The Most Common Home Renovation You Can Easily Do Yourself

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Your home is one of the most expensive things you will ever pay for, so whether you rent or buy it, you must take good care of it. While you might be tempted to go to a professional when something breaks, you can take care of many of the minor repairs yourself.

All of these projects are simple and risk-free, but you should always make sure to research any project that you don’t understand, especially if you are dealing with electricity or plumbing, which can be extremely dangerous. Also, if you don’t already have your own toolbox, it might be a good time to start building your basic toolbox . Some of the repairs listed here will require special tools that you may not have, but we’ll list them where possible.

Repair or replace a broken toilet lever

Toilet levers (or handles) break all the time and luckily they are very easy to fix. If pushing the lever doesn’t flush the toilet, you can usually just open the cistern and reattach the chain. However, in some cases, the handle itself may corrode or any of the elements connecting the handle to the shutter (including the handle, nut, metal bar, or chain) may break. If this happens to you, here’s what you need to fix:

The actual setup is pretty straightforward, asthis video from Everyday Home Repairs demonstrates :

Clean the toilet drain

There are two things you should try before calling a plumber to clean your toilet. You will need:

First of all, make sure you are using the toilet facilities. At the working end of the toilet there are flaps that fit snugly against the drain. Sink plungers are completely round and may not affect persistent clogging much. Augers are very similar to drainage snakes, but they are specially designed to work with toilets.

None of these tools are difficult to use, butthis short video from Home Depot YouTube shows the techniques in action:

They recommend pouring 3 tablespoons of liquid dish soap down the toilet before submerging (or making a drill) to lubricate the drain and help clear blockages.

Eliminate the leaky P-trap under the sink in the kitchen or bathroom.

Minor piping leaks occur around the P-siphon and are usually caused by a worn washer or a loose or broken compression nut. To fix this, you will need:

Before doing anything else, turn off the water in your sink . Some sinks have a shut-off valve right next to the sink itself, but others can be as far away as the basement. Once the water runs out, you can start.

It’s very simple, as you can see in this tutorial by Jeff Ostroff on YouTube:

All you have to do is unscrew the compression nuts holding the P-siphon in place so you can replace them and the worn washers. As Jeff mentions in the video, this type of fastener is designed to be hand tightened because PVC pipe can crack under too much pressure; If the person who installed your P-trap over-tightens the nuts anyway, a plumber’s wrench can help you loosen it.

Clear a stuck chute

Garbage collection is a big scary machine made of hidden blades and bad noise. Putting aside the primal fear of sinister pits, it’s actually quite easy to clean up the blockage. You’ll need:

  • Flashlight
  • 1/4 ” hex wrench
  • Pliers
  • Garbage wrench (if other tools don’t work)

Pressing the reset button sometimes helps, but if it doesn’t,this video from Williams Plumbing & Heating shows two other simple methods for clearing a landfill:

Rotating the recycling blades with a hex wrench is usually sufficient to remove debris and restart recycling. Larger, more complex jobs may require a debris wrench, designed to fit in the main chamber of the dustbin and remove anything that gets stuck.

Replace light switch

Most of the electrical work in your home should probably be done by a professional, but light switches are some of the easiest to replace. If you have a switch that doesn’t work as expected, you can do it with the following common tools:

Before starting work, turn off the appropriate circuit breaker and start work. This tutorial from Lowe’s YouTube channel has it all laid out:

Once you’ve unscrewed the bezel, you just need to disconnect the wires, plug in a new switch, and replace the plate.

Seal holes in drywall

Holes in the walls are almost unavoidable, even if you are only filming. However, if you haven’t drilled a car through it, you can fix most holes pretty cheaply. Depending on the size of the hole, you will need some or all of these tools:

Start by assessing the extent of the damage. The easiest way to make holes from hanging pictures or TV screws or nails: clean the area of debris, clean the wall, then use the spatula to push the filler into the wall and let it dry. Once this is done, smooth it out with sandpaper. Depending on how seamless your wall needs to be and what color your walls are, you may need to apply a coat of paint.

Larger holes are more difficult.This video from LRN2DIY shows several different methods to fix them :

To properly patch the large hole, you need to cut out some of the drywall around and replace it. It’s not really hard, but requires more sophisticated techniques than some of the other fixes we’ve covered so far, especially for really big holes. If you are not sure if you can handle a task, call a professional.

Loosen the stuck window

If you do not open the window for too long, it can become so clogged with dirt and debris that it will be difficult to open it. This is not a difficult problem to solve, but it may require a little elbow grease to fix it. You will need these tools and accessories:

Physically detaching the window from the frame is a good place to start.This video from ForRent.com demonstrates several different techniques:

If prying and (gentle) hammering does not work, you may need to use chemicals. Paint thinner can help loosen stubborn stained closed windows, and WD-40 or silicone grease can help the window glide back in its tracks. Justkeep in mind thatWD-40 will glue vinyl windows ; you can use a little to dissolve the rust, but don’t spray it all over the tracks.

There is no shortage of things in your home that can break, but you will find that most of them can be fixed with some hardware store basics and a little Google search. If something breaks in a non-life-threatening manner, check online before calling a professional. It can save you tons of money.

This article was originally published on October 15, 2013. It was updated on May 14, 2021 with new links, updated information, and alignment with Lifehacker style guidelines.

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