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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Simple Home Repair
How many readers does it take to change a light bulb? Only one ? if he or she is armed with this book Rather than focus on the big projects that most homeowners would wisely leave to professionals, it concentrates on the common repairs that everyone encounters and anyone can do?with the right instruction?including repairing holes and dents in drywall; fixing popped nails in walls; checking and replacing fuses; unclogging drains; replacing light fixtures; fixing squeaky floors; repairing cracked tile and damaged carpet; replacing screens; screening gutters; and much more. ?Contains 250 to 300 step-by-step illustrations
- GenresEbooksNonfiction
336 pages, ebook
First published September 4, 2007
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March 27, 2024
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Simple Home Repair (2007) by
Judy Ostrow
Ostrow covers the basics of repairing some of your modern domicile and its domestic conveniences when they break. While the book is fairly long, it barely scratches the surface of what's in a typical house, a truly vast and endlessly non-standardized subject. The book title's ambiguous parse (is it a Guide for Complete Idiots, or an Idiot's Guide which is Complete?) snaps into focus quickly, as you realize the book is an overview and is unlikely to be "complete" in the sense of being the only home repair book you'll ever need. To her credit, Ostrow gives some additional resources to take you further. As the book is getting fairly old, it doesn't even mention YouTube, which only started in 2005 and has since become the visual repository for instructions on how to fix almost everything. And now that it's 2024, the Large-Language Model AI chatbots are here (e.g., ChatGPT, Google Gemini) which can sometimes understand your questions better than a "traditional" Web search engine. Maybe in another few decades, if civilization somehow hasn't cooked itself into nonexistence, we'll have AI-powered domestic robots that can fix everything including themselves.
But for now, you still need a human for repair jobs, either yourself or a professional you hire. Before attempting anything complicated, or if you haven't done a particular task in a few years (such as repainting your house), it's good to read a few books and watch a few videos to acquire skills or refresh them.
I noticed a few things worth adding to the book. For example, in the section on cleaning your roof gutters of leaves and debris, Ostrow doesn't mention a couple of helpful tools:
1. A ladder stabilizer attachment. I bought a Ladder-Max ladder standoff stabilizer. It considerably improves most of my chores that use an extension ladder. For gutter cleaning, the Ladder-Max has wide-set extension arms with rubber feet that rest on the roof edge. This makes the ladder feel very stable and secure, with almost no chance of the ladder base kicking out and causing a fall. You can also reach a bit farther to the side of the ladder, as long as you keep your center of mass between the wider stance of the Ladder-Max feet. Since the ladder is not pressing directly against the edge of roof gutter, the ladder interferes less when you clean the portion of gutter directly in front of you. The Ladder-Max is also useful when you are painting a vertical wall and you lean the ladder directly against the wall. The standoff makes it easier to paint around the ladder. Drawbacks include the cost of the Ladder-Max, although it is cheaper than a trip to the emergency room, and the added weight at the top of the ladder, which makes the ladder a bit more difficult to raise, lower, and carry around, especially if you are working alone. I've found it's easiest to brace the bottom of the ladder against a solid object like a fence post when raising or lowering the ladder between horizontal and vertical with the Ladder-Max attached. There's a certain point where you have more weight of the ladder above you than below you, and it can teeter-totter if you don't have a partner to hold down the bottom rung of the ladder.
2. A DocaPole 12-foot extension pole with the gutter cleaning attachment. With the DocaPole, I can pull debris from the gutters toward myself, where I can then remove it with an ordinary gutter scoop and brush. This reduces the number of ladder repositionings, which cuts the gutter cleaning time roughly in half. (Most of the actual work in cleaning gutters is in moving the ladder around and climbing it repeatedly.) The DocaPole also allows me to reach sections of roof gutter over awnings which get in the way of the ladder. I can place the ladder to one side of the awning and reach over it with the DocaPole.
Elsewhere in the book Ostrow writes as if she has no concept of composting. For example if you compost, there is no need for an in-sink garbage disposal and its attendant costs and malfunctions. Naturally-occuring microbes will happily dispose of all your kitchen scraps. Ostrow also refers to "throwing away" the leaf debris from gutter cleaning, which pains a reader who understands composting. We should keep our compostable waste out of the landfills. Fortunately there is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting which I recommend.
Ostrow also says very little about reducing your household's energy use, carbon footprint, and trash footprint. See for example The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Building and Remodeling.
Judy Ostrow
Ostrow covers the basics of repairing some of your modern domicile and its domestic conveniences when they break. While the book is fairly long, it barely scratches the surface of what's in a typical house, a truly vast and endlessly non-standardized subject. The book title's ambiguous parse (is it a Guide for Complete Idiots, or an Idiot's Guide which is Complete?) snaps into focus quickly, as you realize the book is an overview and is unlikely to be "complete" in the sense of being the only home repair book you'll ever need. To her credit, Ostrow gives some additional resources to take you further. As the book is getting fairly old, it doesn't even mention YouTube, which only started in 2005 and has since become the visual repository for instructions on how to fix almost everything. And now that it's 2024, the Large-Language Model AI chatbots are here (e.g., ChatGPT, Google Gemini) which can sometimes understand your questions better than a "traditional" Web search engine. Maybe in another few decades, if civilization somehow hasn't cooked itself into nonexistence, we'll have AI-powered domestic robots that can fix everything including themselves.
But for now, you still need a human for repair jobs, either yourself or a professional you hire. Before attempting anything complicated, or if you haven't done a particular task in a few years (such as repainting your house), it's good to read a few books and watch a few videos to acquire skills or refresh them.
I noticed a few things worth adding to the book. For example, in the section on cleaning your roof gutters of leaves and debris, Ostrow doesn't mention a couple of helpful tools:
1. A ladder stabilizer attachment. I bought a Ladder-Max ladder standoff stabilizer. It considerably improves most of my chores that use an extension ladder. For gutter cleaning, the Ladder-Max has wide-set extension arms with rubber feet that rest on the roof edge. This makes the ladder feel very stable and secure, with almost no chance of the ladder base kicking out and causing a fall. You can also reach a bit farther to the side of the ladder, as long as you keep your center of mass between the wider stance of the Ladder-Max feet. Since the ladder is not pressing directly against the edge of roof gutter, the ladder interferes less when you clean the portion of gutter directly in front of you. The Ladder-Max is also useful when you are painting a vertical wall and you lean the ladder directly against the wall. The standoff makes it easier to paint around the ladder. Drawbacks include the cost of the Ladder-Max, although it is cheaper than a trip to the emergency room, and the added weight at the top of the ladder, which makes the ladder a bit more difficult to raise, lower, and carry around, especially if you are working alone. I've found it's easiest to brace the bottom of the ladder against a solid object like a fence post when raising or lowering the ladder between horizontal and vertical with the Ladder-Max attached. There's a certain point where you have more weight of the ladder above you than below you, and it can teeter-totter if you don't have a partner to hold down the bottom rung of the ladder.
2. A DocaPole 12-foot extension pole with the gutter cleaning attachment. With the DocaPole, I can pull debris from the gutters toward myself, where I can then remove it with an ordinary gutter scoop and brush. This reduces the number of ladder repositionings, which cuts the gutter cleaning time roughly in half. (Most of the actual work in cleaning gutters is in moving the ladder around and climbing it repeatedly.) The DocaPole also allows me to reach sections of roof gutter over awnings which get in the way of the ladder. I can place the ladder to one side of the awning and reach over it with the DocaPole.
Elsewhere in the book Ostrow writes as if she has no concept of composting. For example if you compost, there is no need for an in-sink garbage disposal and its attendant costs and malfunctions. Naturally-occuring microbes will happily dispose of all your kitchen scraps. Ostrow also refers to "throwing away" the leaf debris from gutter cleaning, which pains a reader who understands composting. We should keep our compostable waste out of the landfills. Fortunately there is The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting which I recommend.
Ostrow also says very little about reducing your household's energy use, carbon footprint, and trash footprint. See for example The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Building and Remodeling.
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