Repairs: Appliances, Lawn Mowers, and Heating & Cooling Parts

by Lois Breneman

A good website to write down and save: repairclinic.com

Our two sons certainly take after their dad and both grandfathers!  After Jeff and Rachael's 15-year-old refrigerator that came with their house quit a few days ago, Jeff used www.repairclinic.com to find the solution.

You enter the model number and it shows all the parts and symptoms if they should fail. Based on that he ordered the defrost thermostat ($25).  The part came in pretty quickly and he soldered it in place. "So far so good," he said. I'm so proud of all of our kids!

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Don't Trash It! Fix It! Make It Last!

by Lois Breneman - Heart to Heart - February, 2015

We are currently in the middle of completely remodeling our kitchen, which is so exciting!  The fun part is that it is scheduled to be finished on my birthday, if all goes as planned.  We are, however, keeping all of our white appliances, knowing they will most likely provide us with more years of service.

My husband and I are doing as much tear-out on our own as possible.  As we removed our dishwasher yesterday, I was reminded how several years ago the plastic silverware holder broke in three different areas.  There was a hole in the bottom of three dividers of the silverware holder, which meant some of the flatware slid right through and into the bottom of the dishwasher.

Looking straight down into one divider, this is how it looked:

My mechanical engineer husband was always one to fix everything, and has saved us so much money through the years, but his solution for this problem is something anyone could easily do.  He just happened to think of it, but I will gladly share with you if it will help your dishwasher live a little longer, and save your family some money.

Here's How the Problem Was Solved:

Using a stiff plastic notebook, he carefully cut a piece to fit into each divider.  This shows the bottom and about one to two inches up one side of the divider.  He cut and creased it with a box cutter.  Here are two views of his solution.

The end result for each of those three holes:

A problem like this might prompt many people to either order a new silverware holder or even toss out the dishwasher, when it only required a simple repair.   With an easy solution like this, you could have more cash to spend in other useful ways, and who doesn't need that?

So before you toss out a large or small appliance, get your whole family, including your children, thinking how it could be fixed.  That sounds like some interesting dinner table discussion.  Spur on the brain-storming discussion with the promise to put the money saved toward a family vacation or another family outing.

How to Get on the Repair-It- Yourself Bandwagon

by Mary Hunt - http://www.cheapskatemonthly.com/ - Used by permission

If you have never repaired anything in your life, even you can get on the new trend emerging in this tough economy. It has become trendy to repair things: anything from appliances to shoes and everything in between, instead of replacing them to avoid spending money, or at least to delay a big expense.

Never has there been a more useful tool available to us than the Internet. You don't even need to own a computer or have in-home access to the World Wide Web to make use of all its wonder. Just stop into your local public library and you'll be online in no time at all. Everything you could possibly think of repairing has a companion "how to" somewhere on the Internet. Finding that site may be the biggest challenge.

Start at your favorite search engine (Firefox, Yahoo, Google, etc.) and simply pose your question starting with "how to" and ending with a question mark. Prepare to be amazed. Whether it's fixing your eyeglasses or the dishwasher, you will likely turn up more than one response.

There are also Internet sites that serve as portals, or their own little search engines, for these kinds of do-it-yourself projects. Take FindHow.com for example. Going to this site first and conducting your search there will weed out all the junk and take you right to the most useful solutions for your particular need. Simply type in "how to" and what you need to do, i.e. "How to fix a sewing machine," or "How to change oil in a car." In seconds, you'll have the answer to your question. Many times, that answer will come with step-by-step instructions, photos and even a video.

Another useful website is FixYa.com, a site that offers technical support, instructions and repair service. Is your computer on the fritz? Don't toss it out before you do a thorough investigation at FixYa.com.

Are your appliances behaving badly? Before you call to have them hauled away, take a tour of RepairClinic.com. You'll enjoy the do-it-yourself diagnostic help, live online chat with the Repair Guru team, as well as delivery of just about any appliance part your research determines that you need. 

I can report from personal experience that it is possible to participate in a long-distance diagnosis of a fairly simple repair job. What seemed like a daunting task turned out to be a quick and easy fix. I avoided a big, expensive repair bill (repair people don't come cheaply these days), and got to keep using my venerable dishwasher for another year, while I saved up to buy a replacement.

If you've avoided learning how to do your own repairs in the past, avoid no more. Really, it is so easy to do many repairs yourself, and your payoff will be huge. These days, when everything seems to cost more than ever before, that's saying a lot!