Home Ownership How Things Work In Your House

Home Ownership How Things Work In Your House.  It is important to figure out how handy you are and/or how hand can you be.  It will save you many headaches down the road and may get things in your house back up and running when a service technician or tradesman cannot show up for a few days.  It can also save you quite a bit of money.

Step one – Determine how handy you are.

Some things should be left to professionals, but if it falls within your range of skill; there is a lot you can accomplish with Google Search, Youtube and some tools.  For example, My Kenmore front load washing machine gave me an F2 error code.  So I Googled, “Washing Machine F2 Error Code”.  The results came back as that the washer is taking too long to drain properly.

I knew that the pump was clogged with stuff,  I knew that because I have had the washer a long time and had not cleaned the pump in years.  Stuff gets in there, socks, bandaids, coins, rocks, you name it all washing machines have a catch area before the pump to try and trap all the large debris so it will not get in the pump impeller and cause the pump to burn out.

So time to search on youtube how to access the pump and the clean out.  You can see my video below as to how simple accessing the clean out is on my machine.

Step Two – What are the systems you should be aware of and how they operate?

• HVAC – Operating your thermostat, changing the filter, know how to shut off the gas to the furnace.
• Water heater – Know how to shut off the gas, ignite the pilot light (if it has a pilot and not electronic ignition) Set the temp, set the temp for vacation mode.
• Garbage Disposal – How to fix a jammed disposal.  How find and use the use the reset button.
  Circuit Panel – Make sure it is labeled and how to find any tripped breakers and reset.
• Water shut off – Do you know if your shut off valve is at the meter (Street) or do you have a quick quarter turn shut off installed at the main supply at your house.
• Irrigation timer – Set, program and operate your sprinkler clock
• GFCI outlets – Sometimes there is a GFCI located in the garage that controls the bathroom circuit.  Know where all these outlets are and what they control.
• Garage Door – Do you know how to operate the manual release in the case of a power outage?
• Basic Appliance Troubleshooting – Refrigerator, Oven, Stove, Microwave etc.

One thing to keep in mind that Youtube is a repository of many many “How To” videos.  You might be able to handle more things than you think you can.