Be Your Own Handy Man

It's easy to have unexpected expenses when you are a homeowner.  It seems like things are always coming up and unexpected things are almost a given.  

We recently started having trouble with our dryer.  It would turn on and spin, but would not heat up.  My first response was to let it sleep it off and hopefully it would work in the morning.  Well, that did not work - shocking - so we had to go to plan B.  My husband is very sweet, kind and smart but has never really had an opportunity to be a handyman.  We've rented for most of our married life so we always called someone else to fix things around the house.  Now that we own the place, we had no one to call.  I did call my dad for a brief consult on what to do and he gave his two cents.  We called a local handyman and got a quote for $150.  I also checked with our home warranty and the dryer was not included in our policy.  The parts cost around $50 so the DIY route was definitely appealing.

My husband started googling, searching appliance websites and making phone calls to appliance part shops.  We weren't sure we would be able to fix it but he wanted to give it a try.  He determined that it was likely two things and the videos he found walked him through determining the problem and fixing it.  He headed to Lowes and bought an ohm meter and a tiny socket wrench.  He took the back off the dryer and got busy.  Olive was very curious and eager to help.

He unhooked, tested and tried several things.  Determined which part needed replaced and made plans to pick up the new part the following day.  He came home with it and got busy stripping wires, hooking and unhooking and reassembling the dryer.  He'd watch and rewatch the videos to make sure he got things right.  Then we did a test load in the dryer.  Voila!!  It was heating up perfectly.

Thanks to google, on-line videos and a go get 'em attitude, 

My hubby has become quite the handyman!!

I was so proud of him and I think he was pretty proud of himself.

We easily saved $100 and gained some confidence in the home DIY department.