Solar powered lights in a non-electrified shed

When we moved to our acreage, we inherited a 12x24' pole shed located out by the edge of the property, well away from the house.  Of course, there was no electricity run to this building, which meant I had to bring a flashlight any time I needed to put something away after sunset.  It didn't take very long before I got tired of that and installed a solar powered, motion-sensing, LED security light inside the shed to light my way after dark.

Replacing the window well covers

It's the rainy season here in Nebraska, which means it's time to replace all the broken window well covers that the careless kids have stepped on throughout the year.  Our house is a little more difficult than most, because the stucco siding on our 120-year-old house has a very random edge right above the basement windows.  This requires us to trim the edges of the window well covers to a perfect fit before we can screw them into place on the window frame.

Fixing a Whirlpool agitator

Our Whirlpool washing machine recently stopped agitating the clothes during heavy loads.  (For you non-homemakers, the agitator is that finned post that spins around in the middle of the washer.)  Rather than spend $80 plus parts on a service call, a little bit of research online told me that the cause was likely worn-out agitator dogs.  A new set of dogs cost me only $6 at a local appliance supply shop, and it took me only a few minutes to replace them myself.

Cleaning a wimpy water heater

We have a Kenmore Power Miser 12 gas water heater in our home.  It sits on the basement floor, and the combustion air intakes are at the bottom of the heater.  Twice now, the air intake (specifically, the flame arrestor) has gotten clogged with dust and needed to be cleaned.  Read on for more.

Repairing a brass door lock

Our house is somewhere around 100 years old, give or take 20.  The front door lock is original.  Over time, the door frame itself has sagged, and the latch bolts no longer lined up quite right with the holes in the latch plate.  This created a lot of resistance whenever you locked or unlocked the dead bolt, to the point where we had to lift the whole door upward (by the door knob) in order to (un)lock it.  The brunt of this resistance was absorbed by the brass knob for the dead bolt, and it eventually broke.  Since I'm easily distracted, we spent the next ten months (un)locking the front door with a screwdriver before I finally got around to repairing the lock.  The fix was so simple, I should have done it right away.

A burned out burner

We've had our pedestal-mount MHP WNK gas grill for about a dozen years.  It's served us well, but this summer, I noticed a hot spot forming under the front center portion of the grill.  No doubt a gas leak from the burner.  I haven't been as faithful as I should have been about cleaning the grille, so I figured it was finally time to take the grill apart, diagnose the hot spot problem, and thoroughly clean everything.