Hurrah for make do and mend

ALIBOBSY

OK although I lived through the 70's and the late 80's early 90's, as a child I was mostly unaware of recessions and housing crashes.
My mum and dad were quite secrective about money (I was told firmly I would not be told what my father earned and certainly had no idea about bills).
After a disaterous first marriage-I was too young, he was controlling and eventually violent. I was left with some debt and no capital.
I was lucky enough to meet my lovely current hubby and we went from renting to buying to marriage and first child within a couple of years at the late 90's.
In an era of buy now pay later like many on here we ran up debt, but again luckily had a LBM around 2005.

Only recently have we discovered the joys of make do and mend and actually fixing things ourselves.

Early this year we had a water leak (not a huge ceiling failing down leak, more a slow drip running down the doorframe type). Now 10 years ago we would have called a plumber straight away, but OH turned off the water and by a process of elimination we found the leak in a pipe under the floorboards up stairs. He read up on the internet and after a chat with the plumber chap at B & Q was able to fix the leak himself, cost £3 ish. Satisfaction priceless.

In the last few weeks we had problems with the dyson-again a few years ago it would be a new one straight away. Between us we stripped the whole unit down, cleaned it all out and reassembled. It now works like new again lol.
Then slow draining sink and bath OH dimantled the waste pipes piece by peice and cleaned out the blockage when he came to it.
Finally the washing machine hadn't been right for a few days, it wouldn't move from the wash cycle onto spinning. I could manually switch the spin on, but the water wasn't draining right and the cloths were still wet at the end.
After reading online I took off the kickplate on the front, and opened up the filter-water all over, but we were prepared with a pile of dirty towels lol. the filter was blocked right up. We checked the belt and cleaned all parts of the machine. Then all the wet towels went in for the big test-never seen people stood around so interested in watching a machine spin rofl. It worked perfectly and we all cheered when the spin cycle came on. When the wash came out I realised the problem must have started months ago as it was much cleaner and drier than before.

Now a few years ago we wouldn't have attempted any of these fixes, things that probably should come under maintenance.
Sadly I wonder now how many items we threw away that actually just needed a bit of tinkering to sort out.

I hope this recession and the memory of it last a long time as I really don't want my kids to live in the same booming "throw away" society we had.

To me this is just another side of OS, empowering yourself to do things on your own and in our case save us alot of dosh.

Anyone else suprise themselves with fixing something they might otherwise have chucked? Anyone else like me unaware that WM had filters that need to be cleaned out?

ali x

purpleivy

The youth orchestra full size cello passed through our hands. The fastening is a zip right round. This was damaged on the bottom corner and wouldn't pull.

I took the patches off the ends of the zips. Pulled the runners off. Pulled them back on again, one for each end and sewed a little 'stop' either side of the damaged portion. OK, the zip pulls have to be pulled round to the damaged bit rather than 'anywhere', but I was hugely satisfied by this. Cost = half an hour.

I had some practice in the summer though, before this. My dd came home with a fancy dress from New Look, for £3 as the zip was broken. She asked if I could replace it. I didn't relish the task, but said I would. When it came down to it, I just needed to cut the end off the zip and rethread the runner on. Total cost was just the time it took to take the lining out and sew it back in...oh, and make straps for it, as she decided that she would like straps on the dress as well.

valk_scot

I'm sitting here with a really lovely and very expensive fleece lined jacket that was passed on to me two sons ago and has had a LOT of use since then. Still very good condition and it would fit my daughter but the zip slider had been pulled off and lost. So I've been looking though the bag of outgrown jackets destined for the charity shop and sure enough, there's a slider of the right size on a different jacket. Okay, the charity shop will be down one jacket as it will now have to go into the rag bag, but I'm up £35, which is what I nearly paid out at Mountain Warehouse last week for a new equivalent jacket for DD. And they'll get this jacket in a couple of years!

As to washing machine filters, first thing I do if an appliance starts acting up is read the troubleshooting guide in the back of the instruction booklet. I can honestly say that doing this has saved me a fortune over the years in repair bills. It's very often something very small and simple that needs doing to get it going again.

thriftlady_2

This was my OH's idea not mine- the switch to the computer had jammed due to the tower being set on the floor and the kids using their toes to push the switch (OK- it was me too). Anyway we couldn't get the thing to come on so OH simply removed the front casing to the tower to expose the switch. Looks pretty ugly and it will probably fill up with dust but it works.

ceebeeby

thriftlady wrote: »

This was my OH's idea not mine- the switch to the computer had jammed due to the tower being set on the floor and the kids using their toes to push the switch (OK- it was me too). Anyway we couldn't get the thing to come on so OH simply removed the front casing to the tower to expose the switch. Looks pretty ugly and it will probably fill up with dust but it works.

Would you be able to cut out a new front cover, even if it's just a bit of wood / plastic lid etc. and some masking tape to keep the dust out ... and just leave the buttony bit exposed?

You'd probably need air vent holes in it as well?

SailorSam

When i was younger i did one of these 6mth govt training courses for a motor mechanic, what the instructor use to say was go and do so-and-so, maybe changing the points; taking the starter motor off; stripping the gearbox, whatever. If you said i don't know how to do it, you were told to read your book until you did. Later he'd come to check your work, maybe give you a clue if you'd gone wrong and you'd do it again, but worked on the principle that you learn more if you're not told but need to find out yourself.
Any job that comes up now around the house i put this lesson too. 'If someone else can do it, i can do it'
It doesn't always ring true, and i'll take a lot longer than a professional, but if you put your mind to it and read up how it works, i believe you can do most things.

angeltreats

My DH is taking a beginners car maintenance course and we have a Haynes Manual for each of our cars. We are going to tackle changing the gearbox oil in mine this weekend hopefully. Garage prices are extortionate and lots of jobs are really quite simple.

Plumbing frightens me though but we are renting so if anything breaks/leaks it's the landlord's problem!

purpleivy

SailorSam wrote: »

It doesn't always ring true, and i'll take a lot longer than a professional, but if you put your mind to it and read up how it works, i believe you can do most things.

My dh did the cam belt/waterpump on my car, will do his own soon. He learned these kind of things partly from his dad, but also being a mechanical engineer by training does have an idea of how an engine is. It took him most of the day, but stood to save a packet, as the parts weren't expensive, just the amount of labour makes it a pricy job to have done.

ALIBOBSY

thriftlady wrote: »

This was my OH's idea not mine- the switch to the computer had jammed due to the tower being set on the floor and the kids using their toes to push the switch (OK- it was me too). Anyway we couldn't get the thing to come on so OH simply removed the front casing to the tower to expose the switch. Looks pretty ugly and it will probably fill up with dust but it works.

OH is an IT tech and he reckons you can get a new power switch for about 50p, might be worth a look?
Mind you we have bits of PC's all over (should see the garage lol) and have had Pc's with sides off for months whilst he was fiddling with them. Oh reckons you shouldn't get too much dust in a normal atmosphere anyway.
He had one PC where to switch it on you stuck a screwdriver through a hole in the side and shorted the circuit to throw the switch lol.

ali x

culpepper

We had a pedal car for our kids which we grabbed out of the skip that used to collect the roads large rubbish items.
It was quite scratched and faded so I bought yellow red and black paint in small pots from the hardware shop and painted it to look like Noddy's car. It looked new when it was done . They had it years till they couldn't fit in it any more.

OH has done a fair bit of plumbing in the house over the years, he put together most of the bathroom about 15 years ago (a plumber joined it up though as the stop-tap was seized for the main inlet)and recently plumbed in two radiators all using books. We did get a professional to install the new boiler though about 8 years ago as we wanted a corgi professional and gas is not to be toyed with.

I love make do and mend too. It is a way of life and makes you feel empowered.

angel81uk

I come from a make do and mend family so thankfully it's been pretty much second nature to me. We don't call in the professionals until we've diagnosed the problem ourselves and found it really is too big a job to do ourselves.

Over the last couple of years I've replaced various electronics in my car, fixed the pump in the washing machine when it stopped draining (I refused to buy a new pump until I'd tried fixing the old one), replaced the main PCB and diverter valve in the boiler when we had no heating or hot water 2 months out of warranty, replaced the workings of the toilet cistern when I found out the ones already fitted weren't suitable and caused a constant trickle of water, replaced failed harddrives in computers (and managed to take apart and fix one of them and turn it into an external drive).

I either repair clothing or if an item is well and truely past it I put useful buttons, zips etc in my sewing box and use the fabric to create new things. I've made voile curtains out of a roll of voile that was being thrown out.

In a few months time I'm going to aquire some laminate flooring that will be used for an event and refloor our flat with it (they're putting lots of new flooring down in a temporary marquee, it will be used for 7 days then ripped out and thrown away, such a waste!). And that's just some of my list, I specifically chose myself a fiance who was just as handy and he has a list of his own. Between the two of us we're able or qualified to tackle most jobs (apart from gas, that's one for the pros) and I wouldn't have it any other way!