I thank all of my readers that have visited this website in the past and the ones that are still currently coming in to learn how to fix certain stuff. I have bought a website domain that will be hosted at my own expense and I will be continuing these types of home improvement tips on a different blog.
The reason for this is mainly more freedom on what I want to do with the site and the opportunity is there. There are tons of tutorials that are on this site how to be a handyman that could surely help everyone that happens to pass by and learn a thing or two. No matter if it has to do with plumbing or air conditioning, maybe even a little bit of electrical work here in there on how to replace minor electrical equipment.
The good thing about the new handyman website blog is that 90% of the information that is going to be placed onto the site is going to be in video so that you have a better chance of actually completing the task you were trying to accomplish in the first place.
So be on the lookout - do not worry this blog is not going anywhere if you need to come back and learn how to install a dishwasher or change the direction the door swings on a fridge then by all means I am not erasing the original posts they will all still be here for your viewing pleasure. That is all I hope to see you all over at http://homeimprovementteam.com
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Water Damage Prevention and Treatment
Okay now when you think of water damage what is the first thing that comes to your mind? This will differ greatly depending on the individual and that individual’s personal preferences and current situation. If you are trying to get your cell phone to turn on but it will not because you dropped it in the toilet or the sink, then your cell phone has suffered from water damage.
So how would you go about fixing a cell phone suffering from water damage? I have no freakin clue I am a handyman from Florida and this is the wrong kind of water damage that I know anything about.
One thing that I tend to see a lot from being a handyman in a very populated apartment complex is mold, which if is not treated hastily it can cause some major damage to property and health, especially for women that are pregnant and for infants. Mold is a sign of water damage and must be treated by a professional immediately.
So how do you know that you have mold? Well for one you may start to pick up some allergic reactions…coughing and such. If you know of any water damage that has occurred in your home than that would be the first spot for you to look to see if there is mold anywhere in the area.
There are many ways to identify mold as through test kits and other means that are not recommended and I will not put on this blog. But if you suspect that you have a mold issue then you need to get rid of it immediately. I will cover mold up and down in future posts but for now I want to go over how to prevent mold, which ultimately leads to the answer that to prevent mold you have to prevent water damage.
How to Prevent Water Damage
I don’t mean to sound like a smart ass but the main places you need to be looking for water damage would be wherever water may be in the house. Now if a hurricane had came through your home or something similar like a flood, then your entire home will be suffering from water damage. I am not going to get into that as situations like those are handled by insurance companies such as flood insurance and hurricane insurance, which is something you should have if you have a home in Florida like I do.
I merely want to help you be aware of water damage and where it is that it could occur, and since I am from Florida, work here in Florida, and have spent 90% of my handyman career here in Florida, everything I am about to cover is from my personal experience. Not some crap that I read off another blog or hub page. I actually do this stuff for a living, I am a professional, well, I have been called one by a small handful of people on rare occasions so I will take that and stick to my story.
Roof leaks are a major cause of water damage in Florida. Good for me that I am a handyman and not a roofer. But this can be fixed by getting on the roof and seeing what is wrong, which is usually some loose shingles that just need to be replaced. If you have experienced water damage coming through the ceiling or the roof, you will more than likely see a yellow spot on the ceiling. The best thing to do whenever you have a leak in the roof, is to poke a hole in the ceiling, hell, poke a couple of holes.
Now why in the hell would you want to poke a hole in the roof when it is leaking or has been leaking? Because you do not want mold to form. By making an opening in a confined area like the space between either a story or the space between the roof and the ceiling, you are letting air in that confined space. And if you stick with me you will learn that water in confined places with no air circulation will cause mold in a 40 hours or so.
Look For Water Damage under Sinks, Garbage Disposals and Dishwashers
All it takes is a drip. If there is a drip then there will be another drip sooner or later which will lead to water damage. There may be an instance where a faucet has a drip, if this is in the sink the depending on the situation it may not lead to water damage. But if there is a drip that is under the sink from a loose connection, old and corroded garbage disposal, or loose or messed with, improperly installed plumbing fixture, then that will lead to water damage.
Under a sink, or most water damage that occurs from drips are minor. But one can be very serious. The minor part of the water damage would be the cabinets, if you have wood cabinets. Mold takes awhile to form in cabinets because of the thickness of wood and the fact that they are always open to air flow. But water will soften the wood and eventually rot, especially if this is a long term drip. A long term drip in my opinion is a drip that has been occurring for more than a day.
Flooding Can Cause Serious Water Damage
There are many reasons that flooding in a home may occur, some of these may be a broken toilet seal or even an air conditioning unit condensate line that is backed up. Most of the water damages that I see in the field that I work as a maintenance man is from water heaters. Most water heaters only have a life expectancy of about 20 years, and that is if you have one of the older models, the newer they are the less time it is that they last, as with most of modern technology.
So besides being installed by idiots, that is why many water heaters will leak is just because of corrosion or age. The fittings will not leak if they are installed correctly. Although I have seen some instances where old copper lines get pinhole leaks, which can lead to serious floods.
If you are suffering water damage on the carpet, you must examine how serious it is to know how to decide the best corrective action to take at the current time. If you put your put your foot on the carpet and it is squishy that means that the pad under the carpet is saturated with water. You will need a serious carpet extraction from a powerful vacuum to cure this. A wet vacuum may work to cure the problem in some cases.
Another solution that will work is to get a dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers take up the surrounding water better than wet vacuums do, but they will not extract water. Meaning that you need to get up as much water as you can from the carpet and the pad before using the dehumidifier on the carpet, this will make it less likely to suffer from water damage.
If you can pull the carpet back after that then do so as this will give the carpet pad the ventilation that it need to dry up from the water damage and prevent mold and mildew from growing.
If you have water damaged baseboards or drywall, and you can poke a screwdriver through it then that means that it is pretty bad. The best way to deal with this is to remove the water damaged drywall or baseboard, and then spraying it with some sort of mold killing spray, bleach will work but it is not recommended due to the health hazards that bleach produces, there are many other products that are out there that are much safer and will accomplish the same goal.
Bottom line, if you experienced any kind of water damage it is best to treat it as soon as you can. Mold can start to grow in as little as 48 hours from water damage, and I will be sure to cover that as mold is a whole new can of worms I am about to open to you.
So how would you go about fixing a cell phone suffering from water damage? I have no freakin clue I am a handyman from Florida and this is the wrong kind of water damage that I know anything about.
One thing that I tend to see a lot from being a handyman in a very populated apartment complex is mold, which if is not treated hastily it can cause some major damage to property and health, especially for women that are pregnant and for infants. Mold is a sign of water damage and must be treated by a professional immediately.
So how do you know that you have mold? Well for one you may start to pick up some allergic reactions…coughing and such. If you know of any water damage that has occurred in your home than that would be the first spot for you to look to see if there is mold anywhere in the area.
There are many ways to identify mold as through test kits and other means that are not recommended and I will not put on this blog. But if you suspect that you have a mold issue then you need to get rid of it immediately. I will cover mold up and down in future posts but for now I want to go over how to prevent mold, which ultimately leads to the answer that to prevent mold you have to prevent water damage.
How to Prevent Water Damage
I don’t mean to sound like a smart ass but the main places you need to be looking for water damage would be wherever water may be in the house. Now if a hurricane had came through your home or something similar like a flood, then your entire home will be suffering from water damage. I am not going to get into that as situations like those are handled by insurance companies such as flood insurance and hurricane insurance, which is something you should have if you have a home in Florida like I do.
I merely want to help you be aware of water damage and where it is that it could occur, and since I am from Florida, work here in Florida, and have spent 90% of my handyman career here in Florida, everything I am about to cover is from my personal experience. Not some crap that I read off another blog or hub page. I actually do this stuff for a living, I am a professional, well, I have been called one by a small handful of people on rare occasions so I will take that and stick to my story.
Roof leaks are a major cause of water damage in Florida. Good for me that I am a handyman and not a roofer. But this can be fixed by getting on the roof and seeing what is wrong, which is usually some loose shingles that just need to be replaced. If you have experienced water damage coming through the ceiling or the roof, you will more than likely see a yellow spot on the ceiling. The best thing to do whenever you have a leak in the roof, is to poke a hole in the ceiling, hell, poke a couple of holes.
Now why in the hell would you want to poke a hole in the roof when it is leaking or has been leaking? Because you do not want mold to form. By making an opening in a confined area like the space between either a story or the space between the roof and the ceiling, you are letting air in that confined space. And if you stick with me you will learn that water in confined places with no air circulation will cause mold in a 40 hours or so.
Look For Water Damage under Sinks, Garbage Disposals and Dishwashers
All it takes is a drip. If there is a drip then there will be another drip sooner or later which will lead to water damage. There may be an instance where a faucet has a drip, if this is in the sink the depending on the situation it may not lead to water damage. But if there is a drip that is under the sink from a loose connection, old and corroded garbage disposal, or loose or messed with, improperly installed plumbing fixture, then that will lead to water damage.
Under a sink, or most water damage that occurs from drips are minor. But one can be very serious. The minor part of the water damage would be the cabinets, if you have wood cabinets. Mold takes awhile to form in cabinets because of the thickness of wood and the fact that they are always open to air flow. But water will soften the wood and eventually rot, especially if this is a long term drip. A long term drip in my opinion is a drip that has been occurring for more than a day.
Flooding Can Cause Serious Water Damage
There are many reasons that flooding in a home may occur, some of these may be a broken toilet seal or even an air conditioning unit condensate line that is backed up. Most of the water damages that I see in the field that I work as a maintenance man is from water heaters. Most water heaters only have a life expectancy of about 20 years, and that is if you have one of the older models, the newer they are the less time it is that they last, as with most of modern technology.
So besides being installed by idiots, that is why many water heaters will leak is just because of corrosion or age. The fittings will not leak if they are installed correctly. Although I have seen some instances where old copper lines get pinhole leaks, which can lead to serious floods.
If you are suffering water damage on the carpet, you must examine how serious it is to know how to decide the best corrective action to take at the current time. If you put your put your foot on the carpet and it is squishy that means that the pad under the carpet is saturated with water. You will need a serious carpet extraction from a powerful vacuum to cure this. A wet vacuum may work to cure the problem in some cases.
Another solution that will work is to get a dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers take up the surrounding water better than wet vacuums do, but they will not extract water. Meaning that you need to get up as much water as you can from the carpet and the pad before using the dehumidifier on the carpet, this will make it less likely to suffer from water damage.
If you can pull the carpet back after that then do so as this will give the carpet pad the ventilation that it need to dry up from the water damage and prevent mold and mildew from growing.
If you have water damaged baseboards or drywall, and you can poke a screwdriver through it then that means that it is pretty bad. The best way to deal with this is to remove the water damaged drywall or baseboard, and then spraying it with some sort of mold killing spray, bleach will work but it is not recommended due to the health hazards that bleach produces, there are many other products that are out there that are much safer and will accomplish the same goal.
Bottom line, if you experienced any kind of water damage it is best to treat it as soon as you can. Mold can start to grow in as little as 48 hours from water damage, and I will be sure to cover that as mold is a whole new can of worms I am about to open to you.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Handy Man Credentials
Some characteristics that you will need to have if you plan on being a handyman, and especially if you plan on making a career out of being a handyman. First things first, you must understand the aspects of what it takes in the first place, and if you do not know than do a little search and you will see what it really takes to be a handyman, this is a job that is not for everyone. This is not necessarily a trade that you can train for, some people have it in them to pull of this, while some people do not.
If you do not have good, or even decent eye and hand, muscle coordination than do not even think about being a handyman. There is a lot of risk that is involved when it comes to safety issues, as you will be required to work with certain kinds of power tools that can be very dangerous and fatal if proper training and respect for the power tool are not taken into consideration prior to operation.
You will have to be able to hammer nails into hard wooden studs, if you are not accurate with the swing of the hammer you are going to smash your hand. If you put up a shelf, or build a dock, you have to make sure that the finished project is going to be able to withstand the intended abuse that it is going to have to undergo in its lifetime. Meaning mainly durability.
Learning the basics of electricity can also save your life, prevent injury along with much more. Plus you will always be in the job if you are an electrician. There will always be electrical malfunctions that are going to take place.
If you do not have good, or even decent eye and hand, muscle coordination than do not even think about being a handyman. There is a lot of risk that is involved when it comes to safety issues, as you will be required to work with certain kinds of power tools that can be very dangerous and fatal if proper training and respect for the power tool are not taken into consideration prior to operation.
You will have to be able to hammer nails into hard wooden studs, if you are not accurate with the swing of the hammer you are going to smash your hand. If you put up a shelf, or build a dock, you have to make sure that the finished project is going to be able to withstand the intended abuse that it is going to have to undergo in its lifetime. Meaning mainly durability.
Learning the basics of electricity can also save your life, prevent injury along with much more. Plus you will always be in the job if you are an electrician. There will always be electrical malfunctions that are going to take place.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
How To's
All of these How To's are not proven to be fully safe, and everything I write is how "I" do things. I am in no way a failproof instruction manual. Use these How To's at your own risk
Privacy Policy
Thank You for visiting www.howtobeahandyman.blogspot.com
We can be reached via e-mail at dwep2@hotmail.com
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes information of
your browser, IP address, City/State/Country.
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
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With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies like Google (www.google.com/adsense) that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policy of:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above email address.
How To's
All of these How To's are not proven to be fully safe, and everything I write is how "I" do things. I am in no way a failproof instruction manual. Use these How To's at your own risk
Privacy Policy
Thank You for visiting www.howtobeahandyman.blogspot.com
We can be reached via e-mail at dwep2@hotmail.com
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes information of
your browser, IP address, City/State/Country.
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to improve the content of our Web page, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies to store visitors preferences, record user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends.
* Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on your site.
* Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and other sites on the Internet.
* Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.
With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies like Google (www.google.com/adsense) that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policy of:
http://www.google.com/privacy.html
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above email address.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
How To Install a Mailbox Post
Sorry for being gone so long as I have not been updating this blog as much as I would like to, I promise to get things back rolling to normal. Today I will be going over how to install a mailbox post, as this can be very costly to have it done professionally.
The thing is if you have the right tools and follow this guide then any amateur that has a little bit of handyman knowledge will be able to successfully install a mail box post, or any kind of post that is needed, it is not that hard.
As for tools, you will need something that can dig a hole, for this you will need to get your hands on a post digger. Post diggers are made to dig cylinder shaped holes in the ground and this is the type of hole that we are going to need to install a post. A manual post digger is like two shovels that open and close like scissors and they make digging holes easy.
Some of the other tools that you will need to install a post will be some cement mix and something to mix the cement in. You will also need a hammer, and a level to make sure that when you set the post up it is straight and not leaning to one side looking all retarded.
First step we will take is to dig a hole that is about 2 feet deep, make sure that it is wide enough for the post to fit into. Insert the post into the hole and then hammer down on the post until it is standing sturdy, using the level make sure that the post is level.
Now we are going to mix up the concrete and fill in the hole that is around the post, not all the way though leave about 6 inches from the bottom of the ground as we will be filling this in with dirt the next day once the concrete is dry.
Let the concrete sit and settle overnight, then the next day you can shovel in the rest of the hole with dirt. That's it, you are done, very easy and simple steps to install a mail box post. Now it is just a matter of screwing the mailbox onto the post. I ran across a site that has mailboxes for sale if any of you are looking into buying a mailbox.
The thing is if you have the right tools and follow this guide then any amateur that has a little bit of handyman knowledge will be able to successfully install a mail box post, or any kind of post that is needed, it is not that hard.
As for tools, you will need something that can dig a hole, for this you will need to get your hands on a post digger. Post diggers are made to dig cylinder shaped holes in the ground and this is the type of hole that we are going to need to install a post. A manual post digger is like two shovels that open and close like scissors and they make digging holes easy.
Some of the other tools that you will need to install a post will be some cement mix and something to mix the cement in. You will also need a hammer, and a level to make sure that when you set the post up it is straight and not leaning to one side looking all retarded.
First step we will take is to dig a hole that is about 2 feet deep, make sure that it is wide enough for the post to fit into. Insert the post into the hole and then hammer down on the post until it is standing sturdy, using the level make sure that the post is level.
Now we are going to mix up the concrete and fill in the hole that is around the post, not all the way though leave about 6 inches from the bottom of the ground as we will be filling this in with dirt the next day once the concrete is dry.
Let the concrete sit and settle overnight, then the next day you can shovel in the rest of the hole with dirt. That's it, you are done, very easy and simple steps to install a mail box post. Now it is just a matter of screwing the mailbox onto the post. I ran across a site that has mailboxes for sale if any of you are looking into buying a mailbox.
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