Replacing Flush and Fill Valves

We had a Korky fill valve that made incredibly loud, screeching noise every time one of us flushed the toilet. The sound got louder and louder to the point where I could not stand anymore. I will never buy another Korky fill valve again. I picked up Fluidmaster’s Universal High Performance All-in-One Toilet Repair Kit instead for $32.

The job took me an hour and a half instead of ten minutes or less as the product has claimed. I am not a handyman at all. What took the most time was detaching the tank from the bowl. The screws were tight and rusted; therefore, they were hard to come out. The rest was straightforward and there was no leak. I hated working with water because I always worried about the leaks. This job turned out well.

Replacing Faucet Hose and Fixing Ceiling Fan Switch

A few weeks ago, the kitchen faucet hose leaked when I pulled the sprayer. I just needed to replace the hose, which was simple to do. We have a pulldown Moen faucet. My wife ordered the Replacement Hose kit for Moen Kitchen Faucets (Pulldown 150259) from Amazon for $20. Here’s the video I followed.

Yesterday, my wife pulled the fan string and broke the chain. I had to open up the fan’s box to fix the three-speed switch. Although this video walked through the entire process, the reassemble part was difficult to follow. It took me over an hour just to get it right. Since my switches were clear plastic, I used the light switch as a reference to put all the pieces together. If you want a quicker solution, just order a new switch for $8.

Windshield City Rocks

My 2011 Toyota Sienna’s windshield had a long crack along the wipers. I was not sure how or when it started to crack. I just noticed it a couple of days ago. I googled for an auto glass repair shop around my area. Windshield City caught my attention because of the positive reviews. I was still skeptical; therefore, I called Ourisman Toyota Collision Center for recommendation. The manager said they often contracted out to Windshield City.

I called Windshield City for an estimate and made an appointment for 3 pm today. I came into the shop, dropped off the car, rollerbladed around the blocks for a bit, came back, and got a brand new glass an hour later. I only interacted with Lindsay Rose, the office manager, and that was it.

The entire job cost $300, which included labor and after-market glass. I am very happy with the service and highly recommend it.

Rear Ended

On April 15, 2021, I drove to my sister-in-law’s house to pick up her son to go ice skating with us. As I backed out of her driveway, I felt an impact. Her neighbor across the street also backed out and we collided. The edge of his bumper hit the side of my bumper. His car was fine, but my minivan was damaged. We called our insurance and settled the coverage.

I took my minivan to Ourisman Toyota Collision Center to get it fixed. They did a good job of replacing the bumper and the sliding gate in the back for $3,500 (covered by insurance). The downside was that they took almost three weeks. We didn’t have rental in our insurance policy. Fortunately, my wife and I both work from home; therefore, we could get by with our other minivan. Still, there were times that we both needed to be out.

In addition, I asked them to look at the scratches on the sliding door that were unrelated to the collision and to give me an estimate so I could pay out of my own pocket. They said that they would take care of them without additional cost. When I picked up my minivan, they did nothing to the scratches.

I talked to David Martin, the production manager, and he said that he would order the protectors and schedule a specialist to replace the projectors. He said that the cost would be less than $100. I agreed to the service. I am not sure if he would follow through with it or just an empty promise.

Less Technologies

Two weeks ago, we received a “friendly reminder” from our homeowners association telling us to edge our sidewalk, take care of our lawn (weed/feed), and tidy up our front yard. So we’re paying the homeowners association an annual fee so they can tell us what to do. How ironic is that?

In my defense, I like my lawn natural—no weeding and no feeding. We have kids running around our yard; therefore, we don’t want to use any chemical to kill the weeds. As for the edging, I liked my grass to grow organically even if it spread over the sidewalk. The homeowners association staff told me that the sidewalk must fit two people. My sidewalk definitely has enough space for two people and I am fine with them walking on my lawn. But to comply, I picked up a True Temper turf edger. My wife told me to get a power one, but I got a manual one so my sons can help me. I am thinking of picking up a manual lawnmower for them to do some exercise.

I don’t want to rely on technology too much. If I can reduce it, I will. For example, everyone in my family uses electric toothbrush, but I still a hand brush. I prefer physical books over e-books. During the pandemic, I did not use our car as much. I wish that one day, maybe when the kids grow up, I will get rid of the vehicles. My future goal is to move away from dishwasher, washer, and dryer. These tasks can be done by hands. I am looking forward to doing things manually again.

Replace Sliding Patio Screen Door

My spring-break staycation started with replacing the sliding patio screen door. The installation was quick and easy. I just followed this YouTube video.

Part

Grisham 36-in x 80-in Bronze Aluminum Frame Sliding Screen Door: $80

Why I am Terrible at Doing Business

Last Monday, my sister-in-law clogged her kitchen sink. After her husband tried to snake it unsuccessfully, he called a local plumber. When I asked them about the price, I was stunned. The plumber charged them $600 (with $100 discount) to unclog it. The process probably took less than half an hour.

Last Friday, a long-time client’s website broke. They asked me for help. After checking out their site, I predicted something went wrong with the SSL certificate. The browsers kept throwing out the unsafe warning. It took me several hours to figure out what happened. It turned out that their hosting provider had changed the DNS. The host sent out a notification, but my client ignored it. They didn’t realize it would affect their site. The host also installed a SSL self certificate, which caused the browsers to freak out.

I updated the DNS and replaced the self certificate with a Cloudflare certificate (Cloudflare rocks). When I fixed the issues and notified them, they simply replied with “thank you” without mentioning any compensation. I sat on it for a day and decided to send them the bill for my work. If a plumber charged $700 to fix an urgent issue, I shouldn’t feel bad charging the client for the time I put in. If the issues could be fixed in half an hour or less, I wouldn’t charge my client, especially if the client is just an individual. This particular client, however, is a small business. They can easily pay for the time I had spent fixing their website. I sent them the bill and they had no issue paying for it.

I am suck at doing business. That’s why my freelance gig hadn’t gone too well. I thought of doing freelance full time, but I will definitely fail. I don’t have the business mentality in me. I take on freelance projects because I am passionate about web design. I just don’t like the business side of it. I hesitated to charge for my services. When people charged me for their services, on the other hand, they showed no mercy.

I need to step up my game. If I am going to provide the services, I might as well get the pay I deserve. I didn’t charge $700 even for the several hours I spent. My price was very reasonable. I often hesitated to call a technician to the house because they would charge a ridiculous fee. As a result, I tried to fix it myself first via YouTube. A couple of years ago, a plumber inspected my house and recommended I replace three toilets. They were going to charge me $600 to $700 to replace each. I couldn’t afford to pay two grants to replace them and they were still working fine. I replaced one myself because it kept clogging up and I got tired of plunging it. I did it for the first time and the process was easy. A decent toilet cost around $150 to $200 and they were going to charge me $500 to $550 for an hour to replace a toilet. That’s simply crazy. I do not want my clients to feel that way; therefore, I tried to make it as fair as possible so my clients do not feel they were being ripped off.

I wish I could make the amount of money that I don’t have to to worry about paying for these types of services. I recalled the founder of Slack talked about the levels of wealths. The first level is when you don’t have to worry about paying bills like student loans and credit cards. The second level is when you don’t have to worry about the price at the restaurants. The third level is when you don’t have to worry about the price when you take vacations and travels. I don’t know where home-fixing services fit in, but they give me anxiety. Imagine if you make $10 an hour and you have to pay $700 for half an hour to unclog your kitchen sink. How do you justify something like that? I would just order from McDonald’s dollar menu until the damn sink unclogs itself.

Fixing Squeaking Wood Floors

If you thought walking on a squeaking wood floor was bad, have you tried freaking on a squeaking carpet floor? Just putting it out there. Anyway, it was time to fix our floors, which had been squeaking for the past ten years. Why now? I hated house maintenance. I liked to spend more time fixing my virtual home than my real home.

Fortunately, fixing the squeaking floors was easy with the GBW Squeeeeek No More kit. It was even easier with my helpers: Đạo, Đán, and Xuân. I also found this YouTube video very helpful. Nowadays, I learned to do everything myself through YouTube.

Parts

Total cost: $39

For 40 bucks, no more squeaking floors. Not a bad deal at all.

Fixing Samsung Dryer

Our Samsung dryer had been screeching for a long time and had not generating much heat. I told my wife to buy a new one, but she insisted on fixing it. She told me that a new dryer would cost from $600 to $1000. She watched this YouTube video showing how to replace the heating element and she bought all the parts.

The dryer was surprising easy to take apart. The machine was much simpler than what I had expected. With my wife’s instruction and help, we replaced the heating element, the belt, and the idler pulley. Unfortunately I broke the door switch when we put the parts together. The heating element generated hot air. The screeching noise is gone. The dryer works like new. I am glad that my wife wanted to fix it than to replace it.

Parts:

Total cost: $61

Our Deck is Officially Legit

Back in May when we decided to redo our deck, I didn’t know that we needed a permit. After we ripped out the boards and the railings, my wife came to me and said, “We need a permit.” I said that’s ridiculous. We’re just replacing the boards. We’re not modifying anything. I emailed our county to ask and she was right. We needed a permit because we replaced woods with composites. I was like, “Oh shit!” So I started the application process and paid the fees. I followed the instructions and submitted my drawing for the deck I made in Illustrator.

While waiting for the permit, we continued to rebuild the deck. I couldn’t wait to get the permit because it will slow down the progress and I already took three weeks of vacation time to do the project. Every week, I received a rejection email from the county with a cryptic explanation: “You need to draw your deck on the plat. Your drawing needs to scale.” Week after weeks, I kept getting rejections. I gave up and asked my engineering wife to give it a shot. She did it one time and it was accepted. Our permit came when we already finished the deck.

The whole process was so stressful. We built the deck without permit. Although I followed the county’s specs and requirements, I worried that we might have to break down the deck if the inspection failed. For weeks, I kept pushing off making the inspection schedule. I finally made an appointment for yesterday. Because of the coronavirus, the inspection was conducted virtually through FaceTime. The process took about a minute. The inspector asked me what type of fastening we used and how high is the deck above the ground. That was it. He passed our inspection.

I was under stress for the past few months for nothing. The whole process was not bad at all. I should have just chilled out. I still am stressed the fuck out, but at least I can check one stressful item off my head. Let’s celebrate with dim sum.