Are we less practical these days ? which of these would you do yourself ?

fretmeister

I'm pretty sure I could get one of the staff to do all those things.

So vicariously I could do them all.

Danny1969

stickyfiddle said:

Brake pads on something old, not a problem. My current car is under warranty and servicing so I'm covered there. 

I could do a tap washer but there are maintenance chaps in the building who would do it for £10 so I'd happily let them. 

Windows... I'm on the 42nd floor so a bit of a stretch I reckon. That said, even at home I'd get a man in. 

Shed roof no problem (if I had one)

iPad screen not a big deal in theory, but aren't the new ones bonded and way harder to replace?

The units fitted from the inside dude

All Ipad digitizers are bonded, all I ever do is gently heat and go round with a plectrum 

hywelg

I have done all of those apart from the iPad repair. Get daughter to pay someone or bin it. WIll teach her to be more careful!!

Refelting can be done over the top of the old, you'll need some galvanised clout nails, start from the bottom and work up to the ridge. Overlap by at least 4" if you want to do a really good job paint the overlap with bitumen. Simple job, dont buy cheap felt, unless you are moving soon and leaving the shed behind.

Bathroom tap, piece of piss and the easiest way to save £30. Hot or cold? Cold, turn the mains off, drain and strip the tap, Replace washer and reassemble. (Always buy more washers than  you need, not from B&Q, rip off, go to a plumbers merchant buy ½" and ¾" and keep the spares in a safe place) Turn water on. Hot, Combi boiler? read the manual. Normal cylinder?, see if you have a hot water isolation valve, if not, turn off the cold mains, run all your hot water off until it stops running, strip tap , replace washer reassemble and turn mains back on.

Disc brakes, unless you have a garage that can be heated, pay someone to do it, its painfull with the weather so cold. If you choose to do it, make sure you dont need new discs as well as the pads before you start. Also make sure you fit new anti squeal pads as well or it will be intensely annoying when we get some dry weather. Get someone to help you, you'll need to bleed the hydraulics after you've done. In fact best to flush a load of new fluid through while you're at it.

Before tackling the Dbl Glazed unit you need to get at it to measure it so remove the beading  and measure it accurately including the depth. If it goes below 900mm from floor level (1200mm for a door) it should be toughened 4mm float minimum. Depth of the unit is governed by the spacer bar which start at 6mm and go up to 20mm so for a 20mm unit it would be 4-12-4 a full depth 28mm unit (modern standard) 4-20-4. Spacer comes in aluminium, and brown, grey, white and black plastic , get it to match the existing. Price should be around £45-60/m² but if small there will be a minimum charge.  Find a small glaziers, not one of the big ones, they tend to rip you off.

Timber or uPVC? In timber remove the beading,( use a thin wide palette knife or sharpened 2" paintstripping blade to break the seal then use a broad chisel to level it off, be careful not to snap it or you'll have to glue it back together), remove the old unit by using the palette knife  and force it down the back to break the seal. Work all the way round, it should then come out easily, it doesn't matter if it breaks. Clean the rebate well with a chisel (used like a scraper rather than as a chisel) to remove any old gunk. Install the new one using double sided foam tape (this is important to ensure the new unit is installed correctly and lasts longest), on the back of the beading as well. You could use glazing silicone but make sure you make a good seal, that means use too much of it, make it ooze out (including when you refit the beading on the face that meets the unit) wait 24 hours and cut the excess off, do not try and wipe it off. Nail the beading back on, sink the nail heads and fill the nail holes with filler (putty is good but you'll probably not have any, you shouldn't install dbl glazed units with putty) uPVC? Pop the bead off, unit should come out easily but make sure you keep and plastic spacers used to centre the unit. They might have used silicone, if they did clean it all out before fitting the new unit, silicone it it the same way.

chillidoggy

I could do all of them bar the iPad screen.

Whether I could be arsed to do them is another matter, but generally I'm pretty handy with most things.

mike_l

Aside from the Ipsd, I can and have done all of those jobs.

Generally though If I need anything doing on the car, it gets done when I'm at work, and as my best mate is a plummer I don't really need to do any plumming work.......

Stevepage

I tend to try and do jobs myself (car servicing, house repairs/maintenance etc) as I think getting people to do those sorts of things cost a bloody fortune. £200 for what I consider a basic car service? rather do it myself for £70. 

Things have become so convenient for us that I think the DIY mentality is becoming a thing of the past. I like the sense of pride that comes with doing things yourself so I try to not get any one else involved unless I have no idea (electrics, boiler) 

boogieman

TTony said:

I did the shed (workshop) roof on Christmas Eve morning. It wasn't a pre-planned job.  

I've never trusted myself to do car brakes, even back in the days when I had no money, and nowadays I wouldn't believe that I could do the job without lots of specialist and expensive tools!

The rest are OK though, I reckon (presuming there's a YouTube "how to" for the iPad screen).

Brake pads used to be an easy job, you only needed a pair of pliers to pull out the retaining clips and pins, maybe a spanner or two, a jack, a hammer...things most people would have in the garage. Different story nowadays though. You can't even do DIY on rear pads for instance if the car's got an electronic parking brake as you need special tools to reset it.

Sambostar

I donno what you are on about, I do everything myself.  I consider people who have time on their hands and still employ a mechanic/electrician/plumber/plasterer/decorator/cleaner/window washer/car washing crew etc and have never tried to turn their hand to it, a bit mentally redundant, bordering on having mental health issues personally.   Obviously if you haven't got time on your hands, work 8 days a week paying the mortgage and have the funds or need it certified, that is another matter, but on the whole.

I find it works out cheaper for me.  I knacker everything, so knowing how to fix mechanical stiff and electrical stuff and welding skills are a must.  I never really buy new either.

I don't do it for the sense of pride, I do because it is cheaper and I am a cheapskate and if I've done it I know it's been done properly.  I hate doing it, as it's freezing cold with the wind and sleet up your ass at 2am in the morning.  I don't do it for the love of it.

I wouldn't be buying an Ipad in the first place, waste of time.  I have repaired the laptop a few times though. I do do some things for fun, like these wireless rf controlled electric blinds that I am making.  But I draw the line at getting an Ipad to control them, after all, how sustainable is that?  They need a bloody charge every half hour.  That is just showing off I reckon.

I did get a small sense of satisfaction from repairing some wheels recently.  Apart from using the shite new formula solvent hammershite.  Repainted the old tyres went on and got the beads sealed.  Learnt a trick of using a ratchet strap on the tread to seat the bead and only had a £10 electric equivalent of a footpump so couldn't seat it with a massive dose of pressure.  Tried the flammable method but that looked too scary and it failed.  New valves from the local garage £0.05p each. 

Yeah I need cream myself when I found out they were seated and holding air, after being rusty and shite for so long.  Totally unworthwhile exercise in my spare time, would have been cheaper to order some new online, but still wanted to have a go eh and since it was spare time, they will last another year fro £13 all round for four wheels.  The tin of hammershite had 50% free!

Some things have to be done professionally, like sandblasting, powder coating and hot dip galvanising, I do draw the line at that.

I do realise that on the whole, apart from Chillidoggy and a few others, there are a large majority of smooth handed musician gamer poofs on here though, so I quite understand.

RaymondLin

I'd do the ones that I don't need much tools for.  I am not going to get a torque wrench and a proper jack for example.

 

I'd happy change the iPad screen, the shed should be easy enough (scissors and nails), the rest I'd leave it to the people who know what they are doing.

RaymondLin

Although I am not very good with the labour side, I have never spent a penny on IT, so i guess it goes round and round.

d8m

Front pads are down to the metal on the car, need a new set fitted ?

Take it to the garage. I live up a steep hill!

Wind has ripped the felt of the shed roof, needs re-felting before it rains again ?

Could do this myself(If I had a shed)

Daughter has smashed the screen on her iPad, needs a new one fitted ?

Could do this myself with help from Ifixit(If I had a daughter)

Bathroom tap drips and needs a new washer ?

Done this late last year to score some macho points!

Living room double glazed window has fogged, needs a new unit fitted ?

I'd pass on this, If I tried it it would end up boarded up!

Sambostar

Software engineers do make good interior stone floor layers and some smooth handed people are excellent at running a bead of interior sealant, which is something I still struggle with, so it takes all sorts, you just have to do your research and apply yourself.  I think that is why the sit at desk doing computer stuff people surprise you, because they are patient and intelligent, do their research and then, only when everything has methodically been thought out ten times, go for it.  It's all in the planning and it becomes an excellent job.  But you can't generalise I guess.  I am hard though.

Sambostar

If my computer went really wrong, I'd just burn it so it doesn't bother me that much.

Sambostar

Smooth handed gamer musos are usually poofs when it comes to such things though eh

holnrew

The iPad screen is the only thing I've done something close to. I've changed the screen on tons of phones. I would like more DIY home skills, but my dad wasn't great at it and didn't pass anything on.

boogieman

Sambostar said:

I donno what you are on about, I do everything myself.  I consider people who have time on their hands and still employ a mechanic/electrician/plumber/plasterer/decorator/cleaner/window washer/car washing crew etc and have never tried to turn their hand to it, a bit mentally redundant, bordering on having mental health issues personally.   Obviously if you haven't got time on your hands, work 8 days a week paying the mortgage and have the funds or need it certified, that is another matter, but on the whole.

I find it works out cheaper for me.  I knacker everything, so knowing how to fix mechanical stiff and electrical stuff and welding skills are a must.  I never really buy new either.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, people are definitely more reluctant to have a go nowadays. Some things have become impossible to go down the DIY route though. Looked at the electrical wiring regs lately? You can basically replace what's already there, like a broken socket or lightswitch, but that's it. You can't do rewires, add spurs, extend ring mains, put in electric showers etc without having it all tested and certified  by a proper sparkie with a trade ticket. Some will let you do the first fix and wiring runs yourself and then do the final hook up and testing for you, but most won't.  

musicegbdf

Have done most of those things in the past , including rebuilding engines and gearboxes. I have done all household stuff except gas, from laying sewers to roofing. Would I do it now? Depends if I can be arsed. As I get older I am more inclined to let others have the hassle. I put a value on my time these days

Sambostar

I gave you a wisdom Boogieman.  Exactly.  Not allowed to do anything these days and professional certified levels of competence have no bearing on someone's ability or knowledge unfortunately.  If it has never been certified you can still do what you like, as long as it's sensible.  These 'Safe zones' for example, on a pitched roof, it is exactly where you would nail in a picturehook so even that ain't perfect anyway.  But yeah, it pisses me off no end, especially at work when a client wants to use a noddy kid of an electrician who is a right messy and bodgy bastard.

I was crap at school after a while because I decided that I needed to know everything black and white with no grey areas, right down to the tiniest detail otherwise I couldn't motivate the interest. 

Obviously spreading myself too thin and realising that everything in science is a language that you throw away once you step up a level and that no one really knows themselves at the end of the day and it would take a lifetime of research and experimentation and you still wouldn't be tenth of the way to knowing, I took the easy route and gave up on it.  But some things like electronics, which is becoming relevant to me now, I wished I paid more attention at A level.  But I guess I will teach myself my way.  No hurry as I'm a landscaper.

It just amazes me, or kind of worries me the knowledge of things that folks have no understanding of, that they rely on everyday, even professionals need what they need to know.  The least you can respectfully do in my opinion is show some interest.

I still have no idea how a microwave works, I mean I know the theory, but...hang let me just experiment with by putting a fork in it on high for 3 minutes and see if it ignites the sewer gases that are making it past the U bend.

Agreed, in retrospect, it's a complex world and it's a question of time and management.

But I still stand by the fact that of you have never had a go, you are losing out.

Sambostar

Still have a couple of XR4x4 MT75 gearboxes awaiting RWD conversion.  Kind of gets to be like guitar projects after a while.

Don't know even what they are worth now, probably better off with a T5 anyway.  Maybe in another ten years...

musicegbdf

Here is an interesting story from work. When I first started at work there were no computers and I was trained to work out the stowage of ships manually. This is a fairly complex thing even with container ships.
About six months ago we had a very full ship and our computer said it would be ok. We checked with the Captain and he told us his computer said we had to lose 500 tonnes. My collegues kept checking and then decided to do it manually and send the calca to the Captain. He agreed the calcs were correct and took all the cargo. We had the software company check the ships computer and they found an error in the programme.
The shame is the new guys joining us are not taught how to do it manually...