Paul’s Hardware Blog

Ok.  I have another exciting home repair entry today.  My aim for this blog is to provide information that isn’t always readily available.  Things that we see all the time that aren’t always as clear as they seem to be.  Here is another one.

One of our long time customers came in with a problem.  He had just replaced the washers in his shower and was able to get the leak stopped but ended up with a very low water pressure.  He said he had taken the shower faucet apart 3 times and still couldn’t get it to work.  He showed me the package the replacement washers had been in (not our brand by the way but we let these things pass) and the washers he had taken out of his faucet.  The replacements were the correct ones.  He couldn’t figure out what he did wrong. 

This happens all of the time.  Or at least in our area it does.  Our water has a high mineral content and deposits often build up in pipes and faucets.  When he took the faucet apart the minerals were displaced.  They traveled to the shower head and clogged it up. This happens on other faucets as well.  The aerator gets clogged.  It is amazing that such a simple thing happens as often as it does.  So,  if you have a low pressure after doing any plumbing work check the aerators.

Share on Facebook

I have had about six people come into the store today with Christmas light problems.  Most of them just had blown or missing bulbs but a few had blown fuses.

Most modern light sets are “string to string” sets.  You can plug the next set of lights into the end of the previous set.  There are warnings on the box that tell you to only run a certain number of sets this way.  The is to prevent the overloading of the wire the sets are made of.  As you increase the number of bulbs the current increases.  If enough sets were run together the current could get high enough to be dangerous.  To protect against this situation fuses are in the plugs of each light set.  If the current gets too high the fuse blows.  This is almost always caused by plugging in more than the recommended number of sets.  So if you have blowing fuses in your lights check to make sure there aren’t too many sets plugged together.

Share on Facebook

Every year when people start decorating we get MANY requests for an electrical plug with male prongs on each end.  We don’t have them.  To my knowledge they don’t exist. 

Christmas lights have a male plug on one end and a female plug on the other.  They are made this way so that you can connect several strings together without running multiple extension cords.  You only run into problems if  you string the lights starting with the wrong end. The female plug is where you intended to plug the lights in.  To make them work you need an adapter with 2 male plugs.  The problem is that if you plugged the 2 female ends together there is going to be a totally uninsulated male end somewhere that is live.  An extreme shock and fire hazard.  The solution is to either run an extension cord to the male plug at the end of the string or take the lights down and redo them starting with the male plug end.

Share on Facebook