There are a handful of options when it comes to a DIY lawn sprinkler system, and today I will be going over a couple of those so that you can be on your way to watering your lawn and keeping your grass green. The first one is the old fashioned pvc piping sprinkler system, and this involves quite a bit of labor on your part. What you will need to do is get a shovel and start digging trenches to the point where the sprinkler heads are going to be. Depending on where you live will determine how far down you will have to dig, if you are somewhere that gets freezing whether you will want to go down about 4 feet or so.

Once you got all of the trenches dug then you run the pvc to the sprinkler heads. After that you will have to fill in all of those trenches again and possibly resod the parts that you dug up. Like I said a lot of work.

Good to know that there are much simpler DIY sprinkler systems that are available these days and they will only get easier to install. Some of these sprinkler systems use flexible hoses to transport the water. Much more effective and more maintenance free than the traditional pvc piping sprinkler system. Another reason why these types of DIY sprinkler systems are better is that they run right under the sod line, so there is no need to dig several feet down just to run the hoses. There are many kits that are available that have detailed instructions on how to set up the sprinkler system, some may have timers while others will only be able to operate manually.

If you want the easiest way to water your lawn you can use a hose and a sprinkler. There are many types of sprinklers that are out there, and they do just as good as job as the sprinkler heads do, they water the lawn. There is really only one drawback to this and that is you have to walk the sprinkler out to the yard every time that you want to water the lawn. But this is by far the cheapest and easiest method to water you lawn.

There are many things that can come to mind when thinking about what home improvements you want to take on in your home, one of them may be getting laminate flooring installed. Laminate floors can give your home a great look if you are wanting the hardwood floor feel, the only problem is that it can be kind of expensive to have laminate flooring installed if you are hiring a contractor to come out and do it for you.

The other option is the DIY laminate flooring install, which is really not all that hard if you are a go getter and are pretty handy around the house. If this is the case then the first thing that you should do is get some help or a buddy to give you a hand, installing laminate flooring is a whole lot more simple when you have someone there helping you, especially when it comes to joining the planks together. Though this can be done single handedly, it is only recommended for those handymen and women with experience.

The first thing you want to do when getting ready to install laminate flooring is to remove all of the baseboards in the room that you plan on installing the flooring in. By doing this you are making it look more professional and also ensuring that you are securing the flooring well and it will not come up in future.

Next you will want to lay down the underlayment. There are many types of underlay that are out there and they all have their qualities. It is used to absorb sound, even out the bad concrete flooring, along with some other uses and it is highly recommended that you use it when you are installing laminate, as it will also help the laminate stay in place a lot better. Underlay usually comes in rolls that are about 40″, to join them together all you have to do is use some duct tape. Once you got the underlay down, you can begin to lay out the planks of laminate.

Also remember this is similar to laying tile as you want to have the same size laminate planks against both sides of the walls, so determine whether or not you are going to have to cut down in size for the sidings, you usually do. A circular saw will work well for this type of cut to make sure that it is cut fine.

When you are laying the first boards down, you will want the grooves to be inward towards the wall, and many professionals will recommend that you leave approximately 1/4 of an inch from the wall, this is also referred to as an expansion gap. One tip to make sure this is even all the way around would be to use 1/4 inch spacers all around the room. Remember you will also be putting back the baseboards when you are finished with the install also.

When you get the the end of a row, you may need to use a pry bar and a hammer to ensure that the board latches in securely, once you got the first row done, then all you have to do is repeat the steps that you did to install the first row. That’s all there really is to when it comes to installing laminate floor, the one thing that I can tell you though the smoother you have the floor, the easier the job will be to complete with out hassle.

Ok you are more than likely here because you have a hole in your drywall and you want to patch it, repair it, just  make it look better for a reason or two. One of the reasons that you may want to learn how to patch drywall is that it just looks ugly. Not only that, the longer you leave that hole in the drywall, the more cool air will escape if you are trying to cool the home or apartment, vice versa if you are trying to heat the place.

Another reason that you may want to patch a hole in the drywall is if you are renting, and you want that security deposit back when you lease is up. Patching drywall holes can be done very easily, and it is better than getting charged 40 bucks and up per hole by the landlord when you lease is up. If you are a home owner, then you more than likely want your home to look good, and there is no sense in hiring a contractor to patch the holes in your walls when you can DIY, unless of course you have money to spend on that and want to help out the fellow contractors do to job security. But if you want to save money and learn something that will live with you for a life time, like how to patch drywall holes,without going the easy route in purchasing a drywall repair kit, then stick around and learn something.

Let’s look at some of the tools that you are going to need to be able to patch a hole in the drywall. As you can see in this do-it-yourself tutorial the tools that you are going to need to repair a small hole in the wall are wall compound, drywall screws, drill, a razorblade to cut the drywall, a piece of wood to hold the drywall in place, a drywall knife, a putty knife, and a beer (optional, not recommended though). For the finish you will also need some sandpaper, paint and a paint brush. Below will be several pictures to help explain what I am typing better, just click to enlarge the image a little bit.

First thing that you are going to want to do when you are patching small or medium sized holes in drywall is get a piece of wallboard and cut it just a little bit larger than the hole, enough to have plenty of room to work with. In the picture below I cut the drywall maybe too small but for the purpose of this diy home repair tutorial I am going to make it work.

Next thing that I am going to want to do once I got my piece of drywall the size that I want it is to put it over the hole and trace it out on the wall, I am using a pen in this picture but I highly recommend using a carpenters pencil if you can, I just did not have one laying around in my apartment at the time and needed to get this drywall hole patched immediately.

Now you have the line that you want to cut out, it is recommended that you draw an arrow on the piece of drywall pointing up, so you know exactly how to position it when it is time to insert it into the hole. Next grab your drywall knife, I highly recommend that you use this as it makes nice accurate cuts, they are fairly cheap and I love them, they make repairing wall boards so much easier.

Now we have a nice even hole in the drywall, and we also have a piece of drywall that is going to fit right into that hole. Now we have to have something that is going to keep the drywall patch in place and at the same time be sturdy. There are many ways that you can do this, I will show you the way that I do it. You are going to need a piece of wood that is just a bit longer than the width of the hole that you just cut into the drywall, I say width because that is the way I am fixing it in this tutorial, if you want to go up and down then go up and down, to me it really doesn’t matter. If I had a stud right next to the hole that I cut I may have wen up and down, but it really don’t matter. Insert the piece of wood into the hole, don’t drop it, and pull it against the drywall.


Make sure that you have your drill in hand and also a drywall screw, then just drill to the right of the drywall, make sure that you are using a little bit of force to pull the piece of wood towards you until the screw is hooked in. The trick to a nice drywall patch it to get the screw barely beneath the top of the drywall, this way it is easier to cover when it comes time to apply the wall compound.

Do the same to the other side, there is really no need for more than two screws unless you are fixing a hole that is much larger than this one. You just want a sturdy backboard to mount the patch on, it’s like you are making a stud and using the surrounding drywall to your advantage.

As you can see here we are almost done, and with that being said I think that I am going to take a sip of beer to quench my thirst, you can skip this step if you want to.

Now you want to take that piece of drywall that we initially used to trace the hole that we cut and just insert it into the hole against the wood. Now it may fit perfectly, but there are some cases where you may need to shave a little off to make it fit into the hole more easy. No worry’s as all you have to do is shave a little off the edge with a razor, enough to where it is going to fit into the hole.


Once you have it in there, drill a couple drywall screws into the piece of wall board to make it a little more secure. Then you are almost done as all you have to do is grab your putty knife and apply the wall compound. The trick to making this not look like a patch is to get the drywall patch as even as you can with the drywall around it, and make sure that you have the screws into the drywall and not sticking out at all, but do not go to far as you can crack the drywall.


Another trick to make the patch look like it is not a patch is to cake the compound on the putty knife and apply it all over the patch, do not worry so much as to making it perfectly smooth but you do want to try to a little bit. Now give it about 24 hours for the compound to dry and harden. Now all you have to do is sand the dried compound down with some sandpaper until it is nice and smooth. Then apply the same color paint, and it should look like there was never a hole there in the first place.

Now there is another option when it comes to patching drywall holes, and if you do not have all the tools that I went over and want to skip all that bullshit, go to your local hardware store or search online and get yourself a drywall hole repair kit. Some of these drywall repair kits will come with everything you need to patch the small hole, it will come with a mesh that will stick to the wall, and usually a small container of stucco or wall compound, along with the putty knife, the only thing they do not come with are the paint and the paint brush.

There are step by step instructions on most of these types of kits, so there is really no need for me to go over them, even though I do not use them anyway.

Just remember though, drywall hole repair kits only work good on small holes and do not look as professional as the steps mentioned above, but it makes the job a hell of a lot easier especially if you are just learning how to patch drywall holes.

Lemme guess, you keep opening up your dishwasher, and you know that they last time you peeked inside there was no water left, but you keep seeing standing water in the dishwasher, don’t you? Well there are a few reasons why this happens, as I have dealt with this problem literally hundreds of times, and I do one thing to get rid of standing water in dishwasher once and for all, and let me tell you that it works about 95% of the time. Most of the time your problem is that the drain hose is not mounted properly, which if you know a thing or two about the gravity of water and how it flows, when you run water from your sink, your dishwasher is going to fill up with water unless you have the drain line mounted above where the water fills up. Look at this picture for example, this is a dishwasher that always seemed to have standing water in it, even when it was not in use.

Now in case you did not know your drain line is coming out of the garbage disposal here, right above the white piping which is the drain line for the sink. When the dishwasher goes through the drain cycle, it will drain the water into the garbage disposal using the motor, the way that this is set up, not all of the water is going to get drained properly and some will go back inside of the dishwasher. Also, if you are running the water in the sink, there is a good amount that is going to go down that drain line, as this is how gravity works. All we have to do to fix this is mount the dishwasher drain line, above the garbage disposal, where most of the water accumulates at from both the drain cycling and using the kitchen faucet to rinse dishes or whatever. This is how the dishwasher drain line should be mounted so that there will no longer be any standing water in dishwasher.

Now this will prevent dirty water from going back into the dishwasher. What I used to mount the line was a piece of metal stripping and two screws into the wall. You do not necessarily have to use the exact same thing as I did, but it was the only thing that I had on hand at the time. Many new dishwasher drain hoses come with a plastic loop around the hose that has a hole in it, guess what that is used for, mounting the dishwasher line! As I said, whenever I get a service request about standing water in dishwasher, this solves the problem 95% of the time.

Now there is one more thing wrong with this dishwasher drain line that could potentially cause a problem in the future, can anyone see what it is?

Back again with some more do it yourself home repairs, as this can save you a bundle of money rather than calling out a plumber because you do not know how to fix a leaking faucet. I am going to try to explain this as best as I can so that everyone can understand it and make the plumbing repair by themselves. But as with just about all of the do it yourself home repairs I explain on this site, you should have at least some type of handyman skill in you.

If you are someone that just cannot fix stuff around the house, then I do not recommend you trying to do this plumbing repair by yourself. If you are lacking common sense and are not handyman coordinated, you could possibly flood your home by not paying attention to detail. With that being said let us get on you teaching you how to fix a leaky tub faucet.

This is what we are going to be dealing with for the sake of this tutorial. If you have a leaking shower faucet, meaning water keeps dripping out of the faucet after both of the valves are shut, then following this tutorial will fix that problem also. If you can do this, you can repair any type of leaky faucet, whether it be one that is in the kitchen, bathroom, bathtub or shower.

Some of the stems will be different but it is all the same principle. That is the tub stem, or faucet stem has a O-ring that is attached by a screw, and when that O-ring is pressed against the seat, the water will be blocked. If you have a brand new tub stem and your O-ring is brand new and you still have a leaky faucet, then you need to check your seat for smoothness, as if it has any nicks on it at all that will cause the faucet to leak.

As you can see, back to the beginning, we are dealing with a hot and cold stem, and the shower diverter in the middle. The diverter controls the amount of water that is coming out of the tub spout or the shower head faucet, the same principle follows to fix a diverter if you are still getting water coming from both the tub faucet and the shower head at the same time, with the diverted fully closed or open, the only difference is that the diverter uses one extra O-ring in most cases. I hope that makes sense.

Okay the first thing that we will need to do is pop the index button off of the shower handle, tub handle, whatever the hell it is you want to call it. Then we are going to have to remove the screw that is holding the handle onto the escutcheon sleeve.

Next step after this is to get the escutcheon sleeve and the back plate off of the wall. There are some styles that screw into the wall others are held to the wall by caulking or grout, either way you will have to get those free from the wall one way or another to get not only to the water shut off but to get the bad tub stem.

After this you have to find the water shut off for that particular handle, there may or may not be one right there, it all depends on what type of set up you have. Below you can see me securing the water to the handle. Other situations may require you to secure the hot water heater if you are replacing a tub stem on the hot side or even the water main to the house if you do not know of any other shut offs.

Either way, unless you have changed out hundreds of tub stems and have it down to a science, then you must have the water shut off as you can flood your home if you do not, and the water is going to be pouring out with some decent pressure when there is nothing there to regulate it.

Once you have the water secured you are going to have to loosen the tub stem out. This can be easily done if you have a tub stem removal tool, they come in a couple of different sizes as so do tub stems. It is not absolutely necessary to use the tub stem removal tool to accomplish this but it sure as hell helps a lot.

leaky tub faucet

Now that you got the old stem out I want you to inspect the seat that was behind it. You can do this by rubbing your finger across it feeling for any nicks in it, or you can use a flash light to check it out in detail. If the seat is fine it is time to get your new tub stem ready for installation.

Leaky Tub Faucet

Now some plumbers will just tighten down on the O-Ring and tighten the packing nut a little bit, but this is what I do to ensure that I do not get any call backs, and in many peoples cases, not have to fix a leaky faucet again. I take the O-ring off the top and I put some caulking on the top, then I put the O-Ring back and tighten down until it is snug.

If you tighten down on the O-Ring too much you are going to force the O-Ring to curve up, which over a short period of time will wear down as it is tightened against the seat. You want the O-Ring to be snug, the caulking will assist in keeping the O-Ring snug once it dries and ensuring that it does not come loose after multiple turns of the shower/tub handle.

Next you want to tighten down on the packing nut on the tub stem. If you are repairing a leaking kitchen or bathroom faucet, those stems usually do not have a packing nut so you will not have to worry about this. Just tighten down on the other end of the packing nut snug with a pair of pliers. As you can see if you have a stem removal tool there are two sides, the other side if for the packing nut.

Now that you got the tub stem ready just insert it into the hole where you took the old one out. Do not tighten down with a He-Man torque, as most tub stem threads are made from brass and if you crank down on it too much you can break it off completely. Once you have the stem in there turn the water on and check for leaks everywhere. If there are no leaks then you have just fixed a leaking faucet.

I will eventually be uploading a video on how to fix a leaky faucet, but that will have to wait until I get enough money to get a video camera. Please if you have any questions ask them here and provide as much detail as you can, if you have a picture to reference that would be better. If you make no attempt to ask a detailed question about stopping faucet leaks, then I will make no attempt trying to help you.