Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with fixit

money for nothing

12%juicepulp — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:12:05 -0800

How can I contest a fixit ticket and not pay $500? To make a long story short I got a fixit ticket on my car, took care of the problem but didn't realize I had to go to court. Fast forward to now I have an $800 bail from which they will kindly remove $300 if I pay in the next ten days. This is still a lot more than I can afford. I plan on trying to get a court date but don't have any idea what to expect and how to pay as little of this as possible. Any personal experience or advice appreciated! Cops were from Beverly Hills so it's Beverly Hills Court if that makes a difference.

Fixing a cabinet hinge

billtron — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:10:15 -0800

HandymanFilter: Due to leaking water, a part of the particle board wall of a cabinet in my kitchen has crumbled and the hinge on the cabinet door has been separated from the cabinet wall, as seen in this photograph. How would one go about fixing such a problem, short of removing the entire wall of the cabinet and replacing it with another piece of particle board? This cabinet is under a kitchen counter and in the corner of the room, which makes repair difficult.

But HOW do I do it myself?

dersins — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:22:38 -0800

What's the best home-repair / fixit manual for someone with little-to-no experience in such matters? Also, web sites and / or blogs in the same vein? So I'm buying a house. It's an old house. I anticipate many things in it needing repair over the coming years-- some small, some large. I'm perfectly happy hiring a knowledgeable contractor to make major repairs, but if a doorknob falls off or a window pane cracks, I'd prefer to be able to make the repair myself.

The problem is, I've always been a renter. My version of do-it-yourself has involved calling the landlord or super and telling them something's come unstuck, or stuck, or fallen off, or busted, or whatever.

A brief perusal of the home repair section at Powell's has revealed to me that there are hundreds of books available for the novice home-fixit-person.

Some of these books probably suck. Others are probably OK. But some of them must be great, right? You might even say that some of them are indispensable? Which ones? How can I tell?

Also, any good / great / indispensable home-repair web sites or blogs you can suggest will be very useful to me as well.

Thanks in advance.

My Krups Krapped out!

FauxScot — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:57:27 -0800

My trusty Krups coffee excretor gave up the ghost, but would be easily repairable if ONLY I could find a source for the blown thermal fuse. Any idea where I could find one, AskMeFi? I have two Krups coffee makers (a model 453 and "spare" model 314) that each contain a safety-critical, non-end-user-maintainable, thermal circuit breaker.

The 453 spontaneously died, and not from overheating, but just a random component failure.

Troubleshooting it, I discovered the blown thermal breaker, and I temporarily fixed it by scavenging the spare breaker from the Model 314.

Doing a little on-line research, I discover that there are other folks out there with the same problem. I decided to solve it by finding a source.

I have abjectly failed to locate a suitable alternative. Krups directed me to a service center, smallapplicance.com, which told me to send them the unit, and they would contact me with repair recommendations. Not wanting to spend $10 shipping to find out that the unit was unserviceable, I declined and they told me that the information that I sought about the breaker was unavailable. Stonewalled!

Later, Krups' customer service rep told me that that they had "changed frequency" and the unit was no longer serviceable. At that point, I knew that further discussion would be of little value.

The thing is, I really like this coffee maker. I am anything but cheap, but I also hate dropping very useful hardware into the landfill when I don't need to. I am in the process of getting one from an ebay auction for a similar Krups unit that I can cannibalize, but I'd really like a few of these, but more than that, I hate it when I can't prevail over simple technology failures.

Thus, I'm trying to locate a replacement thermal fuse.

The fuse I have is pictured here.

It has the following nomenclature imprinted in its metal frame:

Tf 318 C (Tf is the fuse temp, presumably 318 degrees C)

29 OE (which could mean OEM.... ?)

155431028 N (Krups part number or vendor part number?)

CSA, VDE, UL (the usual suspects in safety ratings)

(-) (looks like omega with a dash in it. Manufacturer logo?)

So here are my questions... does anybody know where I can get some of these? Anybody work for Krups who can look up the part? Anyone know where I can find a stud-mounted, nominally 300 degree C thermal fuse in this size? Failing that, something in the ballpark that can handle 10 Amps. (I've looked at various manufacturer's web sites, Digikey, Mouser, etc.) Knowing the manufacturer would be the most direct route.

This will not change the world, but it will surely qualify you as a world class nerd if you can give me a decent lead! I will bow in humble adoration and sacrifice a goat in your honor. Your name will be revered here in rapidly thawing Vermont! Is that a deal or what?

Any leads gratefully accepted.

why does my agua stinka

luriete — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 09:15:31 -0800

The water that comes out of my kitchen sink tap STINKS. Not just the hot water, so I know it's not a chlorine / water heater problem - i.e., I've inspected the water heater & it's fine, and the symptom is more noticeable in cold water anyway. Outside taps don't seem nearly as bad/noticeable, bathroom taps seem OK; the stink disappears if I let the water run full-throttle for about 2 minutes or so. The odor is a very strong, nausea-inducing rotten eggs - I'm guessing it's hydrogen sulfide, but why just this tap? What's the cause? How do I fix it? How much will it cost?

Windows

sharksandwich — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:35:00 -0800

I have older windows in my home that weren't taken care of properly (layers upon layers of paint, some don't open, broken weights, etc). Window replacement is about a year off, and I'm trying to get my rental unit up to snuff. Is there some good how-to repair advice anyone has come accross for old windows? I have a couple of fix-it books but they only have cursory info and concentrate more on installing new windows.

How can I make mp3s meant to lead into each other actually lead into each other without pausing first?

PinkStainlessTail — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 17:06:21 -0800

Ripping a CD that has tracks that lead into each other and then converting to MP3 has presented me with a problem. When I try to play the MP3s back in order there's a slight stagger when the next track starts (not a crossfade or optional pause), where on the audio CD the transition would not be noticeable. I'd like to either eliminate this error and keep the individual MP3s or rip the CD as one big audio file and convert that to one big MP3. Advice? [specs inside] Ripper tried: CDex
Players tried: QCD and Winamp5
WinXP home, Athlon XP 2400+