Home repair advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

Anyone got a reasonably good book on mid-level home repair to reccommend?

We’re renting a new house, and it needs some serious attention. We’ve done painting basics before, but nothing like this. I think we can manage with good advice, though.

The landlord is willing to reimburse us (to an extent) on supplies if we provide the labor. The house is going to need:

A new fence on one side with a gate (min 5 foot tall, preferably wood)
Finished walls (the panelling is coming down and we need to know how to finish the drywall underneath)
Finished ceiling (Same problem as the walls)
Advice on how to keep the rest of the wood fence from weathering more
Installing new light fixutres
Installing a new faucet

Thanks!

2

Home Depot has free pamphlets that briefly explain many DIY projects. Time-Life published a series of DIY books aimed at the home handyman, they should be available at your local library.

3

Thanks, A.R. Cane. I guess I was paranoid about the pamphlets at Home Depot not being quite indepth enough. And the only Time-Life books I had found were from the 60’s. Maybe if I try a library in a bigger town…

4

Materials have certainly changed since the 60’s, but not most methods. Wiring and simple plumbing jobs should be about the same. If you have little or no experience you might take a look at a local community college to see if they offer any handyman courses.
You can also use Google to look for DIY advice, or ask here, we have many talented people in the Dope.

5

Actually, wiring and plumbing have changed pretty significantly in 40 years. Other than laying out the concepts, I’d be wary of trusting an old book for anything other than knowing electricity is in wires and water is in pipes. Codes and materials have seen huge changes, generally for the safer, simpler and easier.

OTOH, carpentry type stuff is largely the same.

Oh, how to keep the fence from weathering more? In CA, I’ll take the safe bet that it’s redwood. It’s gonna age, no matter what you do. And, assuming it was installed well initially, it will last about 15-20 years before it falls down. (Mine’s 18 years old, and just a few days ago, I did some bracing, hoping to extend its life another year.)

6

Home Depot has a series of books that you can find in various places throughout the store (not sure if they have a “book” section and where it is).

When I bought my house I got “Home Improvement 1-2-3” which I think is very thorough in giving you the basics on how to do most projects - from changing a light socket to re-shingling your roof. It has really good pictures, too. And there’s a grading scale that tells you how hard each project is and how much time it’ll take depending on your skill level.

Even if it’s not enough to get you through each project exactly, it’s a good starting point for 'net research since it’ll tell you the terms you need and the materials. Plus, like I said, the pictures are very helpful.

For the record, I haven’t used it to do any projects myself but I have used it several times to help me decide that I should NOT tackle said project myself and should instead call someone to help :slight_smile:

7

[QUOTE=Pullet]
Anyone got a reasonably good book on mid-level home repair to reccommend?

We’re renting a new house, and it needs some serious attention. We’ve done painting basics before, but nothing like this. I think we can manage with good advice, though.

The landlord is willing to reimburse us (to an extent) on supplies if we provide the labor. The house is going to need:

A new fence on one side with a gate (min 5 foot tall, preferably wood)
Finished walls (the panelling is coming down and we need to know how to finish the drywall underneath)
Finished ceiling (Same problem as the walls)
Advice on how to keep the rest of the wood fence from weathering more
Installing new light fixutres
Installing a new faucet

Thanks!
[/QUOTE]

I’ll try and give you my two cents worth of advice about these particular projects.

A new fence on one side with a gate (min 5 foot tall, preferably wood)
*
This depends on how “by hand” you want to go. Digging fence posts by hand can be a pure bitch. However a $40 rental of an auger makes the job go by really quick. If you’re going to hang stringers, then nail each individual board yourself, that takes a lot more time and skill. If you’re going to buy the pre-made sections, then just hang them on the fence posts, it’s a lot faster and easier. Hell I put up a 6’ privacy fence along my Mother-in-law’s back yard basically by myself. So it’s doable.

Finished walls (the panelling is coming down and we need to know how to finish the drywall underneath)
Finished ceiling (Same problem as the walls)
*

I lumped these together since they’re basically the same thing. When my wife and I finished the room over our garage in the first house, we hung all the drywall ourselves and put in the light fixtures. When we started taping and mudding it? We gave that shit up after about 5 hours. I personally don’t have the patience to make sure all the seams are smoothed out and put like 4 coats of mudd up. If you’re good at paying attention to details, and like that type of perfectionist work then you should be fine. It’s not physically difficult, just time consuming.
*
Advice on how to keep the rest of the wood fence from weathering more
*
There are a lot of options, depending on what exactly you have. You may be able to pressure wash the wood, then put a moisture resistant stain or coating over it. Again, not difficult but time consuming.
*
Installing new light fixutres
*
Do you mean install brand new fixtures where there are no currently existing lights? Or just replacing old fixtures with new? If the former then I’d be extreamly hesitant to suggest that you tackle this yourself. There are a lot of things you can do wrong by trying to put in a new circut or tap into an existing circuit if you’re not sure what you’re doing. If you’re just replacing an existing fixture with a new one then you should be ok as long as you follow common sense safty guidelines. Make sure the power is off…buy a little power checker so you can test the wires to make sure the power is really off. Don’t be surprised if the wiring that is up there is very old. You may run into problems if it’s too old to work with. I ran into that issue at my mom’s old house when the wires were so old they broke rather than letting me twist them to the new ones.

Installing a new faucet
*
I’d rank this as actually one of the easiest on your list. Replacing a faucet fixture takes about 15 minutes. Again depending on the age of your house, and the age of the current fixtures, you could run into problems, but I suspect that it’ll be fine. Although do you mean tub or sink? Tub fixtures are a bit more of a pain, and could cause you some heartache. Sink faucets should go pretty quick.

Something to keep in mind about just about all of these projects. They require tools. Probably ones that you may not have. So either locate a good rental place, find out which of your friends has stuff for you to borrow, or be prepared to spend some money getting your “tool chest” stocked with what you need. Sure there are some jobs that you can do without getting the specific tool you need to do it, but it’ll take you half again as long as it would if you just had the right tool in hand. Drywall finishing is a good example. If you have a lot of corner work, or some odd angles, it’s a lot faster and easier to buy the tools that are made to put the compound and smooth it in corners. Sure you can do the corners without them…but it’ll take you a hell of a lot longer to get them right.

Good Luck!

8

Thanks, ZipperJJ. I’ll see if I can pick up a copy.

gotpasswords: I’m fairly certain the original fence isn’t made of redwood. For one, the neighborhood is in the central valley, where redwood work is more uncommon. For another, the neighborhood has always been low-income, so I doubt anyone would have laid out the cash for redwood.

There is still some red paint clining to the boards, but I’m hoping to sand off that little bit and essentially soak the boards in weatherproof wood sealer. But, I’m not sure if the boards are too far gone for that to be useful.

Some examples of the kinds of repairs this place has seen (because I can’t help but share): rather than finish a beam in the ceiling of the house, someone covered it with a piece of styrofoam scuplted to mimic wood. In another place, someone scavanged some wood panelling and off the wall and covered the unfinished drywall with a stray square of carpet. The landlord was bragging to me how he repaired the wood panelling (!!) in places with bits of wood-patterned contact paper.

9

When I bought my house, I got both the Black & Decker Guide to Home Repair and the B&D GUide to Home Improvement. Both books are excellent (with some small overlap) and have lot of pictures that show you exactly what you need to do.

I’ve also got the B&D guides to home wiring and plumbing for more in-depth information. I think Home Depot and Lowes both carry the B&D books so you can browse them before you buy.

10

Just wanted to point out that in many places it’s the landlord’s responsibility to make sure that their rental property is in good, livable condition. Check around, there will be some local office or university tenant’s union or something that can show you the rules for your area.

Don’t put yourself in the position of doing work that someone else is required to do, with the offer that you might get some of your materials (and tools?) paid for and none of your labor. That’s just letting yourself get taken advantage of.

11

Thanks for the advice, Atrael.

Some clarification:
The light fixtures instillation will be swapping out old fixtures for new ones, not building all new outlets. I know my limits! I figure it works pretty much like it sounds, but I wanted to find out if there were any secret tricks I might not realize. I’ve had just enough education in home repair to know what I don’t know, you know?

The replaced faucet will probably include a whole new bathroom counter. I’m thinking of getting an old dresser and fitting it with a drilled ceramic bowl as the sink basin. The landlord was telling me how he just had the plumbing in the place outfitted with that fancy new pipe trap idea, where there is an S bend in the pipe to catch solid things that fall down the drain instead of being straight. How novel :eek: And it’s all made out of inch wide PVC. So I’m a little concerned about the capacity of the plumbing to handle my fussings.

The big project that I’ll tackle when I’ve got my toolkit more robust: fixing the ceiling above the shower. For reasons no one can figure, the ceiling in the bathroom suddenly drops from 9 foot to 7 foot only above the shower, turning it into a dark little cave. Not so good for me and the husband (both 6 foot tall). I’m hoping all it will require is some quality time with a sawsall and new drywall.

12

Thanks for the concern, Valgard. Technically, the place is livable. All the light fixtures and plumbing are in working order, no holes in the roof or walls, all the windows function, and the carpet is new. The house is hideous, but not dangerous.

The landlord is pretty keen on having us rent the place. The last renter he had caused him a lot of headache, so he’s anxious to have dependable, non-addicted renters. I’m pretty sure he’ll let me knock $100 a month off the rent if I provide him with receipts for consumable improvements on the house (paint and whatnot). The tools I’ll get myself and keep.

13

We’ve been living in our rental house for 9 years now and when we first moved in it was livable, but “blah” and there were areas that needed some work. Over the years, we’ve made a lot of repairs and upgrades to the property from which we’ve benefitted (why not? we live there) and have been reimbursed for materials from the landlord.

One thing that I found invaluable was to talk to the people who work at Home Depot or Lowes. They have been incredibly helpful when I try to explain what I want to do. One guy at Home Depot walked me through installing a shower. “There are the hot and cold pipes that come up from the floor…what do I need from there?” (the bathtub was there, but it didn’t have a shower.) He literally drew me a diagram and walked me through every single piece of material I needed to install a shower head and the lines from the floor up. He then told me to come back if I got stuck and had more questions! (I didn’t get stuck, and now have a wonderful shower!)

Along those same lines, I’ve accumulated friends who have enough home repair knowledge to be dangerous :smiley: and I watch a lot of HGTV.