Comment by Zach_the_Lizard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zach_the_Lizard | Hacker News Reader

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Zach_the_Lizard

I haven't quit, and have no plans of quitting, but I scratch the manual labor itch by, well, manually laboring at home.

I've dug hundreds of feet of trenches to move around sprinkler and water lines to account for a new patio and fence. Added walls to my home to add an extra bedroom and office. New trim, new solid core doors, etc.

I've painted rooms, ran Ethernet to all the bedrooms, added some outlets, replaced all outlets with tamper resistant ones, and the list goes on and on.

To top it off, I have a project car that I've been working on. They constantly require some small amount of maintenance and something can always be made better. You can be in troubleshooting mode, tracing electrical gremlins, or you can just be mindlessly sanding off rust from the frame.

Once my kids are older, I hope to get them involved somewhat just to teach them some skills. I cherish the memory of my grandfather teaching me some of this stuff and hold on to some things he made for me.

I structure things so that I can have two or so small projects running that I can pick up and set down without fuss, since life and kids often get in the way.

I've definitely saved thousands on some of the work I've done

> Once my kids are older, I hope to get them involved somewhat just to teach them some skills. I cherish the memory of my grandfather teaching me some of this stuff and hold on to some things he made for me.

They may or they may not. I do all the sorts of things you do and have tried to get any of my kids interested and none of them really are. So don't be too disappointed if that happens. Kids are not clones of yourself in every detail.

My goal is not to turn my kids into mechanics, but teach them to troubleshoot and learn a few basic things. My hobbies are my own and they don't have to enjoy them.

I don't want my daughter, for example, to give up and call me if she gets a flat tire. I want her to know how to put on the spare tire and do it if needed.

Beyond that it's gravy.

I've also done this kind of thing in my spare time. It's definitely rewarding in many ways: you get to enjoy the fruit of your labour in your lived environment, you know you did a more detailed job than someone you paid would have done, you make all the decisions about the work where a contractor may have done it differently, you save some money on the labour costs of the work.

One thing I've learned through doing this though is that I would have a very hard time doing this to make a living. Unless you are somehow in a position to do custom bespoke works for high payers, where you keep a lot of control over the process and don't have to operate on tight margins, I just don't see how it could be any more rewarding than office work. On top of this it will take a physical toll on your body and pay less.

Despite that, I do hope to make this transition myself but it will be a long time till I will be in a position to make it work. I think it can make sense for someone if they are able to make niche items, like by becoming a luthier say, and can afford to do it for poverty wages because they are basically semi-retired. I wish more people had the freedom to do this kind of work, and that society placed more value on well-crafted things over mass-produced rubbish.

I come from a family of master plumbers and I was my uncles helper as soon as I was old enough to hold a 5 gallon bucket and bring back the right tool. Over the course of growing up I did all sorts of different trades, I banged nails, tore off roofs, I bent conduit and I've tiled thousands of square feet of flooring and walls and I hated almost every minute of it. Working in shitty conditions, getting screamed at because you don't move fast enough, low wages and permanent damage to your body is not something I'd sign up for long term

Just curious about the car maintenance, do you think it is something younger people will not get to experience as much?

I am not super familiar with newer cars, but it seems there is a lot more software in there, and I am wondering if that makes it much harder or impossible to fix some of the newer cars.

> Just curious about the car maintenance, do you think it is something younger people will not get to experience as much?

Yes and no.

Even with electric cars, stuff like brakes won't go away. Some even have drum brakes as I recall.

But gone are the days of using a few screwdrivers, wrenches, and odds and ends to fix most problems. But most of those problems are solved by software.

I'm not hoping to get my kids into this, just teach them some basic skills.

I don't think software gets in the way of getting some experience working on cars. Cars still need their tires rotated, alternators swapped out for new ones, new brake pads, oil changes, refilling liquids and occasionally troubleshooting issues with OBD II. These are are all fairly basic things that don't require an armoir full of tools and can be done on a weekend.

No, mostly the software makes working on modern cars easier and more rewarding. Everything has built in diagnostics so it’s a lot easier to pinpoint what is wrong and fix it. Old cars would often never quite run correctly and there was no straightforward path to figure out why except tediously swapping parts out.

I have a different perspective. I'd rather work on cars with less software. Just spent months working on a car full of computers, had to use an old windows laptop to run a GM Tech II emulator and other bits of hacky tools to reprogram different modules after replacing one. Ultimately, I was able to get the car to start, but that victory was soon lost because the next day the new and old modules went offline after attempting to put the car in gear, and of course the car won't start any longer. Could be faulty wiring or faulty modules... This is why I like to work on simpler cars where every function does not need a computer module.

The quality of these systems varies a lot… and so does the quality of the cars themselves. A highly connected computerized car needs bulletproof wiring with waterproof corrosion resistant connectors everywhere. Etc. Try a German car with the factory manuals and software and you won’t have an experience like this.

> I've definitely saved thousands on some of the work I've done

Was that a necessary work tho?

Some of it was. For example, the sprinkler system that came with the house was blasting my house and fence with water.

Doing so causes fences to decay more quickly and can damage the foundation of the house.

By digging up and moving the sprinklers, I prevented that from happening.

I also swapped a bunch of it for subsurface drip irrigation, which conserves significant amounts of water. That not only saves me money, but is better for the environment.

That’s super cool.

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