Things Breaking Down Around The Home....home Repairs..

A couple of weeks ago.....someting told me to get two new heater elements for my electric hot water heater..


Low and behold...last week the hot water heater went out. i could not get it to drain...and had to solve that problem...before I could change out the elements.

Glad there is U Tube.

Don t get me wrong here...It i nice to have running water ...unlike much of the world...but cold showers are not quite getting it.


A bit of skills with tools and some colorful advanced language skills and I managed to get the two heater elements changed out.

So nice to have hot water running again.

The lower electric element was burned right through.

I hate to think of what it would cost for a plumber to do it for me.


The plumbing store was closed today and hence I will be going on Monday to get two new heater elements and keep them on tap...just in case.

I have also thought ahead and have a new in the box replacement hot water heater stored in my garage....just in case.


But .....it is so nice to have hot water again...........How sweet it is !!!!!!!!!!



Now today....the damper on my back screen door broke and a trip to Lowes is in order for a replacement.


My back door ......like me....has a lot of miles on it



And now you know the rest of the story !!


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Glad I learned some skills from my father and also plenty of skills working in this shipyard...hence I am not gun shy when it comes to certain repairs.

Owning a home can get into big problems/costs if one does not know how to do certain things for one's self....big costs..


My non Ishmaelte .02,
Watcherchris

 

Went by the Orange Place....Home Depot and picked up two 4500 watt hot water heating elements. They did not have the stainless steel models and I made do with what they had.

These heating elements have been put away for future use...should the need arrive. It is good to have spare parts on hand for when needed...if one can so do.

What frequently happens is that when your equipment breaks down...the stores are closed...hence if possible ..it is good to have on hand certain parts.


Have a few other repairs for this weekend and for which I have been devoutly procrastinating.....running out of excuses now.


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Poor folk have to fix their own appliances. F### government rules!!! Bureaucrats have no justification to go on living. They are inferior.

Both of my dad's brothers could fix anything. My dad was good, could read electric schematics though never trained to do so, save by one of his brothers. One of my uncles built his own professional recording studios and became a record producer. But too, he was raised mega-poor. Poverty FORCES one to be intelligent. I'd say that that uncle's IQ was somewhere in the 140s or higher -- one of my sons' IQ was measured in the 140s by two separate tests. Another fellow and I designed and built a lab for a medical school -- both of us were born commoners / lower middle class. I came in and rescued another medical school's high tech lab (nationally known / internationally known). Think about it! You got nuthin! If you don't do it yourself, then it doesn't get done. The soul forces the brain to evolve. Sounds illogical, yet it is true. Quantum physicists see the origin of the universe as Will. They do not understand this. I do not understand this. Me, I'm an average guy at heart; however, I pray to my CREATOR and His prophets. I WILLED myself to graduate university summa cum laude. The Creator gave me math and visual/scientific abilities, but my dad and my mom, WILLED me to succeed.

We survivalists can WILL ourselves to succeed!!!! Never forget that! We can become more than we are! Future times are going to be grim. So what! Think that we are unique?!!! NO!!!!!! Throughout history, this has happened to millions, hundreds of millions!!!!!!!!!!! The more you prepare, the less you have to worry -- I sure don't sit around worrying. Me, I've done that which I can do. I continue to prepare as I think of other scenarios. I first think of younger generations, not of myself. I'm old; name something, I've been there, done that. If I get waxed, whoop-dee-do!, I no longer matter for much save for my input to younger generations -- I've pulled my time (and then some); can't believe I'm still alive, want to be with my kith and kin in the Next World. However, I want to always be a source of knowledge and empowerment of younger generations. Such is the duty of my species requirements and my personal station in life.

There it is. Here I am. I am my Creator's servant and that's that. "Know thyself."
.

 

Chris is right about YouTube being a useful for 'how to' videos, helped me out a lot especially with gardening because I'd zero experience/knowledge to fall back on.

 

Just skip forward LW

If you watch a video on something your trying to learn watch two or three from different uploaders to make sure the tips given are match.

A small outbuilding I have is my radio shack and I plastered the interior after watching some vids, never done it before, took me ten times longer than it would have taken a plasterer but it was fun.

 

I've gotten a lot of information off of Youtube. Gotta get multiple sources -- can't just take somebody's vid at face value.

I'll look at 3 videos or more, then read written instructions. If the procedure recommendations line up and the results are shown/tested, then I have more confidence. Doing these things have allowed me to make repairs that worked.

I must mention that where we live, there is no shortage of home repair stores, so getting the materials and tools to effect repairs is made easier. Too, at these stores, one can people to talk to about what you are trying to fix; these folk can tell you further details about what to do and what to avoid. In this part of America, total strangers walk up and talk to each other -- you must say things like, "Excuse me, but have you ever seen ...", and "Thank you so much, that advice of yours will help me." Kindness, humility, and gratitude go a long way in aiding communications.

There should be a rule book for how to behave in the South. Lord knows that there is a stack of do's and don't's. I'm going to go look and see if there are instructions on the web.
.

 

True, thats why I download the vids...don't need the internet then, same with books, most of my books are all in the UK so I've download ebooks...don't need the internet to read them. How many books can you carry if you had to bug out? I've got around 500 on my kindle and they are backed up elsewhere.

The only books I will buy are big illustrated books, latest is Alone on the Ice, an account of Douglas Mawson's epic journey, what a tough fella he was and its an inspiring read, see if your library has a copy
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alone-Ice-.../ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Very easily, for a phone or kindle a £10 solar panel with charge controller off ebay will do that, I've got a folding 6 panel kit I can hang on my backpack that would slow charge a laptop, very easy and cheap solutions to what you perceive to be a problem. I'm now off grid and in fact selling surplus power back into the grid, won't make a lot but it all helps.

Non fiction books are for entertainment/takes your mind off things and you need that type of break in a survival situation.

How would you and your wife cope if the power/water/sewerage systems fail, you must have plans in place? How about food?

 

Power: wood stoves, kerosene lamps, candles (we have blocks of wax and tubs of Crisco, which burns fine in candles)

Water: Mountain streams, boiling on a wood stove or pot hanging over our fireplace, water filters with ceramic & charcoal filters.

Sewerage: out-houses, slit-trenches, chamber pots

We have a multi book-case library. Way over 200 books, many of which I've put off reading. But now that I'm retired ...

Nice thing about the culture here is that crazy people and arrogant people are not tolerated. The culture leans very heavily to volunteerism. Tennessee is one state I've lived in and would like to return to. Tennessee is the "Volunteer State". In TN, if your house gets attacked, your neighbors will start shooting the attackers. In one county, some teenagers stole some television sets out of a guys shop behind his house. As the boys ran away with the TVs, he lit them up with his shotgun (birdshot). No charges were brought against the home/shop owner. Aggressors get shot and the sheriff departments couldn't care less.

I mean hey people, our ancestors didn't have our electric/electronic widgets and got by that way for millennia.

My grandparents in their youth had no electricity. I learned a lot from them -- three of them lived to be old (90, 94, 100 yrs old at death), so I got to live with them and talk to them for years on end. When kids, my parents' homes had no indoor plumbing (1920s/1930s Southern Appalachia). My dad was born in a mining camp -- my mom, born up in the mountains, lived in a holler. They had nothing. I've used outhouses a many a time. Burned lord only knows how much kerosene and made stacks of candles. I've started hundreds of fires in fireplaces and wood stoves to stay warm and to cook over. I've cut down trees. Dug trenches. Plowed gardens. Something broken? -- then fix it yourself. Where I'm from, EVERYBODY has done these things! I am NOT unique at all. People here hunt, fish, camp, stay outdoors for all manner of activities (working outside has resulted in me having to have four skin cancers cut out of my face and scalp).

I consider myself to be downright lucky. Poor people from other countries have had it much worse. At least where I grew up, there is fertile soil. Think about all the poor folk around the world who live in near-desert conditions. These folk only have animals to ride for transportation. They walk hundreds upon hundreds of miles to escape wars.

Western people have gone squishy soft. They've gone weak beyond measure. Not so with billions of others.
.

 

Non fiction books deal in facts and factual events and you can learn from that.

Of no interest to you but a good mountain book for the American members is 'Forever on the Mountain (James Tabor) about the ill fated 1967 Denali disaster led by Joe Wilcox, lot of mistakes made there and much was learned from it.
https://www.amazon.com/Forever-Moun...prefix=forever+on+the+mountain,aps,162&sr=8-1

We learn from mistakes.

 

True, but people have often learned from the fatal mistakes of others, we learn new thing all the time.

My latest learning curve is cooking with an air fryer, I'm quite impressed

 

Temp fate. Learn about eternity.

 

LOL, I'm a great cook, I've slow cookers, deep fat fryers, wok ring, microwave et al and now an air fryer which is a stupid name, in reality they are a small fan assisted oven. You should look at one LW, no offence but at your age its easier cooking a chicken in these table top ovens than you bending to a traditional oven...your back will thank you. I cooked strips of belly pork today, salted the rind and 14 mins later I had beautiful crispy pork belly.

I've done some hay box cooking and this year I'm going to make a solar cooker.

 

i am a retired plumber, I would charge two hours and material, however if the tank was more than 7-8 years old i wouls suggest changing the tank

 

re: Elements for an electric water heater

I've lived where there are massive limestone deposits. There, elements plate-up with calcium. If there's something one can do about that short of filtering your water before it gets distributed throughout your house, I don't know about it. Some call it "hard water". If you use a whole-house filter, you also do not have to use as much detergent when washing clothes. Me, I don't want the water too "soft" because you can't get soap off your hands.

 

by Arctic Bill,

I sometime back bought a new hot water heater and have it stored in the box in my garage. In the mean time I will try to keep this one going..and it is approaching that kind of life...age!!


Also debating the value of one of those newer tankless types..that make water as you use it.


Orangetom
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

As with solar electric power, one can also run water through panels to heat the water. This is a summer phenom where we live. In winter, the water will freeze. Outdoor temps had been warming, then POOF, it snowed as temps went below freezing. Now today, only a light sweater is needed.

Up on the mountain tops, a goodly amount of snow was deposited. Very pretty. I had to drive to another community today. I looked out over the fields and pasture lands to see the mountains all white with snow. Lovely.

 

Go anywhere in southern Europe and you'll see solar water heaters on rooftops everywhere. On the coast temps are now up to 18-20c, up here in the hills its around 11-12c but my hot water is warm enough to shower without turning on the propane or light a wood burner plus these systems are not expensive in basic form, mine cost more because my hot water can come from a wood burner or propane boiler, linking up the whole system cost a fare bit.

 

If one lives where there is a lot of sunlight and the weather is generally warm, why use external power to heat water?!

Downright crazy in areas that are near-desert conditions (ex: America's Southwest).

Also, this roof-heated water is plenty warm-enough (can get hot), for a person to bathe in. If there are silver plates, and/or filters, and/or chlorination, then bacteria & fungi will be killed. This isn't drinking water, after all. It's just to get the dirt off your body.

For air conditioning, millions still use roof water-evaporators for cooling. Once upon a time, this was THE way of cooling, especially in America's Southwest. If one lives where there are perpetual breezes (North Carolina's Outer Banks is a prime example) one can use evaporators to beat the heat and small windmills to generate the electricity to run the small water pumps.

Solar electric panels can provide the energy to pump this water. These pumps are not moving huge amounts of water at speed -- quite the opposite.

America wastes vulgar amounts of electricity. My recent ancestry had zero electricity and got by.

Everybody can better insulate their homes. Appliances of today are far more energy efficient -- look for those.

Long-term storage of food, think canning and drying methodologies. Most folk think "I need a larger freezer." When the power goes off for a few days all that expensive food will go bad.

Think about this, how long have these sorts of technology existed. Ans: For freaking-ever!