BellaLind,
Since your screen name is very similar to mine, I had to read your post. After reading this post, I think we are twin separated at birth. I love being a fixer but I inherited the trait and learned it from my mother, a natural born DIY mechanical engineer and not my father, an intellect.
I have been in retirement for 4 months and having a ball in having the time to do housework, home maintenance and repair.
I just finished digitizing hundreds of old cassette tapes and had to repair half a dozen of 30+ years old tape. The common problem was that the original splice from the clear leading part of the tape to the magnetic recording part broke off. It was pretty simple to just splice the original magetic tape to another, newer reel. A piece of scotch tape is all you need for the splicing.
The internet especially is amazing. I have learned how to repair lawn mower, snow blower, garage door opener, dryer, washer, furnace boiler, computer, playstation, tablet, laptop, car, our homebuilt plane mostly by watching youtube and reading/asking questions at DIY forums.
Last month, we saved hundreds of dollars in repairing our heating system. First, the furnace stopped firing. we found some great youtube videos grayfurnaceman and succeeded in identifying the cause being a bad transformer.
Gray Furnaceman Furnace Troubleshoot and Repair - Home
It took 2 days to locate the correct transformer mainly because the original transformer was mislabeled. The lesson we learned was to find the local dealer of the exact brand instead of going through general plumbing/heating big stores. The transformer only cost $50 and it took less than 20 minutes to replace it.
Two weeks later, there was no heat in the main bedroom. We quickly identified the problem to a faulty hotwater zone valve but it took few days to get the replacement part. The local dealer has it but at the full list price of $250 before tax. We order it online for $114 and $7 shipping (no tax). We did not pay for express shipping because we had been managing the problem with a space heater but was pleasantly surprised to see the zone valve was shipped by 2-day priority shipping.
My internet search indicated that the most likely fail area was in the motor part of the zone valve and not the valve itself. So we just unhooked the old motor part, hooked the new one in, connected all the wirings and it worked! This saved a lot of work in trying to remove/replace the old valve from the hot water pipe (something a plumber might have done and just charged big bucks for the labor). A slight problem was that the new zone valve wire connection part is completely different from the old one. By labeling all the old wirings, drawing the connections and reading the wiring diagram, it was a simple task to rewire all the electrical connections from the thermostat, transformer and neighbor zone valve to the new one.
The saving is nice but I think my main satisfaction was with learning something new, having opportunities to exercise my technical or geeky interest and taking pride in successful repairs.
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