Last week I experienced a household problem of such magnitude I saw no other recourse than to post a plaintive wail on Facebook: “Ice maker on the blink. This could be a crisis.”
We all have little things that make a big difference to us, and ice is one of mine. I consider ice essential.
Almost immediately, I got a response from former Miami Herald colleague Battle Vaughan: “Sometimes they just ice up in the water valve, and it sticks. I have fixed mine a couple times by just defrosting the fridge.”
That sounded easy enough. And it was another reminder that one way to save money is to fix things yourself, when you can.
When I was growing up, no one ever called a handyman. My father was an ad man by profession, but if anything needed fixing, he fixed it. He even built a bedroom and a bathroom in our basement by following instructions he found in books from the library.
These days, you can find instructions for most any type of home repair on the Internet, often with video. Do a search for the problem you want to solve, and see if it looks like something you can do. Home Depot offers free workshops on such topics as tiling a room and changing a faucet. The store even has a program for women called Do-It-Herself.
When I was young, I painted walls, I changed the insides of the toilet, I assembled mail-order furniture. I even did a little work on my car.
But as I got older, I started hiring out most of those tasks. Now I am back to weighing which repairs I might be able to do myself.
I learned that the air conditioner has a reset button when the company that installed it charged me $95 to come out and hit it. The garbage disposal has a reset button, too, underneath. If you get tired of waiting for the contractor to hook up your washer and dryer, you can do it yourself. A plunger often really will clear a clogged drain.
And, yes, defrosting your freezer sometimes will fix the ice maker. Thanks, Battle.
