Pro Handyman Blog

So your handyman tells you he can’t find a matching knob for you stove. You just want to make the house rentable to start offsetting your underwater mortgage payment. You are faced with several unappealing ideas. You look at the stove and see three matching handles and one ugly metal post that the missing handle should be sitting on. You toy with the idea of going to an appliance store to special order one and pay shipping and handling. Worse yet, maybe you thought about calling an appliance repairman to get one for you…all good ideas, but probably a little more costly than you want right now.

How about this: go to a home center and buy 4 new generic knobs. Yes, they won’t match the existing knobs but who cares? They are going to match each other and you won’t have to wait 10 days and pay shipping and handling. If you are not looking for top of the line knobs and are looking for “functional”, as most landlords are, generic knobs are the way to go.

They don’t work in every case, but a generic knob will solve most of the problems. They are easy to install too. Just stick the new knob on the post sticking up and push down to seat it. To remove existing knobs, you will need to lift them off of the post. You may need to pry them off using a screwdriver, but make sure you protect the stove’s finish with a cloth.

A plumbing leak at a sink trap can caused by several things. First, investigate the leak to make sure it is actually coming from the P-trap. You may find that the leak is coming from somewhere higher up than the trap and is just dripping from the trap since it is the lowest point on the drain piping. If you have determined the leak is from the trap, then you can unscrew the fittings on both ends of the trap and dump out the water into a bucket.

Inspect the trap for cracks, and look closely at the ends where it threads onto the joining piping. In many cases, the nut can be cross threaded and not properly sealed. This may be the case if the slip nut is very hard to unscrew and doesn’t unscrew smoothly. Screwing this slip nut carefully back on the pipe may fix it.

Also look at the washer to see if it is damaged. If it is split or damaged, it will allow water to pass and leak. Replacing this washer will fix the problem. By the way, you won’t need to use Teflon tape on the threads as these joints are not under pressure.

Obviously, if the P-trap is damaged or cracked, you will need to replace it.

When you buy a slab door to replace, for example, a bedroom door, you will need to mortise the door to accept the hinges. This means you will need to cut the edge of the door to the exact profile of the hinges, both in length and width, as well as depth.

This will allow the edge of the door’s surface to be flat, even with the hinges installed as they will be recessed into the edge of the door.

If the old door is still hung, remove it and set it on the floor standing up side-by-side with the new door so that the hinged sides face up. This will allow you to mark the locations of the hinges on the new door. You can trace the outline of the hinges on the edge of the door at this point.

You can buy power tools that will do this job quickly (after some minor set-up). Or, grab a chisel and a hammer and tap out the wood. I first make a downward cut with the chisel to cut the perimeter of the hinge and then remove the wood in between the cut. Turn the chisel so that the beveled edge is facing downward (on the wood) and use small taps to remove small amounts of wood, rather than chopping out a hunk that you didn’t want to. Keep checking the fit by placing the hinge into the recess and use the chisel to get a good fit. When you have all hinge locations cut out, you can install the door.

I had a customer call for some advice on an easy plumbing job. I can’t blame him, why pay for something when you can do it yourself in 5 minutes (or less). This particular customer was moving and realized that the icemaker valve would not shut off…it had a slow dribble out of it. He said he cranked the handle down on the valve at the wall, but it still leaked. He was apprehensive about replacing the valve. I told him he could do a couple of things.

The valve in the wall usually has threads on it to connect by compression to the icemaker line. If you shut the water off to the house the leak will stop and you can work without being stressed that water is going to run all over the floor. With the water off, you can screw a mating cap onto the threads of the valve. You can wrap the threads with Teflon tape first and snug the cap down.

The other thing that comes to mind is to add a cap to the icemaker line itself, if it is copper or plastic. You can use a compression fitting on this one. Place the nut on the line first, then the copper ferrule and then the coupling. On the other side of the coupling will be the cap. Tighten it all down and turn the water back on to check for leaks.

If you want to add a lock to a metal filing cabinet you have sitting around, you can do it yourself and don’t need a handyman to help you. In fact in 10 minutes you can have a locking filing cabinet complete with keys. Some filing cabinets come with a lock, and others don’t, but you can add one later if you want. Office supply stores sell the kits and they are easy to install.

About the hardest part of the job is removing the knock-out in the cabinet. This is usually located in the upper right corner. Use a screwdriver and tap it out with a hammer. The lock mechanism fits in it’s place. Insert the lock through the front at an angle. Push it into position and secure it with the included tension clip. The lock mechanism usually connects to a rail on the right side of the cabinet. This rail runs the entire length of the cabinet and will engage or disengage all of the cabinet drawers simultaneously. So when the key is turned to lock the cabinet, the rail lifts and locks all drawers. When the key is turned to open the drawers, the rail drops.

You need to bend the lock mechanism’s arm around a small wrung in the rail to move it. Once this is done you can lock and unlock to your heart’s content.

If you are installing pavers for a walkway, just ask a handyman which tool to use. He will probably tell you that there are several tools you could use. I guess it depends on how often you cut pavers and what your budget is.

Personally, I have more tools than I have sense, but even if you don’t have many tools, you can improvise. I like a handheld grinder with a masonry wheel in it. Once you have the grinder, you can replace the wheel with whatever your needs are. The wheels are cheap and make quick work of cutting masonry materials. You can cut pavers, brick, block and cultured stone. Just make sure you use protection for your eyes, breathing, hearing, and certainly heavy gloves.

If you don’t have a grinder, you can outfit a standard circular saw with a masonry wheel to do the job. Buy the correct wheel and the correct size for your saw and tighten everything down. Dawn your safety gear and cut the material slowly. It’s a good idea to secure the material you are cutting so that the force of the saw doesn’t accidentally move the paver and ruin it.

You can make several light passes rather than trying to hog out a lot of material with one pass. The sound of the blade spinning will tell you a lot about the speed of the cut. You want the blade spinning at full speed with a consistent cut. If you hear the blade change its tune, you are probably removing too much material.

Many people wonder if they need to replace the copper flex lines when installing a new water heater. My answer is probably not. As long as the copper flex lines are not damaged or corroded in some way, they should last for decades. Notice I said as long as they are not damaged or corroded. I have seen people twist these lines in an unnatural way that causes them to bend or kink. This is a problem because it can minimize the volume of water flowing through the pipes.

In the case of a temperature and pressure relief valve (TPR), minimizing the volume when the valve opens due to excessive heat or pressure can cause catastrophic damage (the tank could explode). So it is important that the copper flex lines have only gradual changes of direction.

So you likely won’t need to replace the water supply lines, but you should replace the washers inside the fittings at the end of these lines. They are inexpensive and will replace the nasty squashed washers that have sat in there for years. Dig out the old washer and simply push the new one into the fitting until it bottoms out against the back of the fitting. Then install the flex line to the water heater’s nipples.

A hollow core door is inexpensive, and for good reason. There is a wood perimeter around the door, but the interior is hollow. If you cut one open, you will see what looks like corrugated cardboard. That doesn’t leave me with a strong sense of security. If your opening is too short for your door, you have to cut the hollow core door for height, and reinforce the area you cut.

For example, if you cut the bottom off of the door to the point where the wood perimeter is gone you will be left with an opening at the bottom of the door. You can reinforce this area by using the piece you just cut away from it. From the offcut, peel away the exterior veneer leaving only the wood filler strip. You may need to sand it down somewhat to clean it up.

Also clean up the bottom of the door. You will probably see the corrugated cardboard at the bottom, so you can push that back into the hollow of the door with a chisel. Basically, you want to create a space so that the wood filler piece will sit correctly.

Slather the wood filler piece with wood glue and push it into the opening. It should be a snug fit, but you can use brads or tape to hold it in place until the glue dries.

Here is a way to really make your cabinets stand out. By installing a piece of glass in place of the solid door panel, you can make an area for display of certain items of your choosing. Maybe you want to display the heirloom serving bowl, a wine selection, or maybe showcase your collection of cookbooks.

Choose a cabinet or two that is in a conspicuous area and remove the door. I wouldn’t do more than 2 cabinet doors as it will diminish the overall effect. You will need a router for this job with a straight cutting bit to remove the panel. The panel typically floats in a mortised groove. You want to remove the back lip only of this groove so that the panel can lift out of the back of the door.

Set the door face down on a soft surface to avoid scratches and make sure you have the depth set correctly on the router. The last thing you want to do is plow through the front of the cabinet, so test the depth on a piece of scrap wood. Clamp the door frame to your work space and look for any signs of metal staples or brads. These will damage your bit and maybe injure you in the process like flying shrapnel.

Start the router and slowly cut through the back lip. Keep an eye out for how wide you need to go to free up the panel. Once you have cut around the perimeter of the panel, the panel may lift out, or you may need to clean up the corners as the router bit will cut a corner as a semi-circle, and the panel is square. You can chisel out the corner if necessary. I generally don’t worry about how the back of the door will appear as the door will remain in a closed position.

With the panel removed, take the frame to a glass shop and select the style of glass you like. There are many choices here: clear glass, wavy, birdseed (little air bubbles), tinted, etc.

With the glass cut, lay down a bead of clear silicone around the perimeter of your groove and push the glass into it. If you like, you can additionally install some plastic clips to hold the glass down, but the silicone works very well. Wait 24 hours and reinstall the door.

I had some customers call about some cabinet work that they needed done. In this case it was that the crown molding at the top of the cabinet had become loose and they wanted it reinstalled. The wall cabinets hung below the ceiling with a gap between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling so that the space created a display area.

Having the crown molding look good is very important, especially since these were quality wood cabinets. Perfect corners are a must.

Since the pieces were already cut and mitered, reinstalling them would be easy, the hard work of cutting had been done. You can use a compressor and a nail gun shooting the appropriate sized nail or brad, depending on how thick the material is that you are using. Start at a corner and squeeze the trigger, making sure the edge of the molding matches perfectly with the corner of the cabinet. Continue nailing the length of molding along the top of the cabinet, realizing that the more nails you install the more blemishes you will have to fill and repair.

When it’s time to do a corner, secure the mating piece of molding along the other side of the cabinet to form the corner. I usually squeeze a small amount of wood glue along the back of the joint to make sure it stays closed. You can also fire a nail into both pieces at the corner, but this is dangerous if you misjudge the shot. If you splinter the wood, you get to do it all over again.

After adding the glue, you can use corner clamps to hold the joint together until it dries, but I like painter’s tape. Tape one length of molding, add the glue, pinch the corner together and tape the other side closed. I tape along the entire length of the joint so that it won’t pull apart. Wait 24 hours to remove the tape and you should have a perfect corner.