HandyInMinutes

Veteran handyman. Daily illustrated DIY home-repair guides, real fixes, real parts, honest prices. Stop overpaying for 10-minute jobs.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

Wood chips in a hot-water PEX line. The installer pushed uncapped tubing through drilled studs.
Fix: cap every PEX end before rough-in, flush before fixtures. 30 seconds, skips the drywall cut.
Plumber ever flush your lines? #PlumbingTips #HomeInspection

[Fortress - Zac & Michelle Burton @TheFortressInc]

We closed on our last 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath, 2-car garage townhome last Friday & got a call from the new owner the night of the closing saying she had hardly any hot water pressure in her master shower.

Our plumber went out first thing Saturday morning & tried replacing the shower cartridge. That didn’t work. He tried blowing out the valve. That didn’t work. He called & said he was going to have to cut a hole in the sheetrock to figure out the issue. It’s the absolute last thing you ever want to hear & the last thing you want to subject a new buyer to.

Our plumber made a cut in the drywall behind the shower valve & ended up cutting out pieces of the hot water line to assess the problem. In 26 years I’ve literally never seen this one. The hot water pex line was jammed full of wood chips 🙄 We’ve told you many times we’ll share our good & bad….this one was just someone being careless.

He replaced the affected lines & our new owner had high-pressure hot water in the master shower by 9:30 am. I was appreciative our plumber went the extra mile to help the new buyer out. Tony is a great member of our team!

The work wasn’t done however. The drywall guys had to patch, mud & sand the hole in the wall several times Monday & then do a final texture coat first thing Tuesday morning. We do knockdown walls & ceilings in all our townhomes & it makes patching a breeze.

Our painting crew had a deadline to meet at another job of ours, so I got called out of the bullpen to finish the job with a bucket & paintbrush yesterday afternoon. It’s honestly good for the culture of our team to see me roll up my sleeves & do the dirty work sometimes. They all know that no job is beneath me.

The new owner called today with kind words about Tony’s willingness to go the extra mile & our communication with her through the process. What started out as a rocky mess turned into a relationship-builder in the end! Funny how it works like that sometimes 👊🏽

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@saraaa7447 The notch has survived every funeral prediction since 2017. I'll believe it when it's actually gone.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@REIMakayla Also keep a punch list all year. Note every sticky window, cracked caulk line, and nail pop as it shows up, then hand the builder one written list at month 11. Verbal complaints get forgotten.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@I_BuildSmart Skipping the soil test to save a few hundred is how you end up paying tens of thousands on foundation repair later. High water table plus shallow footings always settles eventually. Pay for the raft now.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@cronkscastle Lost my AC mid heatwave to this exact thing once. Check the little float switch on the condensate drain, a clogged drain trips it and shuts the whole system down. Five minute fix.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@ThinkAppraiser The lot is always the cheap part. I've watched people win these auctions for a few hundred bucks, then spend 10-20x that on back taxes, liens, and clearing the lot.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@rina_voxw Dim light hides the dust and shows the glow. Honestly my favorite way to see a house.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@JulieChangRE The cancel call works. I did it with my ISP last year, asked for the retention desk directly, and they matched the lower rate for 12 months. Saved me about $240.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@AppWoodHome The part people skip is the capillary break. Timber sitting straight on stone still wicks moisture no matter how pretty the scribe is, so a sill gasket or gravel bed under it buys the frame decades.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@makanjuolaangel If you do, photograph every room on move-in day and get the walkthrough checklist signed. Same-compound landlords are where deposit deductions get "creative".

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@BarryRoland19 Bids that far apart usually mean nobody priced the same scope. Ask for a line-by-line breakdown of materials and labor and the real number reveals itself pretty fast.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@TS_Secrets October decorating season, my favorite. Everything she hangs this month turns into your drywall patch job next month. Hide the nail gun.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@leah_walczak Old Victorians are money pits in the prettiest way. I tell people: budget 2x your renovation estimate on anything pre-1900, because once you open a wall you find the next problem. Still worth it if you love the bones.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@BlueCollarInvr Love this. One pro tip for the tree: clean up that torn stub with a pruning saw cut at the branch collar. Jagged tears invite rot, a clean cut heals way faster.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@REIMakayla Worth adding: in hurricane states that 2% is usually a separate named-storm deductible, per event not per year. Two storms in one season and you pay it twice. I've seen plenty of folks DIY the repairs for less than the deductible and skip the claim entirely.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@Adunniolaide02 She didn't just find the generator, she found the girlfriend too. Two cases solved in one meeting.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@AbiolaBlackdiva It's handmade. The hand just presses the button.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@madebyolah Tell her to check the state deposit cap before signing. Lots of states cap deposits at 1-2x rent, and that $1,800 last month fee is often the part that breaks it.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@iGreenGod I do the reverse. I send my wife the contractor quote for each "easy" video, and the $6,000 bathroom refresh ends the conversation fast.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

@1amoffline Verbal requests don't count, and he knows it. Put everything in writing from now on, because in most states heat is an essential service with a real winter repair deadline. His "didn't realize it was urgent" doesn't survive a paper trail.

[HandyInMinutes @Golduck88]

Hairline stucco cracks look harmless. Then rain gets behind them, freeze-thaw pops the stucco loose, and a $12 tube of sealant becomes a $400+ patch job. Fix them before the rain. Full steps below 👇 Sketchiest crack on your house? #StuccoRepair #HomeRepair