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I like to say that there are few things more permanent than a temporary fix. For all of us homeowners, I'm sure we've all been there.

So, what are your more questionable "fixes" ?

For me, I was going to have my house repainted this summer, but stuff got in the way. It's now too late to attempt it, and I had trim over my garage that was exposed bare wood that would not like a Midwest winter. With little time in my schedule I quickly taped off the trim and used a rattle can of spray primer and a rattle can of gloss white paint to give a temporary coating to prevent moisture damage over the winter. Hopefully getting to a real repainting this Spring. My brother stopped by in the middle and gave me a WTF look.

Ahh, in my family parlance, a “Reggie-fix”, named after my Grandad.

I’ve not done any, as I’m a tenant so home improvement isn’t my arena. That being said? I did mount the curtains in my front room with success.

Used the proper kit and everything. But, in hindsight? I should’ve lightly drilled out the existing holes as someone had literally glossed over them.

Also, when buying any tool make sure you’re paying for quality. The screwdriver heads for my drill appear to be made from compressed tinfoil, and have a horrible tendency to mash themselves up on contact with a screw!

Not my own home, but helped fixing some stuff in the kindergarden of my daughter. They had one of these small football goals that had one of the metal tubes of its frame broken. As the whole construct was obviously not looking to be around for more then a year anyway, I sawed of both edges cleanly, took care there are no sharp edges, then roughly shaped a wooden stick lying around so that it fit into both ends. Put it in to align both metal tubes, then drilled holes through them and the wood and fixed them with long screws and screw nuts. Not beautiful and no solution for the ages, but it was stable, quick, cheap and doable with stuff we had at hand.

And for a kindergarten, safe!

A couple of strips of vinyl siding on my house kept falling off. They should just clip into the mountings attached to the house, and I tried to click them back into those.

That didn’t work.

Tried to duct tape them up.

Fail.

Just nailed the suckers up. Holding fast for now. But I know if I ever sell the house, on inspection some guy is going to “WTF happened here?” Over the work I did.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And for a kindergarten, safe!

I would say so. At least no sharp edges anymore and it was stable enough that I could hang from the goalpost.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And for a kindergarten, safe!

I would say so. At least no sharp edges anymore and it was stable enough that I could hang from the goalpost.

If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.

Indeed.

Because not all ‘amateur’ fixes are bodge jobs. My Dad was quite handy, and I dare say like many Dad’s, one that had a reasonable collection of “that’ll come in handy one day” bits and bobs and odds and ends. And indeed, many times said bits and bobs and odds and ends did come in handy.

Example. One of his three sheds (well, three external free standing. There are two more built into the house) needed repairs. And he happened to have a spare fence panel. Wee bit of jiggery pokery, 10 minutes of measuring and five minutes with a saw, and a replacement shed wall was created from said fence panel.

My favourite project of Dad’s was making my brother and I’s first gaming table. We’d just replaced some interior doors. This left at least two plain doors. Bolted them together at the hinges, got some Goblin Green colour matched paint, and Bob’s Your Uncle, a 6x4 or so gaming table, with a margin on each long side for Datafaxes, casualties and dice and that. Mounted atop an old office desktop, rested atop two wooden trestles. And of course, it all packed down quite neatly!

Sadly, I didn’t inherit his handiness! If you want a shed demolishing, I’m your man. But repairing, I’d have to get a pro in.

Though my years of model kit building have made me really good at building flat-pack furniture.

The hook for the towels in our bathroom fell out of the wall because it's crumbly old drywall. I just stuffed the hole with milliput and reinserted it.

Still going, 8 years later!

I made a little sensory den as a reading nook for my neurodiverse son with colour changing led strips and a reading light and suchlike. It was fun to plan and make, but is little used unfortunately.

I’ve done some electrical work in my day, swapping outlets, light switches, etc. All pretty well.

But I have to ask: Has anyone ever had a fuse/breaker box in a house that was actually labeled well? My previous house was particularly bad, current one is not good. Turns everything into a two person job, where one guy is flipping circuits while the other one has a volt tester waiting to holler “that’s it!"

Living in the UK? Can’t say that’s ever been an issue.

Not going preachy, but I guess not all Legal Standards are globally universal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:
I made a little sensory den as a reading nook for my neurodiverse son with colour changing led strips and a reading light and suchlike. It was fun to plan and make, but is little used unfortunately.

What sort of stories is the wee man into?

Only I’ve recently rebought a Myths & Legends books one or other set of grandparents bought me when I was tiny. I now have the ISBN, so can track a further copy down with ease. And so I’d be happy to punt on the copy I do have for make benefit of Flinty’d Glorious Son?

He doesn’t lack for books thanks for the offer though. He’s 11 and currently reading the XKCD What If books for about the 4th time, when he isn’t teaching himself some coding language or other.

Hey, the main thing is he’s reading

I remember my parents used to get me He-Man and The Dandy when I was tiny wee.

Long as kiddo is reading stuff the enjoy? They’re reading, and doing a learn!

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve done some electrical work in my day, swapping outlets, light switches, etc. All pretty well.

But I have to ask: Has anyone ever had a fuse/breaker box in a house that was actually labeled well? My previous house was particularly bad, current one is not good. Turns everything into a two person job, where one guy is flipping circuits while the other one has a volt tester waiting to holler “that’s it!"

Yes, except....

Early 2017 my father died. Then a few years later in Jan of '20 Mom died.
Thus I inherited my childhood home.
I'm 100% certain that the breaker box was well & accurately labeled. The only problem was that I couldn't read it - because it was done so in about mid-1975 (when we 1st moved in), in my dads tiny crappy handwriting, & in pencil! (wich had faded considerably over nearly 50 years). And now the only 2 people on earth who could decipher it were both dead,,,,
To top it off? The guy who originally built the house back in the 30s had wired it himself sometime before electrical codes were invented. There's all manner of things being run off any given circuit. And not grouped together logically. .
It took my brother & I a fair bit of time sorting out what all was hooked into which switch.

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve done some electrical work in my day, swapping outlets, light switches, etc. All pretty well.

But I have to ask: Has anyone ever had a fuse/breaker box in a house that was actually labeled well? My previous house was particularly bad, current one is not good. Turns everything into a two person job, where one guy is flipping circuits while the other one has a volt tester waiting to holler “that’s it!"

Surprisingly yes. My partner and I are in the process of buying a house and during the home inspection we saw the fuse box was perfectly labeled.

Not only that but when the inspector took off the front panel of the box the cables leading to each breaker had their own labels in addition to the ones on the breakers themselves. Whoever wired the house was a true professional.

I put together a load of flatpacks for a surprise nursery when we were expecting, which had a funny story.

It's 9PM, I'm putting together a closet while my wife is over at her mum's. I'm starving after flatpack work and a 12-hour shift so I order a pizza on my phone. I tip the closet onto it's front to nail the back panel on, my phone goes off as it's the pizza guy. I crawl inside the upturned closet to grab my phone and my belt gets caught on a stray nail, I'm stuck.

I had to, while keeping a straight face, tell the delivery guy that "I might need his help as I'm trapped in a closet".

Help me, Step Pizza Guy!

Mine was replacing a car computer unit.

Had an old Peugeot 107. Apparently a common fault for these is that the steering control computer packs in. When this happens, the car is still drivable, but the power steering is deactivated. Was an absolute pig to manoeuvre without it but higher speeds were fine.

At this point the car was about 8 years old and paying someone to replace it would be north of £800. However, I found a refurbished control unit for ~£200 online and decided to give it a go. The unit is hidden deep below the dashboard near the steering column. All the tutorials and advice I could find said you need to take the dashboard off to access it. Ok. Peeled off a bunch of plastic furniture, the speedometer panel etc. An hour or two later, I realise that to reach the uppermost screw holding the unit in place the entire steering column has to be removed

Well, I ain't touching the steering column with a ten-foot barge pole, that is proper mechanic stuff. So I poke my head into the footwell and shine a torch up at the unit. I can reach one of the two screws this way, but the other is completely inaccessible without removing half the car. So I pulled out a Stanley knife, cut through the plastic the screw was sunk into, and removed the unit. Swapped it for the refurbished one, put the accessible screw back in and then added some duct tape to keep it in place. If I'd done this from the beginning I wouldn't have had to remove a single part of the dashboard!

Power steering back on, no further trouble nearly 4 years later. Saved at least £600 for the price of a little sanity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Help me, Step Pizza Guy!

My current house is still wired up pretty strangely; apparently the previous owner was a bit of a handyman as well albeit not a very good one. I kid you not, just beside the fusebox was a small round box which when we opened it had four wires going in/out connected two against two. But all four had the copperwire completely uncovered and were just tied together inside.
It's a miracle that house never burned down before I bought it...
When I moved in we swapped the fusebox (my dad's a (now retired) electrician, so that helped), but tearing out all the wiring from the wall to make them all go to logical places was just too much work with all the other stuff that needed doing.

 Haighus wrote:
Mine was replacing a car computer unit.

Had an old Peugeot 107. Apparently a common fault for these is that the steering control computer packs in. When this happens, the car is still drivable, but the power steering is deactivated. Was an absolute pig to manoeuvre without it but higher speeds were fine.

At this point the car was about 8 years old and paying someone to replace it would be north of £800. However, I found a refurbished control unit for ~£200 online and decided to give it a go. The unit is hidden deep below the dashboard near the steering column. All the tutorials and advice I could find said you need to take the dashboard off to access it. Ok. Peeled off a bunch of plastic furniture, the speedometer panel etc. An hour or two later, I realise that to reach the uppermost screw holding the unit in place the entire steering column has to be removed

Well, I ain't touching the steering column with a ten-foot barge pole, that is proper mechanic stuff. So I poke my head into the footwell and shine a torch up at the unit. I can reach one of the two screws this way, but the other is completely inaccessible without removing half the car. So I pulled out a Stanley knife, cut through the plastic the screw was sunk into, and removed the unit. Swapped it for the refurbished one, put the accessible screw back in and then added some duct tape to keep it in place. If I'd done this from the beginning I wouldn't have had to remove a single part of the dashboard!

Power steering back on, no further trouble nearly 4 years later. Saved at least £600 for the price of a little sanity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Help me, Step Pizza Guy!

I swear to God that automotive engineers intentionally make things hard to repair. I've helped several friends repair their cars over the years. This includes the ever enjoyable "To change the battery you must remove a frame brace AND the engine coolant overflow". Or my wife's Transit Connect, where the battery is strategically placed against the firewall, deep under the window. You need to remove wire bundles, and air intake. Then the battery cabled aren't long enough to disconnect so you have to do one, slide the battery out an inch, and do the other.

Cream of the crop? My friend's BMW. The fuse box for the "really common stuff" like headlights, interior lights, radio, etc. are under the hood, behind major components. Doing a fuse replacement takes 30-40 minutes just to get to the fuse box. Then you have to put it all back.

I long for the days of simpler cars. I helped a friend change out an alternator when I was about 20. Limped his car into town, popped hood, removed alternator, carried it to parts house 100 feet away, got new alternator, installed, jumped his car to get it started, and returned old alternator for a core charge. We had it all done with basic tools in under an hour, including the return.

I had to charge the battery on my Ford Puma Ecoboost.

Now, on my Old Ford Fiesta, it took a bit of muscle but was straight forward enough. Get your spanners and undo the nuts of the holding brace, and the terminals. Get everything clear and lift it out.

Ford Puma? Well…it’s not bolted in any harder. But instead of (facing the car) the battery being in the bottom right hand side, clear of gubbins? It’s in the very, very top right. Partially under the bodywork. So much so you can’t just lift it out. Oh no. See, if you do that, the bodywork of the car stops you.

So instead, you need to eff around lifting it, tilting it, lifting it, tilting it, until it’s at a jaunty enough angle to be removed.

Adding to that fun? The battery that’s in there has a single handle, strictly limiting handholds. And I dunno if it’s just grumpy memory? But hybrid batteries (being a specific type) are heavier, and I swear deeper, than normal car batteries.

I tell you, come payday? I’m updating my RAC Membership to include Home Start. Becuase whilst I can do it (and a second instance will be easier due to greater familiarity) it’s an awful lot of fuss.

You can get jump start packs. Battery holds a few charges, hook it up like jumper cables, but without the whole second car with a good battery thing.

Cars are a heck of a lot less user serviceable these days. I remember fiddling with my old mid-80s Crown Victoria. Lots of room, easy to find stuff. Modern cars are mazes. It’s like they want you to need to come into the dealer...

Worse, the design is “modular”.

Gangleflange gone twang? Sorry, but the Gangleflange can’t be replaced on its own. Because it’s part of a sealed unit containing the Gangleflange, Gigglepump, Squaresosig and Hookoompah.

So even a garage has to replace the whole “helpfully modular” unit, and not just the bit that went twang. Especially as it’s only ever the Gangleflange, which we thoughtfully made entirely out of monkey trousers that goes twang. The Gigglepump, Squaresosig and Hookoompah? They’re made from Invinconium, which no power in the universe can make go twang.

Some of the worst fun I’ve had on my cars over my lifetime is with modular lights.

My old Jetta (early 2000s, forget the exact year) to change a burnt out tail light you needed to pull a whole assembly out of a hole smaller then it was with semi-sharp edges. So lots of clips, twisting, etc. I spent hours and ended up with my hands looking like I was juggling cats from all the scratches. To change a 50 cent bulb.

When I got my new car last summer I sprung for the more comprehensive warranty. I can do a lot of the work, but damn it’s such a pain these days. And the parts are skyrocketing. Because you don’t just need a cheep part anymore, but a custom electrical widget that does 5 things. So a lot of peace of mind to just be able to take it to the dealer and say “make it better please”. Because under the hood is no longer a friendly place.

I remember when changing a bulb was just unscrewing That Single Bulb’s plug, popping out the old, bunging in the new, then screwing it back in. Maybe with clipping the power cables back in.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I remember when changing a bulb was just unscrewing That Single Bulb’s plug, popping out the old, bunging in the new, then screwing it back in. Maybe with clipping the power cables back in.

Some of that might be the nature of cars. My first 2 cars were a Ford Crown Vic and a Chevy Celebrity. Not small cars, tons of spare space under the hood. But also fairly feature-light, especially compared to modern cars. These days a lot of cars are not only smaller, but they are packing more crap in there. Computers, electronics, auto-whatzits, power-thingamabobs. So it’s getting cramped.

There is probably more thought put into efficiency. What’s the best use of space?

I think they used to put more weight on the home mechanic. So if there was something that could be more user friendly, they went with it. Now I think the focus is on making the car perform better, and if the cost of that is cramming the battery somewhere odd, or having to take 5 parts out to change a light bulb, so be it.

I understand that more stuff/smaller container means a tighter pack. However, I still believe that, at the very least, the basics should ALWAYS be readily accessible. This includes the battery, the fuse box, and any liquid refilling spout. Probably should add the spark plugs into that list too.

I'm working on my project car (1987 Monte Carlo). After moving the battery to the trunk, going down to just 2 belts, and changing to an electric fan, there is room for DAYS under the hood. Like, enough room you can spin a ratchet 270 degrees room.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I remember when changing a bulb was just unscrewing That Single Bulb’s plug, popping out the old, bunging in the new, then screwing it back in. Maybe with clipping the power cables back in.

https://www.motor1.com/news/731294/bugatti-chiron-headlights-for-sale/

I remember doing some basic work on a '71 Chevy Impala. You could darn near put a folding chair in under the hood so you could sit down while you did your work.

Okay, gross exaggeration, but there was still a vast amount of open space in there. Getting at ANYTHING short of the transmission was a breeze. And even that, you could easily reach the transmission fluid fill.

Even my 2003 Civic isn't too bad. Battery and fuze box right up top, easy access to all the fluid fills except the transmission, which requires a long funnel to fill but you can easily reach in to get the dip stick to check fluid levels.

I've heard of cars where the battery is stuck into the bodywork, and you actually have to remove the fender to get at it.

If I look under the hood and can't easily find all I need to find, it's no sale.