minutes to replace. If you have a light kit on the bottom of the fan you will need to remove it.

Follow the pull chain up into the base of the fan and you will see the switch. The pull chain switch will have two wires at the rear and the chain at the front, and the switch well be held in place with a small retaining nut. There will either be a wiring harness that plugs together, or you may have wires held together with small wire nuts.

If your fan uses wire nuts, it is a matter of replacing the wires of the old switch with the wires of the new one. If you have a harness, you will need to cut the wires that lead to the switch and secure the wires of the new switch to them. It’s a good idea to mark the wires when cutting them. You can use wire nuts to secure the wires together.

Replace the retaining nut to hold the new switch in place and reassemble the fan.

Drywall texturing is one of the most challenging things in home repair. Most homeowners have the courage to patch a small hole, but putting the finishing touches on the patch can be an anxious moment.

A couple of keys to hiding a patch are getting the patch level with the surrounding area, blending in the border of the patch, and using the right paint. Fail at any one of these and your patch will be noticeable.

After you patch the drywall, tape it and float the mud out, let it dry before you flatten it. The drywall patch should be mostly flat just from the taping knife, but when it dries, you can either sand it or use a damp sponge to remove any excess drywall compound.

Now use the toothbrush. Dip the toothbrush into some water and tap off the drops on the rim of the glass. Rub the bristles of the toothbrush along the border of the drywall patch to expose some of the texture on the wall. This is original texture that you will have covered up with the joint compound. The idea here is to erase the border of the patch to minimize it. You want to get rid of the defined border and make it blend in more.

Once you have gone around the patch to blend it in, you can spray some texture on it. There are as many ways to do this as there are drywall repair professionals. For most homeowners, I would suggest the texture in a spray can. It is easy and the results are very good.

Ceramic tile can crack or break. You might drop something on a tile and chip the tile or break it. Before you replace it, you have to remove the old one.

When ceramic tile breaks, the pieces can be as sharp as glass. You must protect yourself with eye protection and gloves at a minimum.

Start by removing the grout at the perimeter of the tile. You can use a grout removing tool for this. Removing the grout will make installation of the new tile much easier and give you a little wiggle room. You may be able to lift a broken piece of tile out and tap out the rest of the tile with a hammer and chisel, putty knife, or screwdriver. Be careful as these pieces are very sharp.

Once you have the tile removed, you will have some floor mortar to remove. You can use a floor scraper, although the area will be fairly small. You can also try remove the old mortar with the hammer and chisel method or even use a grinder to get rid of it, although this will be messy. The goal here is to get down to the slab and remove the mortar so that the new tile won’t sit taller than the surrounding tiles.

When you are working on a sprinkler repair you will likely have to dig up the ground to some extent. This is going to get messy and when you start repairs to the sprinkler system, you invariable will allow dirt and debris into the system. Even if a sprinkler head needs to be replaced, even the act of unscrewing it from the riser will cause debris to fall into the riser. If this debris isn’t removed from the system, the water pressure will push it to the sprinkler head and it will usually block water from exiting the head. That means dead landscaping.

The key is to remove this dirt and debris before you put the system back into operation. If you have to repair an underground pipe, after you make the repairs to the pipe, go remove some of the sprinkler heads and turn the system on. This will shoot water and whatever debris is in the system out of the risers where the sprinkler heads have been removed, clearing the system. If you are just replacing a sprinkler head, before you reinstall the head, turn the system on to blow the debris out. Then screw the sprinkler head back on.