Habitat for Humanity workshops teach basic DIY skills to homeowners
Author: David Foster
Posted date: Monday, October 7, 2024
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MILFIELD, Ohio (WOUB) — Jill Herman came in because her upstairs toilet had bent and slipped off its pedestal.
Chuck Bryce tells her that the toilet is shaking and that the screws holding it in place may be loose.
Bad news: The floor under the toilet may be rotten.
“That may be why your toilet is a ticking time bomb, so you end up with a lot of carpenter repair work, drying it out, and rebuilding it,” says Bryce.
Chuck Bryce demonstrates how a toilet flush valve works as Dale Hendrix looks on. (David Forster | WOUB) Unfortunately, this is beyond the scope of tonight’s workshop.
Bryce is leading the first in a series of home repair workshops hosted by Habitat for Humanity in Southeastern Ohio.
The workshop is aimed at covering basic home maintenance, diagnosing common household problems, and helping you make simple repairs.
“There have been a few times when contractors have come in and written me a check, shaking their heads. Damn, if I knew more, if I had more confidence, I could have done it,” says Habitat. said Molly Blair, Training Center Coordinator.
The first workshop featured bathroom fixtures. Workshops are held weekly at Habitat’s headquarters in Millfield, and other topics include electrical, doors and windows, drywall, painting, mechanical maintenance, gutters and siding, bathroom and kitchen plumbing and roofing. Masu.
build more confidence
Herman said her husband was recently diagnosed with cancer.
“I thought this was the perfect time to learn how to do something for myself, how to be self-sufficient,” she said.
While a leaning toilet may require professional help, she learned how to easily fix other toilets on your own.
This is why Steve Poling signed up. He wants to gain more confidence in fixing things around the house.
“I just want to be able to move around the house and not be scared of everything, because right now I’m like, ‘Oh, something’s wrong.’ Oh, shit, if I touch it, it’s going to get worse.” he said.
Jill Herman practices installing a cartridge in her shower faucet. (David Forster | WOUB) The workshop is something the local Habitat office has wanted to do for years, but like so many things, it was delayed by the pandemic. When Habitat built its new headquarters, it included a large room where mock-ups of various home systems were now set up for hands-on training.
Habitat for Humanity builds homes for low-income people, and the original idea for the workshop was to provide these new homeowners with basic training to perform maintenance and repairs on their own. It was to do.
“The goal is to teach the language of the system and provide practical applications in each workshop,” Blair said. “So if you’re not confident about making repairs, you can call a plumber and say, ‘My flapper is broken and I need it fixed, but I have a Mansfield toilet or an American Standard toilet.'” This is my system. ‘And they can talk intelligently with contractors, so there’s less room for bad actors to give them things they don’t need. ”
Some of this training is mandatory for new Habitat for Humanity homeowners, but the workshops are open to anyone who is interested. Each workshop offers two sessions in the afternoon and evening.
After the first workshop concludes at the end of November, we will start again in January, and we plan to repeat this series several times a year as long as there is interest.
minerals are the problem
At the bathroom fittings workshop, all eyes are on Bryce, who begins his night by diving deep into the toilet.
He thoroughly inspects every part that can be maintained or replaced to keep this humble but hard-working appliance running smoothly.
Mineral build-up is one of the biggest threats in this region of hard water. It clogs the feed valve, flush valve, fill tube, flapper, and holes lining the rim that release water during a flush and create a swirling effect that helps sweep everything in the bowl out into the drain. .
Steve Poling and Dale Hendricks felt the hole under the rim of a toilet bowl and learned that the hole could be clogged with mineral deposits. (David Forster | WOUB) Bryce says he plans to use drywall screws to scrape out the mineral buildup from the hole.
If your toilet flushes slowly, that’s often the problem, he says. “And why replace the toilet bowl when 20 minutes of carving can solve the problem? You’d be surprised what comes out.”
Someone asked about the wax ring that secures the bottom of the toilet to the floor flange. Her brother-in-law swears by two wax rings.
“Is that too much?”
Not necessarily, says Bryce.
“In some toilets, that’s the only way to seal,” he says, especially if the floor around the flange has built up over the years and there are gaps that need to be filled.
Switching to the shower and bath station, Bryce outlines the plumbing network that brings hot and cold water to a mixing valve and from there to the bathtub spout and showerhead.
Mineral deposits are your enemy here too.
During the workshop, Bryce will continue the conversation by sharing practical tips, such as how to use vinegar to unclog a showerhead.
Dale Hendricks wraps Teflon tape around the threads of a copper pipe. (David Forster | WOUB) “Some of them have 100 little rubber blobs on them, and when you actually spray a little bit, it just knocks off a bunch of minerals. Most of these , you can break it down if you want to understand them more deeply,” he says. “But vinegar works all over.”
After an initial overview, the rooms will be divided into two groups for you to take a closer look and experience the toilet, shower and bath facilities.
Some people try applying Teflon tape to the threaded fittings of copper pipes to create a watertight seal with the bathtub spout (note: be sure to wrap it clockwise). Some people try removing and reinserting the faucet cartridge (hint: if it’s stuck, you may need to pull it tighter with pliers).
The workshop ran a little over the scheduled 90 minutes, but no one seemed to want to finish it.
In the end, Blair told the group that she might not be confident enough to tackle these repairs in one workshop yet, but that she hoped this guidance would help them understand things a little better. Ta.
“One of our hopes is that when people go home, they’ll be able to identify what they’re seeing without being too scared,” she says. “A lot of times you’ll find these things in your house, and you’ll just walk past them and be surprised when they break and don’t know what to do with them. But if you can look at them a little more critically…a lot of it is common sense. Once you learn that, you’re like, oh, yeah, OK.”
