The Home Improvement Thread

[Fuzz]

Ya, if it buzzed after hitting the button, it's probably just jammed. If whoever installed it was smart, they would have taped the key to the unit somewhere...


And since you put Ikea furniture together, you should have a whole drawer of various allan keys by now!

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Arsenal14

That's interesting - we had the same thing happen with an LG fridge that we got with our house. The light didn't turn off overnight. By the next day it had melted the plastic cover and a bunch of the food in the fridge was ruined as it basically turned the top half of the refrigerator into an oven. Those bulbs get surprisingly hot.

I found a bunch of links showing that this is apparently a known issue with LG so I called them and they sent a repair guy out to replace the control unit and cover. It was an older refrigerator than yours though so your issue may be different.

https://elizabethtownkitley.civicweb.net/document/852
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/lg-an...down-1.3042900
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...igerators.html

Huh... interesting. In the CBC link, that essentially looks like the inside of my refrigerator, except the temp controls are on the light cover. My light cover wasn't melted as badly as the one in that article though.

I guess I'll take a look at the serial number and contact LG and see what they will do about it (and if they do repair it I'll also swap the bulbs at my own cost to super low wattage LED to reduce the possibility of this happening again even if the light doesn't turn off).

Yeah, those bulbs essentially turned the top into an easy bake oven. It was dual 60W bulbs IIRC.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, if it buzzed after hitting the button, it's probably just jammed. If whoever installed it was smart, they would have taped the key to the unit somewhere...


And since you put Ikea furniture together, you should have a whole drawer of various allan keys by now!

I recently moved into a new house. I'm sure I have different sized L shaped Allan keys that can fit in the 2 inch area below the garborator, but I have no idea which of the 500 boxes they are in in my home. Plus the ones I've found and tried so far are all too small.

And no dice on the Allan key taped to the garborator unfortunately. I checked already.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

The garborator worked for like the half dozen times we had tested it earlier with the realtor and home inspector etc. (Added water prior to turning on of course). Nothing had been put into the garborator before it suddenly stopping working and in actuality, we were planning on testing with a tomato prior to it stopping. Here's hoping it's just somehow jammed and not actually required to be replaced (I get it's relatively simple, but I have like two dozen mini projects and touch ups to do before spending the cost, time and effort to do a garborator).

Except that food will continue to accumulate in the grinding chamber and turn into a fetid swamp, suddenly moving up to #1 on said mini project list....

As Fuzz said, look for the breaker button 1st. Worst case scenario, if you can install a faucet (and pop up assembly) you can install a replacement garbarator.

(ask me why I know these two factoids....)

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

What did the repair guy fix? I think that would be a good lead.

Fuzz's idea of airflow is a good one.

Another thing I'd look into is the light. If it's an incandescent bulb, it could be heating up your fridge. I had a recent issue where something went wrong with the light cable in an older LG fridge that came with the house I bought. The fridge light never turned off when the doors were closed. I only found out when my wife complained that the light cover fell off and the fridge was quite warm at the top. I brushed it off for a day or so thinking she carelessly smacked it with some groceries. When I inspected it, I realized the dual incandescent lights bulbs (within spec) weren't turning off and were hot enough to warp/bubble the thick plastic light cover until it fell off. The surrounding plastic was not unaffected either.

Not saying this is specifically your issue, but for a few bucks it doesn't hurt to swap to LED light for less energy usage and less heat anyways.

I'm still debating whether to replace my fridge immediately or Macguyer some battery powered motion sensing light inside the fridge to delay the replacement. I'm not paying an appliance repair guy a few hundred bucks for something like this.

But damn, if I hadn't found out this issue and went on vacation or something, spoiled food would have been the least of my worries. That situation I had was a full on fire hazard. I've never seen this happen before.

This happened within a few weeks of moving in. Coincidentally, the garborator which worked fine before stopped working. The garborator looks like it's at least a decade or two old though. The Fridge looks like it's like 5 years at worst. I need to see whether the garb unit is reset/tripped/jammed before considering to replace it. For those who have done this, is this an easy swap? Should I do this myself or procure the parts and pay a contractor $50 to install it?

Note: I'm pretty darn good at IKEA furniture capability, but quite a newbie/amateur for the handyman stuff but willing to learn.

Well apparently my fridge just needed to be thawed out. Took it apart and saw the ice build up in the freezer, so I left it unplugged over night. Plugged it back in in the morning and so far so good.

[wwkayaker]

Installed crown moulding in the living room today. Tricky and I made a lot of sawdust but it looks good.

[Wormius]

Yesterday all of a sudden our kitchen sink was clogged. Wife use the plunger and seemed to fix it. A short while later I hear a weird dripping in the basement. The sink from the wet bar had overflowed everywhere. Anyway, that’s cleaned up, but.. I have since discover that any water draining from the kitchen sink is flowing back up from the wet bar sink drain and causing it to fill up. This is new as of yesterday. The wet bar sink eventually slowly drains on its own, but plunging and pouring boiling water has done nothing. It is also the only fixture in the house that is doing this. I am guessing this problem is downstream of both sinks which is why the wet bar sink is filling up with water from the main floor sink and also slow to drain. I attempted to snake it, but I think the snake is just going the wrong way probably heading up instead of to where the blockage might be.

I noticed the pipe on the wet bar sink was sloping down towards the p-trap, which I adjusted.

The wet bar was roughed in when we bought the house, so I assume it is all properly done. I only installed the sink to the drain there. And it has been fine for the last 13 years or so.

So, would this be a clog or should I be looking at something else?

[metallicat]

My furnace is acting up. It will come on and stay in for awhile, but then it will shut off and come back on immediately over and over again. It doesn't seem predictable though because sometimes it won't happen. Any furnace experts see an obvious issue? The furnace is original to my house from '88. Thermostat issue? Furnace dying? Something else possible?

[sa226]

Depending on how its cycling, it could be the flame sensor needs cleaning. As being discussed in another thread.

Basically as a safety feature, once the thermostat calls for heat, the furnace starts its heating cycle by adding gas to the burner with the igniter firing, if there's nothing wrong with gas delivery or the igniter you will see blue flames start to heat the exchanger, but immediately it will shut down, because the flame sensor isn't sensing flame. It things its just dumping a bunch of gas in the house.

If you google flame sensor cleaning its really easy to do. But as with anything natural gas related, be careful.

The cycle is usually pretty quick and you say it runs for a bit first, so I'm not sure. Maybe its intermittent.

Sent from my SM-G973W using Tapatalk

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by metallicat

My furnace is acting up. It will come on and stay in for awhile, but then it will shut off and come back on immediately over and over again. It doesn't seem predictable though because sometimes it won't happen. Any furnace experts see an obvious issue? The furnace is original to my house from '88. Thermostat issue? Furnace dying? Something else possible?

Does yours give you an error code?

[metallicat]

Ok, thanks guys. No clue about an error code - not even sure how to find out.

[TopChed]

Definitely won't have an error code on a furnace from 1988.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by metallicat

My furnace is acting up. It will come on and stay in for awhile, but then it will shut off and come back on immediately over and over again. It doesn't seem predictable though because sometimes it won't happen. Any furnace experts see an obvious issue? The furnace is original to my house from '88. Thermostat issue? Furnace dying? Something else possible?

Is the thermostat original to the house as well?

I think it might be a better idea to bring in someone to look at it and have peace of mind rather than DIY it if the guesses are all over the board ranging from the thermostat to the furnace itself. It'll keep you from spending time and money on a minor issue and missing out on a major one IMO.

[metallicat]

I just cleaned the flame sensor, we'll see if that works. House didn't blow up yet anyways. That's always a plus when I'm doing stuff like this.

[burn_this_city]

Which thermostat are you using?

[bagofpucks]

Well, got the call that my mom has some water in her basement. After a significant amount of confusion, I found her one downspout had been knocked off and it appears it may have been enough water dripping to seep through the foundation. Does that sound right? I walked around our house when I got home and noticed our one downspout had fallen down as well and really there isn’t much water accumulation at all. Luckily this is just beside our garage, so shouldn’t have caused any issues. Maybe the thaw/freeze cycle we had caused some additional issues at my mom’s house? Insurance claim is made and we did some clean up tonight, but we can’t get all the carpet pulled up super easily.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Yesterday all of a sudden our kitchen sink was clogged. Wife use the plunger and seemed to fix it. A short while later I hear a weird dripping in the basement. The sink from the wet bar had overflowed everywhere. Anyway, that’s cleaned up, but.. I have since discover that any water draining from the kitchen sink is flowing back up from the wet bar sink drain and causing it to fill up. This is new as of yesterday. The wet bar sink eventually slowly drains on its own, but plunging and pouring boiling water has done nothing. It is also the only fixture in the house that is doing this. I am guessing this problem is downstream of both sinks which is why the wet bar sink is filling up with water from the main floor sink and also slow to drain. I attempted to snake it, but I think the snake is just going the wrong way probably heading up instead of to where the blockage might be.

I noticed the pipe on the wet bar sink was sloping down towards the p-trap, which I adjusted.

The wet bar was roughed in when we bought the house, so I assume it is all properly done. I only installed the sink to the drain there. And it has been fine for the last 13 years or so.

So, would this be a clog or should I be looking at something else?

Sounds like you have a clog downstream of both sinks before the main line. I'm assuming no issues with this when toilets are flushed or tub/shower drain? Sounds like your wet bar joins up with the kitchen line on the way to the main. Get to your main stack and see if you can find where the sinks enter, if you absolutely can't get a snake in from the drain side you may be able to get in from there and work backwards. If the basement sink is filling when any other sources are draining, your main cleanout is probably where you want to start.

My friend had roots in her main line and it took a long time to notice because the water sits in the stack and seeps out, hiding the problem. Water in your basement sink could indicate the entire drain system in full to that point, but then you would see it any time you drain water. your's sounds more localized indicating a midstream block.

[Wormius]

It turned out to be a big mass of food gunk that coagulated around 50 feet downstream of the sink.

Not cheap to have the plumber come and clean it all out, but at least it wasn’t something worse, and I guess better than taking a day off work and hoping to fix it myself without knowing what exactly it was.

I did redo the plumbing under my wet bar sink. Not sure what happened but I took the p-trap off to check it out and it was kind of rusty and long cracks forming along the side. The ABS fixtures seems to hold up better than the chrome-plated stuff.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I did redo the plumbing under my wet bar sink. Not sure what happened but I took the p-trap off to check it out and it was kind of rusty and long cracks forming along the side. The ABS fixtures seems to hold up better than the chrome-plated stuff.

It's amazing how caustic the sludge in your drain system is. I find these chrome plated brass drains aren't good for more than 8 yrs or so, the only reason I have one in my bathroom is because I used a nice porcelain sink with the bottom exposed, otherwise I stick to ABS.

My furnace started leaking water from the condensate collecter/drain, it had completely eroded a brass fitting to the point where it could seep through the threads. The plastic housing it was threaded into was fine but the brass fitting looked like it had been reamed out on the bottom side, just like river bed erosion. And only about 10 yrs old at the time.

[Twitchy15]

If you buy a shed that’s say 10 ft by 8 ft would the best base to have be a concrete pad?

Any opinions on this? Concrete pad vs building your own?