Items related to Help, It's Broken!: A Fix-It Bible for the Repair...
No matter where you live and whether you rent or own, one day you'll wake up in the morning and something will be broken. This book will come in handy to avoid panic and home repair disasters because a good reference guide is just what you need when there's a geyser in your living room. Count on this manual to tell you what to do or who to call to get the mess fixed.
This useful book includes chapters on:
Walls, Doors, Windows and Floors; Electricity; Appliances; Plumbing; Heat and Ventilation; Pests; Frugal Fixing and more.
Each section is illustrated and explains the basics of how things operate before detailing how to fix them in a few easy steps. It also teaches you not only how to fix things yourself but also how to get someone who knows what they're doing to fix things for you and what questions to ask.
This quick and informative guide can save you thousands of dollars and a lot of hassle. From unclogging drains to expelling rodents, from repairing stained carpet to fixing your dishwasher, you can depend on this book in any number of household catastrophes.
Even if you can barely tell a nut from a bolt, Help! It's Broken is your quick reference guide for all home-repair solutions. Consider it a toolbox essential.
This useful book includes chapters on:
Walls, Doors, Windows and Floors; Electricity; Appliances; Plumbing; Heat and Ventilation; Pests; Frugal Fixing and more.
Each section is illustrated and explains the basics of how things operate before detailing how to fix them in a few easy steps. It also teaches you not only how to fix things yourself but also how to get someone who knows what they're doing to fix things for you and what questions to ask.
This quick and informative guide can save you thousands of dollars and a lot of hassle. From unclogging drains to expelling rodents, from repairing stained carpet to fixing your dishwasher, you can depend on this book in any number of household catastrophes.
Even if you can barely tell a nut from a bolt, Help! It's Broken is your quick reference guide for all home-repair solutions. Consider it a toolbox essential.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Journalist Arianne Cohen is "The Fix" columnist for The New York Times and also regularly contributes to New York, Marie Claire, Popular Science, Vogue and Woman's Day.
Arianne Cohen is also the author of The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High and Confessions of a High School Word Nerd.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Arianne Cohen is also the author of The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High and Confessions of a High School Word Nerd.
Chapter 1: Help, Where Do I Start? The Must-Read Chapter
Dangerous Breaks
Uh-oh, something’s wrong: there is smoke, water, or gas in your living space and you don’t know what to do. Flailing about shrieking, “Heeelp, it’s broken!” won’t help, and neither will calling your dog, crying, or staring at the gathering catastrophe. If you live somewhere, you need to know how to quickly identify and respond to a potentially dangerous situation.
Five Signs That Something is Very, Very Wrong
·Flooding or streaming water, especially near electrical outlets or appliances
·Smoke in your living space or the smell of burning, particularly from an electrical source
·Gas leaks, the smell of gas, or damage to an exterior gas meter
·An activated carbon monoxide alarm
·A circuit that trips repeatedly or flickering lights that you can’t stop
In all five of these scenarios, you need to leave immediately. In the case of smoke, gas, or carbon monoxide, go outside and call a professional from a cell phone. If you are short on cash flow, you should have a “rainy day” fund of a few hundred dollars, for use when it’s raining water (or carbon monoxide) inside your living space.
Who Ya Gonna Call . . .
When in doubt, call the fire department. Although each of the above scenarios has the potential to involve fire or to become life threatening, local fire departments are rarely used for home emergencies. Fire personnel will usually come immediately without flashing lights, and often vacuum up the mess for you, free of charge. This is particularly true of salaried suburban departments that don’t have too much to do—it’s either helping you or playing on the pole. It is perfectly legitimate to call and say, “Hi, I just accidentally hit my gas meter with my car, and I want to make sure I don’t have a gas leak. Can you help me?”
Yes, you’ll feel like a dufus for not stepping on your brake earlier, but it’s better than the feeling of self-implosion. Fire personnel are trained to deal with these situations. If they are busy or not able to help you, they will say so, and tell you who to call.
Who Else To Call, and What To Do in the Meantime
Smoke. Leave the residence and call 911 or the fire department, always. It doesn’t matter if the smoke is from an electrical outlet, from an appliance, or from the large fire in your living room. If the smoke is coming from a contained electrical source, turn off the power supply to that part of the house with your circuit or fuse box, or if you’re not sure how to do that, turn off your main electricity shutoff. Even if you have stopped the smoke, it’s a good idea to call the fire department nonemergency number to have someone come identify and remove the hazard.
Water. If it’s near anything electrical, call the fire department and turn off your main electricity shutoff. If not, call your plumber. If you know where the water is coming from, turn off the water supply to that area of the house. If not, turn off your main water shutoff. Crying while you do this is okay.
Gas. Natural gas is potentially the most dangerous household substance. It can result in sudden flash explosions and fires. If you smell gas, leave and call the fire department. Damage to a gas line either inside your house or to the outside gas lines also warrants leaving and calling. If you feel that it is safe, turn off the main gas supply to the house before you leave, but do not risk your safety. (If you’re one of those people who thinks that gas smells good, ignore that feeling.)
Carbon Monoxide. If your carbon monoxide alarm goes off, get out of your living space immediately and call 911. Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odorless, deadly gas that can kill in minutes, so you could feel fine in an extremely dangerous situation. If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, go purchase a few for your living space and place them on your walls between knee and eye level, away from draft-causing doors and windows.
Tripping Circuit Breakers, Failing Fuses, and Flickering Lights
If you repeatedly lose power in an area of the house for no apparent reason and can’t pinpoint the problem to one appliance, call the electrician—
Bad wiring can be a fire hazard. If power is flickering in one area and the problem is not a dying bulb or an outside storm, flip off the circuit breaker or remove the fuse for that area of the house, unplug everything with a plug, and call your electrician—you probably have a problem behind your walls that needs professional help. If you lose power to your entire house, it is probably an outside utility problem, so inform the electrical company. Expect a complex, labyrinthine telephone voice system that doesn’t involve humans (“If you hate us, please press two.”).
Animals. Any wild animals in your living space warrant a local animal control call. Chipmunks, bats, and rats count. Animal control will either come over or tell you what to do. Some areas do not have twenty-four-hour animal control departments, in which case you will end up calling the local police nonemergency number, which this author has done multiple times. Feel free to beg a police officer to come help you with an animal in the middle of the night if a bat has you too freaked out to wait until morning. If you have other pets in the house, lock them in a different room. They may tip you off in the first place by acting unusually strange.
As a general rule, without food or water, most animals will leave within a few hours, so make sure none is available. To prevent future animal entries, repair any holes and cut back any shrubs from around your exterior walls.
How to Repair: Fixing It Yourself
You have decided to learn to fix things yourself. Congratulations! Self-sufficiency is always empowering, not to mention convenient—you’ll feel like a superhero for a day and show off your new repair to unimpressed friends for months.
What You Need to Fix It Yourself
A helpful home repair guide, such as this one. Mark up the margins with useful notes, diagrams, and reminders—this is your repair book.
Your toolbox. Every needed tool and product for a repair should be within reaching distance before you start. Open complicated caps ahead of time.
Gloves, overalls, sneakers, and a tarp.
–Gloves: They will protect your skin from chemicals, and breaking fingernails is never fun.
–Overalls: Not just a fashion statement, overalls are the repair outfit of choice for a reason: they’re great. They are durable, have lots of pockets, and will last forever. While overalls are by no means a requirement for home repair, comfortable clothing on which you won’t mind smearing oil and rust is key.
–Sneakers with good, gripping soles: Falls are easy due to liquids and tools lying on the floor, not to mention good dancing music in the background.
–Tarp: Laying a tarp means an easy cleanup.
Time. Leave yourself at least double the time recommended in a home repair guide, and triple the time it would take a professional.
A friend, or someone who knows what he or she is doing. Friends make things fun, and will calm you if you are worried about messing up.
Some music. Turn up the jams. I recommend the classics:
–Good, good, good, good, foundaaations . . .
–Hey Mr. Pipe Repairmaaan, fix a pipe for meeee . . .
–In the tooolbox, the meeetal toolbox, the haammer sleeps toniiiight . . .
–And IIIIIIIIIIIIIII, know how to fix yoooouuuuuuu . . .
–Summer fixin’, having a blast. Summer fixin’, patched it so fast. Found a book, perfect for meeee . . .
Before You Begin, A Big Repair Hint
Most repairs consist of taking things apart, fixing or replacing the defective parts, and putting them back together again. This said, anytime you disassemble something, take the time to lay out the pieces in the order your removed them, facing the correct direction. This will save you hours of frustration when you’re oh-so-close to being done.
You can also jump on the Digital Age bandwagon and take pictures to remind yourself how the pieces go together. Pictures are equally useful for taking to the home repair store to show what you need.
@#%$*@%&!!
Sometimes self fix-it projects don’t go so well. We understand this. Many of my fondest childhood memories are of watching my mother struggle with various chores of homeownership, such as teetering off a ladder while trying to get a dead bird out of the gutter or trying to install a new doorknob without the proper tools and the wrong size knob. Sometimes such activity requires the use of colorful language. Consider it part of the atmosphere.
Dangerous Breaks
Uh-oh, something’s wrong: there is smoke, water, or gas in your living space and you don’t know what to do. Flailing about shrieking, “Heeelp, it’s broken!” won’t help, and neither will calling your dog, crying, or staring at the gathering catastrophe. If you live somewhere, you need to know how to quickly identify and respond to a potentially dangerous situation.
Five Signs That Something is Very, Very Wrong
·Flooding or streaming water, especially near electrical outlets or appliances
·Smoke in your living space or the smell of burning, particularly from an electrical source
·Gas leaks, the smell of gas, or damage to an exterior gas meter
·An activated carbon monoxide alarm
·A circuit that trips repeatedly or flickering lights that you can’t stop
In all five of these scenarios, you need to leave immediately. In the case of smoke, gas, or carbon monoxide, go outside and call a professional from a cell phone. If you are short on cash flow, you should have a “rainy day” fund of a few hundred dollars, for use when it’s raining water (or carbon monoxide) inside your living space.
Who Ya Gonna Call . . .
When in doubt, call the fire department. Although each of the above scenarios has the potential to involve fire or to become life threatening, local fire departments are rarely used for home emergencies. Fire personnel will usually come immediately without flashing lights, and often vacuum up the mess for you, free of charge. This is particularly true of salaried suburban departments that don’t have too much to do—it’s either helping you or playing on the pole. It is perfectly legitimate to call and say, “Hi, I just accidentally hit my gas meter with my car, and I want to make sure I don’t have a gas leak. Can you help me?”
Yes, you’ll feel like a dufus for not stepping on your brake earlier, but it’s better than the feeling of self-implosion. Fire personnel are trained to deal with these situations. If they are busy or not able to help you, they will say so, and tell you who to call.
Who Else To Call, and What To Do in the Meantime
Smoke. Leave the residence and call 911 or the fire department, always. It doesn’t matter if the smoke is from an electrical outlet, from an appliance, or from the large fire in your living room. If the smoke is coming from a contained electrical source, turn off the power supply to that part of the house with your circuit or fuse box, or if you’re not sure how to do that, turn off your main electricity shutoff. Even if you have stopped the smoke, it’s a good idea to call the fire department nonemergency number to have someone come identify and remove the hazard.
Water. If it’s near anything electrical, call the fire department and turn off your main electricity shutoff. If not, call your plumber. If you know where the water is coming from, turn off the water supply to that area of the house. If not, turn off your main water shutoff. Crying while you do this is okay.
Gas. Natural gas is potentially the most dangerous household substance. It can result in sudden flash explosions and fires. If you smell gas, leave and call the fire department. Damage to a gas line either inside your house or to the outside gas lines also warrants leaving and calling. If you feel that it is safe, turn off the main gas supply to the house before you leave, but do not risk your safety. (If you’re one of those people who thinks that gas smells good, ignore that feeling.)
Carbon Monoxide. If your carbon monoxide alarm goes off, get out of your living space immediately and call 911. Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odorless, deadly gas that can kill in minutes, so you could feel fine in an extremely dangerous situation. If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector, go purchase a few for your living space and place them on your walls between knee and eye level, away from draft-causing doors and windows.
Tripping Circuit Breakers, Failing Fuses, and Flickering Lights
If you repeatedly lose power in an area of the house for no apparent reason and can’t pinpoint the problem to one appliance, call the electrician—
Bad wiring can be a fire hazard. If power is flickering in one area and the problem is not a dying bulb or an outside storm, flip off the circuit breaker or remove the fuse for that area of the house, unplug everything with a plug, and call your electrician—you probably have a problem behind your walls that needs professional help. If you lose power to your entire house, it is probably an outside utility problem, so inform the electrical company. Expect a complex, labyrinthine telephone voice system that doesn’t involve humans (“If you hate us, please press two.”).
Animals. Any wild animals in your living space warrant a local animal control call. Chipmunks, bats, and rats count. Animal control will either come over or tell you what to do. Some areas do not have twenty-four-hour animal control departments, in which case you will end up calling the local police nonemergency number, which this author has done multiple times. Feel free to beg a police officer to come help you with an animal in the middle of the night if a bat has you too freaked out to wait until morning. If you have other pets in the house, lock them in a different room. They may tip you off in the first place by acting unusually strange.
As a general rule, without food or water, most animals will leave within a few hours, so make sure none is available. To prevent future animal entries, repair any holes and cut back any shrubs from around your exterior walls.
How to Repair: Fixing It Yourself
You have decided to learn to fix things yourself. Congratulations! Self-sufficiency is always empowering, not to mention convenient—you’ll feel like a superhero for a day and show off your new repair to unimpressed friends for months.
What You Need to Fix It Yourself
A helpful home repair guide, such as this one. Mark up the margins with useful notes, diagrams, and reminders—this is your repair book.
Your toolbox. Every needed tool and product for a repair should be within reaching distance before you start. Open complicated caps ahead of time.
Gloves, overalls, sneakers, and a tarp.
–Gloves: They will protect your skin from chemicals, and breaking fingernails is never fun.
–Overalls: Not just a fashion statement, overalls are the repair outfit of choice for a reason: they’re great. They are durable, have lots of pockets, and will last forever. While overalls are by no means a requirement for home repair, comfortable clothing on which you won’t mind smearing oil and rust is key.
–Sneakers with good, gripping soles: Falls are easy due to liquids and tools lying on the floor, not to mention good dancing music in the background.
–Tarp: Laying a tarp means an easy cleanup.
Time. Leave yourself at least double the time recommended in a home repair guide, and triple the time it would take a professional.
A friend, or someone who knows what he or she is doing. Friends make things fun, and will calm you if you are worried about messing up.
Some music. Turn up the jams. I recommend the classics:
–Good, good, good, good, foundaaations . . .
–Hey Mr. Pipe Repairmaaan, fix a pipe for meeee . . .
–In the tooolbox, the meeetal toolbox, the haammer sleeps toniiiight . . .
–And IIIIIIIIIIIIIII, know how to fix yoooouuuuuuu . . .
–Summer fixin’, having a blast. Summer fixin’, patched it so fast. Found a book, perfect for meeee . . .
Before You Begin, A Big Repair Hint
Most repairs consist of taking things apart, fixing or replacing the defective parts, and putting them back together again. This said, anytime you disassemble something, take the time to lay out the pieces in the order your removed them, facing the correct direction. This will save you hours of frustration when you’re oh-so-close to being done.
You can also jump on the Digital Age bandwagon and take pictures to remind yourself how the pieces go together. Pictures are equally useful for taking to the home repair store to show what you need.
@#%$*@%&!!
Sometimes self fix-it projects don’t go so well. We understand this. Many of my fondest childhood memories are of watching my mother struggle with various chores of homeownership, such as teetering off a ladder while trying to get a dead bird out of the gutter or trying to install a new doorknob without the proper tools and the wrong size knob. Sometimes such activity requires the use of colorful language. Consider it part of the atmosphere.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherFilipacchi Publishing
- Publication date2011
- ISBN 10 1936297477
- ISBN 13 9781936297474
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages224
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