Home Repair – You Can Do It Yourself

Do not be frightened by home repairs. With a little investigation and confidence, most home repairs are less difficult than they seem.

With all of the free information available on the Internet, in the library, local home improvement centers and friends even difficult home repairs can be accomplished without the need of hiring a professional.

The problem is that many of these home repairs can seem unapproachable to an inexperienced homeowner.

Most homeowners have no idea how the inside of a toilet tank works,how to shut the gas off to their water heater,how to relight a pilot light, how to install a thermostat for your heating & cooling system.

But most people do have the ability to fix their toilet, change the thermocouple on their water heater, relight a pilot light, caulk around the tub, and replace a light switch.

The first thing that is needed has to be the willingness to try. There is a great sense of accomplishment to be had when you take care of these things yourself without spending the money to call a service person.

Here are few things that every homeowner needs know to help them do their own home repairs.

Where your Electrical Breaker (or Fuse) box is located.

Know which breaker (or fuse) turns off the power to which parts of your home.

Where the Main Gas Shut Off Valve is for the Natural Gas or Propane coming into your home.

Where the Gas Shut Off Valves are for all gas appliances.

Where the Main Water Shut Off Valve is for the home. (Most homes have a shut valve before and after the water meter.)

If you know how and where to turn the water, gas and power off do different areas of your home if something were to go wrong there should not be too much of a mess.

If you take these basic precautions, you won’t have to feel bad about any attempt at maintaining or repairing anything in your home. After all, if you mess things up too much, you can still call a repair person to fix it for you.

So, how do you go about learning how to do these things?

Anymore my first stop is YouTube for almost everything I want to know something about.

If I do not find what I am looking for on YouTube or for a backup I usually ask a friend or neighbor.

Your local hardware or home center usually has knowledgeable people who can direct you to the proper way to handle any task.

Your local library and the internet have more information than you can process.

In my experience sometimes the best thing to do is check a few reliable sources and then get started.

For maintenance, look at your owner manuals. Almost everything in your home has a manual and if you do not have the manual, it usually can be found on the manufacturer web site.

What you’ll find is that the more home maintenance and minor repairs that you do, the easier it will get. Things no longer seem threatening and you’re willing to try bigger and bigger things. Each thing you do on your own saves you the cost of hiring someone to do it and often the job will get done faster.

I hope this helps.