It seems like I've been having to exercise my mostly-atrophied handy-man muscles recently. Mainly, that involves my finger muscles when I dial various service companies to come fix our stuff.
First was the front door handle. This has been nominally functional since shortly after we bought the house. Turning the knob (from inside the house) did not always turn the inner mechanism, so the door would not open. We developed a technique of pulling on the door while continually turning the knob - eventually, the inner mechanism would catch and the door could be opened. This was not only annoying (although it did prevent our guests from leaving without us knowing), but could be a safety hazard if it delayed our getting out of the house in an emergency.
It was apparently even more annoying to my Dad, who gave me money to buy a replacement door handle for my birthday. We picked out a replacement about a month ago, but I only just found the time to start work on it last weekend. I swapped out the handle part easily enough, although I still need to fill the a hole left by the previous handle. My next task is to replace the deadbolt part, but keep the current lock. I don't know how difficult this will be, but at least now the handle works - it just doesn't match the sytle of our deadbolt.
Next was our garage door. About 4 weeks ago, the door itself refused to move up via the motor. Everything seemed to be working, just the door wouldn't raise. We could raise it manually without problems. I looked at it, but I couldn't see anything wrong, and I was too unsure of my abilities to take it apart.
So first I called Genie to get a manual for our 12-year-old garage door opener, which they sent but was not of much use. I then had to call an authorized Genie service center to have them come over. $110 later, we have a new carriage, which is the part that moves along the screw drive and pulls the door up as the drive turns. The old one was completely stripped, so I would not have been able to fix it anyway.
Then came our dishwasher. This is an older model, but it has generally been working OK. About two months ago, the door stopped gliding gently open and would slam open without any resistance. This was annoying, but livable. Recently, however, the door has been getting lower and lower when it is open, until now it hangs at about a 10 degree angle below horizontal.
This is a good excuse to get a new dishwasher. Donna went to Sears on Wednesday to purchase the one we picked out earlier. It will be delivered and installed in two weeks. I'm looking forward to having a new dishwasher in the house.
But while she was at the Sears store, someone backed into our car and damaged the left tail light. The culprits drove away of course, so Donna only saw the results and not the incident itself. The tail light is cracked and there is now a scratch on our bumper and a dent in our trunk. It's not so bad that we have to get it fixed right away, but we'll want to fix it eventually. The next time we take the car in for service, we'll have them tell us about how much it would be to fix it.
So next will be the hot water heater (which makes nasty thunking noises when it is in use), followed by the stovetop (which already just has 3 of 4 burners working) over the next 2-4 years. Then, hopefully, our appliances will survive for a few years until we need to replace the refigerator and start a new appliance cycle over again.
Posted by Rob Reid at January 9, 2004 04:23 PM