Random Tips for Nobody in Particular

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If you have to pull a toilet and need to get all the water out of the trap and that last little bit that won't come out of the tank use your wet dry vac to suck it out. I'll quickly pour a bucket of water into the bowl to drain as much as possible before I hit it with the vacuum.

If you have a pet accident or a food spill on your carpet use your wet dry vac to clean it up. Suck up the barf or food then flood the carpet with a 50/50 mix of white vinegar and water and suck it out with the vac. Repeat as needed.
 
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I have a million tricks and I really like the two mentioned so far.

To try and keep with the modern times with my tips this is the most recent one I tried. We were at Walmart the other day and I put a Selfie Stick in the cart that was 3 bucks in the discontinued bin. She saw it and said My God! What do you have planned for that? I told her don’t worry its going in the tool box. It telescopes about 3’ and has a nice little spring clamp for the cell phone that will also hold a small mirror. When you need to look behind something go for the mirror when you need to look inside a wall or something put your phone on it and turn on the flash and movie and take a look around and then pull it out and watch the movie. If you narrate it will even let you remember what direction you were shooting.

The other day I walked the length of my gutter and saw I didn’t need to get out the ladder.

On the same note when you need to read a model number on something just take a photo with your cell. If you are shopping and want to remember prices for later take a picture of the marker for the product for later.
 
Like the selfie stick idea. I do the photo of the prices at the loose hardware section at Lowe's. You can never find a pen for the bag when you're getting stuff.
 
Here's another I heard somewhere. If you need to mount something but don't have a template to do it, take a photo copy of the back of the item and use that as a template for installing the mounting screws.
 
If you are building a house in the rain, take photos of the plans with you smart phone and leave the plans in the truck.
 
If you build houses in the rain my tip would be to get a waterproof phone.
 
Ladders carried on the roof of the truck often whistle while you run down the highway. run a strip of tuck tape down the sides covering the holes, will last for about 2 years.
 
You would think the ladder companies would have thought of this and do it the factory for a nominal charge.
 
The tape was all I had after driving forty miles with the new ladder, the old shorter ladder never did it, it must be how the wind is effected by the truck
 
oldognewtrick said:
Or squirt some spray foam in the rungs and it will last the life of the ladder.
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For an employer affected by OSHA this could be a problem. For a homeowner not a concern. For employers, and I'm not an OSHA expert, I believe you can't modify or paint or repair ladders.
 
Sparky617 said:
For an employer affected by OSHA this could be a problem. For a homeowner not a concern. For employers, and I'm not an OSHA expert, I believe you can't modify or paint or repair ladders.
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I believe you are correct. It has very little to do with common sense and a lot to do with regulations. Likewise Neal’s fix to the problem although a good one would cover an area of the ladder just as paint would and to the eye of a government inspector would be deemed an infraction. The reason being if a weld or seam cracked it wouldn’t be visible. The place I work in that case wouldn’t remove the tape they would destroy the ladder as crazy as that sounds they are so ingrained in this culture of regulations and compliance that’s what they do. We just spent several million dollars on putting safety railings around every roof of every building. The whole 9 yards double rail with toe kicks etc. no one goes on the roof and access is restricted to everyone except people that have to go up there to fix things all roofs are flat and anyone on the roof is tethered with fall protection start to finish but we still have railings now. I don’t think it will be long until no one goes up more than 48” on any job site without fall protection even to change a light bulb.
 
my BIL is a OSHA inspector, I will ask his safety annal ***

the boy ACTUALLY counts to 10 at stop signs...drives me NUTS
 
He will probably get hit by a bus. Always happens to those over cautious people.
 
I took delivery of a new fork lift and was driving to the maintenance shop to get a fire extinguisher installed. About half way there I discovered I had a fire near the battery. I shut it down turned off the propane and ran for an extinguisher and hollered for help. The safety guy wanted to suspend me for three days for driving a machine without the required equipment and three days for running thru the plant.
 
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