The How-to-Repair Thread

[VaqueroTD]

I don't know if we have enough traffic to make this work, but there are a lot of years and experience on this board and maybe it will help. You can always Google and YouTube anything, and it's helped me a lot in home repairs, but sometimes the more personal discussion board format helps. I've seen a few threads on these types of questions, and seems like usually the most handy people have good general knowledge in all fields.

So I'll start with a refrigerator repair question if anyone here with experience:

Left the door open, won't cool. Did all the defrost and shut down. (Have not cleaned the coils yet) Fans working, clicking but compressor not starting. My guess is its the starter relay or compressor down. So here's the million dollar question that I can't seem to find an answer on Google. Before I go out and buy a $50 starter relay, and spend time learning how to install, how do I know which one it is?

 

[joseephuss]

 

[VaqueroTD]

Thanks JP! We'll see what happens.

 

[Creeper]

This is a great topic for a thread. I tend to do my own repairs when things go wrong but could always use someone else's experience before I dive into something. I have repaired my fridge a few times, computers many times, TVs/monitors, house electrical and plumbing and cars but each time I learned from someone else how to do it.

Right now I am researching how to stop the knocking noise in my heating system. I have a gas furnace, hot water baseboard heat. When it goes on, after a few second this rather loud banging starts. It stops then the heat goes off. I had a few repair guys in and none of them gave the same answer. I believe it is air in the line, the result of a plumber installing a new baseboard heat unit in my bathroom. Old systems used to have bleeder valves here and their to remove the air but my system i doesn't have them. I have done some research and found videos but each system looks different than the one I have so I go into this fix with lots of uncertainty.

 

[Runwildboys]

This is a great topic for a thread. I tend to do my own repairs when things go wrong but could always use someone else's experience before I dive into something. I have repaired my fridge a few times, computers many times, TVs/monitors, house electrical and plumbing and cars but each time I learned from someone else how to do it.

Right now I am researching how to stop the knocking noise in my heating system. I have a gas furnace, hot water baseboard heat. When it goes on, after a few second this rather loud banging starts. It stops then the heat goes off. I had a few repair guys in and none of them gave the same answer. I believe it is air in the line, the result of a plumber installing a new baseboard heat unit in my bathroom. Old systems used to have bleeder valves here and their to remove the air but my system i doesn't have them. I have done some research and found videos but each system looks different than the one I have so I go into this fix with lots of uncertainty.

There's no pipe in the basement that just dumps out, with a knob like a spigot?

 

[Creeper]

There's no pipe in the basement that just dumps out, with a knob like a spigot?

Yes, each zone has a valve to release the water in the pipes for that zone, but there is more to it than that. You have to shut off the furnace, and the returns, to make sure you are just flushing the air in the pipes. But each system is different. I have watched multiple videos but never having done it I am a little nervous about it. It is starting to get cold her so I can't really do without heat until I can get someone to come and fix what I mess up.