Your home is your castle, the most possession you’ll have to pay for, whether you’re renting or buying. You should therefore take good care of it. Occasionally a few faults, cracks or damages occur now and then, here and there around the wall or appliances.
Due to this, the first urge is to call a professional repair man, but with a little know-how, there are a few repairs you should probably be able to fix yourself in minutes and save yourself money.
However, be sure to have a fairly adequate knowledge on the particular fix you’re carrying out with a little research. It also helps to have a toolbox of your own, or start building one if you don’t already have one.
Here a few repairs you could quickly undertake on your own with a couple of essential tools, and therefore save yourself some valuable cash.
A broken toilet lever
Sometimes, the toilet lever may become lax and no longer flush. If you have this problem, it is quite easy to fix it+. Simply pull up the lip and re-attach the chain. It’s possible the lever has stopped because it has corroded or one of the pieces that connect the handle to the flapper is broken. In that case, you can buy these cheap pieces in the small tools market and easily replace them yourself. For a broken toilet lever, an adjustable wrench and replacement toilet lever kits are essential.
Clogged toilet drain
This is usually an emergency, or one waiting to happen. You cannot afford to ignore it if you don’t want to have a flood of grime and filth.
Blocked toilet drains can be stressful, but the first thing to do is not to panic. Put on your detective instinct and probe the pipes to determine if a foreign object like a child’s toy had obstructed the pipe network.
You’ll need tough gloves to pull out the object clogging the water passage way. You can also decide to wait for the water in the toilet bowl to sink to a normal level and pour a bucket of water with a pressure that will dislodge the blockage.
You’ll need a plunger, submerged in the bowl water to thrust through the pipe way, or an auger with a good grip to pull out the clog.
A faulty light switch
As a rule of the thumb, electrical repairs should be left to a professional because it has a higher risk of serious injury or even death, compared to other DIY home fixes.
However, light switches are pretty easy to replace or fix if damaged. Just be sure to turn off the circuit breaker and take any necessary precaution to ensure that there’s no electric current running through any of the cables before you begin.
With a flathead screwdriver, unscrew the nuts holding the faceplate covering the switch. Then using the same process, remove the switch from the wall. You’ll see two or three coloured wires (red, blue/black and yellow) connected to the small screws in the switch. Disconnect the wires and attach to the new switch, making sure that you match the colour as in the old switch. Turn on your circuit breaker and turn on your new light switch.
