Hot Home & Garden How-Tos

How To: Remove and repair a Neff oven door

Watch to learn how to remove and repair a Neff oven door. You'll remove and replace parts on an oven door, as well as how to remove the oven door. This oven maintenance video demonstrates removal and replacement of the oven door outer glass, oven door inner glass, door hinges and door handle. Use a professional oven cleaner and ceramic scraper to remove burnt on stains from the oven inner door glass.

How To: Install the last row without a pull bar

When you end your last row, there are occasions where you can't use a pull bar. The alternative to using a pull bar is to modify the groove side of the plank that's on the floor. Shave the groove and remove the debris, making sure that there's none in the track. Next, take a small bead of glue and run it down the groove side of your plank. Engage the next plank as close as you can get. Set the plank in place with the pull bar. Finally, tape the plank to its neighbor to secure it until the glu...

How To: Identify the switched live wire in a lighting circuit

Before undertaking any electrical project, it is imperative that you know precisely what it is you're doing and to keep in mind that electricity can kill. With that said, this electrical tutorial presents a guide to identifying the switched live wire on a lighting circuit and also explains how to rewire a ceiling rose. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on completing this home project, take a look.

How To: Attach Timber to Concrete Using Concrete Anchors

How to install concrete anchors.How to attach timber / wood to concrete or any other SOLID masonry surface using masonry anchors / DynaBolts. DynaBolts (that's the name for this particular anchor in Australia. They are know by other names in other countries) are the ideal anchor for attaching almost anything to solid masonry such as concrete. This video will look at attaching timber to a concrete floor.

How To: Detect bed bugs with tape

Rick Steinow shows how to detect bedbugs using tape. Rick shows that obvious signs would be fecal matter and blood stains. If you're still unable to detect bed bugs, you can purchase a roll of double-sided carpet tape. You're also going to need a roll of painters tape. Apply a strip of the double-sided tape all the way around the mattress. Place another strip of tape around the head board. Make sure to add a strip of painters tape first when doing the headboard. You'll do this because the dou...

How To: Excavate a pond and use hand tools

This video shows you how to excavate a pond using hand tools and a jackhammer.First of all, you must organize your digging in shelves. A pond should have some parts deeper than others. You start by leveling the pond at the part where it will be more shallow (thus creating the first shelf). Then go to a deeper part and level that out. In this way you create shelves with different elevations.Your tools for excavating are the spade, the flat shovel, the pick, the wheelbarrow and the jackhammer. ...

How To: Replace the Dryer's Idler Pulley

The dryer’s idler pulley provides tension to the dryer’s drum belt so the belt won’t slip when the drum is turning. It can become faulty over time due to increased friction. If your dryer is making a squeaking or squealing nose then the idler is probably faulty. Replacing this pulley is a simple project. Repair your noisy dryer with this step-by-step tutorial!

How To: Repair your lawn mower's pull starter with silicone spray

You're trying to mow your lawn, but the engine on your pull-string push mower isn't turning over— why won't it power up? Well, if your lawn mower was stored outdoors for a large amount of time, chances are that the recoil has built up some corrosion or is simply sticking. This video will show you a very simple repair, where you only need to remove 2 or 3 screws to gain access to the mechanism, then grease with silicone spray.

How To: Prune trees into bushes

Pruning is a commong practice that involves removing certain parts of a plant to help improve or maintain its health. It also helps reduce the chances that any branches fall on people and keeping it safe from possible disease. For some trees, instead of letting them grow to giant proportions, you can actually prune them to a certain point so they instead grow to be the size of bushes.

How To: Cut the perfect inside corner with a miter saw

This video, from Superior Building Supplies, demonstrates the proper technique for cutting the inside corners of crown molding. The presenter suggests downloading several diagrams from the Superior Building Supplies website. These diagrams show the correct position of the miter for several different cuts. When using a miter saw think of the fence as the ceiling and the table as the wall. Cuts for inside corners will always be made using 45 degree angles on your miter saw. Using these techniqu...

How To: Install a Timber Floor

G'day Knuckleheads. In this Owner Builder Episode we look at laying the timber floor. You'll see in this video the team showing you how to lay a timber / wooden floor. The timber or wood l used for the floor was a species of timber called Blackbutt. It's a solid 19mm x 130mm board which is very hardy and should stand up to a fair bit of abuse…which it will get at my place :-) Timber floors really give a warmth to your property and are well worth the effort.

How To: Use Dryer Sheets to Clean Soap Scum Off Shower Doors

How often do you fight with your shower doors? Maybe not literally (although my elbow has smacked the hard glass many times), but when it's time to clean the bathroom, getting a few weeks' worth of soap scum and grime off the shiny, clear surface becomes an insurmountable task. Whether you use a special cleaner and squeegee or a carefully selected wipe, chances are you still battle the streaks and grit left behind. Although it might not make sense to steal cleaning supplies from the laundry r...

How To: Replace a Dryer's Thermal Fuse

The thermal fuse in your dryer is a safety device designed to prevent the dryer from overheating. The fuse is heat sensitive and when the dryer becomes too hot it will blow. If the fuse has blown then the dryer will either stop working or there will be no heat when the drum is turning. A blown thermal fuse is simple to replace. With a few tools, a do it yourself warrior can save valuable money from being wasted on a service call. Here is a detailed set of instructions on how to replace a ther...

How To: Unlock A Privacy Door Handle

When owning a home one type of lever set you may have in your home is a privacy lever. In a privacy lever set, the main feature is that the door can only be locked from the inside. Sometimes a kid might get locked in or someone may accidentally lock the door behind them. It's really easy to unlock it in an emergency.

How To: Make Your Own Whitefly Sticky Trap

This is a cheap and easy way to make a sticky fly trap that can catch tons of whiteflies. Get a can of Tanglefoot’s Tangle-Trap Sticky Coating. I stored this in the greenhouse which may not have been a great idea, as you can see by the amount of rust there is on the can.

How To: Install a T-Mold Transition Between Laminate & Ceramic Tile

Installing a T Mold Transition Between Laminate and Ceramic Tile There are several different types of laminate transitions that you may need when installing laminate flooring. Each one is used specifically for where the laminate flooring ends, such as where the laminate stops at ceramic tile. Other transitions are used where the laminate ends at carpet, vinyl flooring, a threshold or a step down such as a sunken living room or stairs.

How To: Get rid of that smell coming from your shower

In this tutorial, we learn how to get rid of that smell coming from your shower with Bob Schmidt. First, you will want to clean out your drain pipes to make sure the smell is not coming from there. If the smell is coming back out, you will need to do additional work. If water gets saturated into the base of the shower, then there should be some gravel around it so the water can soak through and go down into the drain pipe. If moisture soaks through the tile grout, then it can bring out the se...

How To: Identify hardened steel compared to mild steel

Hardened steel is very durable, but nearly impossible to work with at home. If you are trying to choose a piece of steel and can't tell if it's hardened or not, you're in luck, because this video contains a quick method for doing so. All you do is try to file an indentation in the steel with a file. If that doesn't make a mark, you've probably got hardened steel.