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I've been in my shack 24 years, and don't remember if I ever changed the ballast in the flourescent lighting fixture above the kitchen sinks. I have in the past, at more locations, changed the ballasts in flourescent lighting fixtures, but simply cannot remember if I ever replaced it in this...

I had an old couch that, over the years completely wore out, and I got rid of the cushions, springs, and cloth coverings. I have been wondering if the wood frame of the couch could be used for some shelving I want to do in my shack. The wood seems in places to be rough and splintery, and...

I would like to put a wall switch on my living room ceiling fan, but so far, after taking the covers off of all the junction boxes for the living room/bathroom wall plugs and overhead lights, I cannot find the cable that goes to the ceiling fan. Is it possible that the wire to the ceiling fan...

I hope that the photo shows up on this post, because it shows the problem better than a written description could do. Two of my stove dials,when turned off, and locked into the "off" position, the word, "off" on the dials, do not align with the vertical marker above the dial. One dial, when...

I've recently made some big improvements to my bathroom, including getting support under a once saggy floorboard, and also new floor covering, and other improvements. One fairly "small" but extremely annoying problem I have put up with since purchasing my shack in 1996, is a pipe, or a rod on...

I've recently had some new floor covering put onto my bathroom floor, along with some bracing for a section of floor board that was sagging. It's really great having this improvement, but one appliance that needs some improvement is my bathrom scales, which have remained very dirty over the...

I've got a question on ceiling fans suspended from the ceiling by down rods. My shack has a very high cathedral ceiling, and I do not want to have to climb up a high step ladder and disconnect the wires to the motor from the electrical box in the ceiling, take off the down rod from the...

I have recently started back on a long neglected project: my slidinig glass doors. They are working fairly well, but the bigger problem is the sliding screen doors which are outside of the sliding glass doors. The screen doors are just about impossible to move at all. Yesterday, I got into...

I made the mistake of puting my electrician's pliers in a damp place, and they became frozen in the closed position. That was years ago, and at the time, I asked an electrician friend of many years experience, how to unfreeze the pliers. He said to soak them in Coca Cola, or any other generic...

I moved into my condo in October of 1996, and with the exception of regularly changing filters, never had any routine maintenance done on my HVAC system. Probably late in the summer of 2003, I had my first problem. Two plugs on the indoor condenser unit, were blown out, with water leaking...

I am stuck back in the Good Old Days of the Twentieth Century, as far as light bulbs and dimmer switches go. It seems like way back then, there was only one kind of light bulb, or, well 2 kinds, the main kind being incandescent, and the otehr being flourescent. I had one flourescent light bulb...

I would think this has probably been discussed before, but, every summer, the front door to my shack starts to sag, and I have to grab the know and push it up slightly to get the deadbolt to turn into its slot. I'm also noticing it on the sliding glass doors, which are a real problem, compared...

Over the years, I have tried to keep my water shutoff valves, under the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and water closet to the commode, well maintained. I think that the o-rings on some of the valves were deteriorated, or even dissolved entirely. The water closet valve did not shut off the water...

I'm glad to say that owning a condo, I've had few roofing leaks, probably once, following a hurricane probably three years after moving into the condo twenty years ago. The Condo Association has keep up with roofing needs, having new roofing put on in 2009, 25 years after condo construction in...

Yes, you read the title of this thread correctly. It is beyond me why the contractors who built my shack would put popcorn plaster on the walls of the entrance hall closet. You can guess what it's like, putting things in the closet for storage, and bumping them, and my knuckles into the...

I've got a good supply of plumbing grease, which, from time to time I have used on my bathtub shower diverter, and when doing other plumbing work. So far, about the only way I have found to apply the grease to the shower diverter is with my index finger, and after pulling it up and down and...

I bought a small condo in Little River, South Carolina in 1996. I have always been a do-it yourselfer, and have only called a plumber one time, and that was when I needed a new hot water heater. I call myself shackdweller, because my condo is so small, and because I remember on the TV show...