Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

This may or may not fit into the OP's intention but some of my favorite physical achievements are repairs that might be impressive for a random suburban dad :)

1. Two years ago our basement flooded a week after we bought the house. I ended up tearing out the now-saturated carpet and put in vinyl plank flooring. Mainly straight forward but requires planning and at some points tricky sawing. It's cool when people come in and un-prompted say "wow that's a great floor you have here"

2. Maybe 4 years ago, I completely disassembled and repaired a through-wall heating and cooling unit in our NYC apartment because it wasn't producing a lot of air. Previously, repairmen came out and said it was working as normal and just wasn't meant to produce more air. This taught me a lot about electronics, HVAC, testing, and shopping at vendor-supply stores. People are shocked that a civilian was able to do this repair.

EDIT: I'll add one more:

3. Replacing the screen on my Pixel 6 Pro. It fell out of my pocket while biking, and although it wouldn't have been the end of the world to just get a replacement, I thought it would be fun to try and repair. I normally stayed away from stuff like that because I didn't want to deal with removing/applying adhesives but it was really not a big dea.

Similarly, I have felt huge satisfaction with DIY repairs. Re-plumbing a couple sinks and replacing a garbage disposal and/or adding a dishwasher is not hard to do, the building codes aren't terribly overbearing and its like Lego connecting things together with immediate feedback loop when testing for leaks (modern PVC plumbing, not older copper/metal).

When you own a home and have the time, there are some tasks that will save you a bunch because they are labor intensive but material costs are low. Also if you live in an area where people hire everything out you'll find shortages of contractors and high prices.

Yeah, that's the spot I'm in right now... contract rates where I live went through the roof over the pandemic and never came back down.

Aside: I wish I could smack whoever did the wiring in my home. They saved a few dollars on a breaker, but if I run my AVR/TV + Microwave (in adjacent kitchen) and the lights are on in the summer, it blows the breaker. And there's a dozen spaces on the box still available even.

Can you just swap to a bigger breaker if the cable is sized properly?

It's already 20A US, no bigger option that would be appropriate without rewire.

That doesn't seem like a lot on a 20A circuit. I would replace the breaker.

Have, three times... once with a different 15A, and on the second 20A. There might be something else wrong in the wiring, and may have to rip up at least the cabinets and drywall on the one wall and the ceiling in the kitchen at the least to get to it. There was a remodel about 10 years ago (about 5 years before I bought it), and that may have been it, though could be original. Been wanting to replace the kitchen lighting anyway.

I get what you're saying, but even HVAC guys are civilians :)

Huge pet peeve of mine, this militaristic way of thinking. Even police are civilians -- every one is, except for actual soldiers. Cops love to refer to everyone else as "civilians" but they're just hired security with extra perks.

You seem ill-informed in your pet peeve. Miriam Webster defines civilian as "not military not police."

A dictionary reflects current usage. It does not reflect correct usage.

Police in the US are not governed by the UCMJ and have no affirmative obligations in the way military do. They are also civilians under the Geneva convention.

A professional police force only goes back about 200 years.

My pet peeve is nerds arguing with the dictionary:)

What was your AC repair? Did it involve dealing with the refrigerant system or just other electronic components? If so, I'd be shocked too -- AFAIK most commonly-used refrigerant compounds are not generally available to civilians because of the environmental damage caused by their irresponsible discharge.

No, not refrigerant. I think I ruled that out pretty quickly because one of the symptoms was icing on the evaporator side - so I figured the compressor side was producing enough cool.

At the end of the day the problem was the evaporator blower motor. It was insidious because it certainly worked and moved air around, but it was something like a 3 speed motor and the 2nd speed was failing and not moving enough air around, hence the icing and not producing enough air, something like that.

> AFAIK most commonly-used refrigerant compounds are not generally available to civilians because of the environmental damage caused by their irresponsible discharge.

I don't know if the EPA test has changed in the decade since I took it, but it was very easy for me to get the cert needed to buy refrigerants myself. I found an A/C supply store that administered the tests, found a study guide on the internet, ready the study guide in half an hour, took the test. Now apparently you can do the test online whereas I had to go to the store.

That's cool.. I replaced a fireplace surround, flattened the wall, wired in for speaker passthrough and electronics to mount a tv, the surround didn't allow room for a tv mount and now power, etc.

Also enclosed a garage at a prior house, turning it into an office. Sub-breaker, lighting, etc.

Haven't been able to do much at my current house since the fireplace as my physical health is less than stellar. On the small repairs, I just can't handle those, I had trouble reading small text and not much dexterity before the tiny ribbon cables in modern laptops and phones. If it's beyond a sodimm or m2 slot, I'm out.

Were vendors willing to work with you directly or was there some process to building a relationship with them? And what were some of the challenges you ran into while doing the replacement?

I somehow found a store in Queens that sold AC parts to repairmen ~ no idea how I originally found it.

I remember Citi-biking over the 59th street bridge to pick up stuff ~ first capacitors, eventually a motor - which is what ended up being the real issue.

The store got a kick out of working w me at first but I think they eventually found it annoying. I suspect repair-folks don't do a lot of returns. EG - if they buy a capacitor and then it's not what was wrong, they end up keeping it for another job whereas I retired it. Also, when I bought the motor that was the manufacturer specified replacement, it wasn't a perfect match for some other part of the unit. I had to bike back to the store and the guy gave me some bushings (which solved the issue) but real repair people would probably know that the shaft thickness changed on that motor and carry some bushings around anyway.

So yeah they were fine to do business with me but they normally deal with large-size orders probably, so my stuff was "cute" but most certainly not a priority for them.

> it was really not a big dea.

I read this like a joke that the far right of his touchscreen doesn't work anymore and can't type the letter "L"

:) I appreciate that! Worse, I posted this from a desktop!

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