Surprise, It’s a New Water Heater

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

I had just finished hosting a dinner for friends.  Our guests were on their way home and I had just begun to wash the dishes.  But the hot water tap was delivering nothing but cold. Going down to the utility room to investigate, I discovered a disaster: the water heater tank ...

Overdue Extinguisher Upgrade

Monday, December 28th, 2009

From my history resarch, I know that there was a fire in my house a few years after it was built.  One fire is plenty for any house, so I have been making improvements recently to make sure fire safety here is up to snuff. Along with the new firelogs ...

Patched Drain Pipe

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

First thing this morning I picked up some plumber's epoxy putty at the hardware store to repair the cracked drain pipe I discovered yesterday. This was my first experience with epoxy putty and I found out it is pretty amazing stuff. Straight out of the package, the epoxy looks like ...

Cracked Drain Pipe

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

All I wanted was some clean sheets. It's a simple task, right? Wash. Dry. Fold. Done. Simple. But in an old house, simple tasks can get complicated. Here's how: I put the sheets into the washer and finished off a bottle of detergent ...

New Tool: Portable Workbench

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

After a recent email asking for advice on paint stripping, (Hi, Carrie!) I got motivated to start restoring the window sashes that have been sitting around for a few weeks since I removed them as part of my bedroom project. When I got the sashes to the garage and fired up ...