Handy

[threemonkeys]

Perhaps I do have the makings of a real DIY person after all.

My dehumidifier was leaking. It seemed rather pointless to take the moisture out of the air only to have it all reappear in the carpet. So with a healthy dose of "how hard can it be" I set to attempting to fix it. Why do I think this exercise made me like a real DIY person? I offer the following in evidence:
-A couple of the screws holding the case together are not accessible by any tool I have. So I applied brute force and a cutting tool instead to get the case open.
-The leak was mainly due to a design flaw. I fixed it by re-routing the water flow with a glue gun and a power drill. (A hammer was close at hand but I resisted that particular temptation.)
-Two thirds of the way through reassembling the case I found I was doing it in the wrong order and had to start again.
-When I had finished there were a couple of bits left over and yet the machine runs.
-Yes there was some collateral cosmetic damage.
-Total elapsed time for this half hour task - two weeks.

So far, so good on the unwanted puddle front.

Comments

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Well done! The couple of bits left over thing is especially grand!

I always thought they should have had Scotty in Star Trek do that sometime. I suppose someone will tell me now that they did.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I thought it was the master touch too. I don't recall Scotty ever doing that either but it would have been appropriate.

[lobelet.livejournal.com]

The bits left over prove the rule.

One day a friend of mine decided to service his tape recorder (this was in the dawn of time, you must understand, when tape recorders had reels and steam power moved the universe). He stripped it down, oiled the oily bits and put it back together again. And he had two ball bearings left over. They simply didn't fit anywhere that he could find. He put them in a jar in case he ever discovered where they went. He never did -- but the tape recorder worked without a problem for the next twenty years. For all I know, it still does; I haven't seen him since I moved to New Zealand...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

One of the bits I had this time was a screw - it was the same as all the others holding the case together yet I searched the case top to bottom for a place to attach it and couldn't find one anywhere.