Door locks are a necessary part of the home’s security. In days gone by many people never locked their doors, especially in small towns, because thieves were not as brazen, nor as skilled, in their unlawful craft as they are now. This why door locks have come a long way from the skeleton-type keys of old and why many homeowners choose the revolutionary Taft YL88 Keyless Lock.

Here are some causes of jammed doors and locks:

Uneven Lock Latch Positioning:  To check the alignment between the locking mechanism, or pin, and the striker plate in the door jamb open the latch and close the door until the pin touches the edge of the strike plate. Using a felt pen mark the top and bottom of the pin position on the door jam. Open the door and check the marks you made. If they do not line up perfectly with the strike plate you can either take a portable grinder and make the plate opening larger or, in extreme case, take the screws out of the strike plate and reposition the plate to match the lock pin.

Deadbolt Alignment: Deadbolt sticking problems are usually caused by the pin not being correctly aligned to plate. Over time the sagging of the door may cause the pin to rub on the plate. This can also be corrected by grinding or re-adjusting the plate.

Stripped Screws: Door sagging can be caused by loose plate screws . These may come loose against the wood of the door jam all that may be needed is to tighten them back up. If the screw holes in the jam are stripped put a toothpick or wooden matchstick in the hole, snap off the end and the screw should fit tight again.

Stripped Screws on the Door Hinge: Loose door hinge screws can also cause a door to sag, and this can affect lock alignment. Use the toothpick method for tightening these up too.

Dirt in the Lock: Doors get dirty, especially the exterior doors facing the elements. Dust, salt and can cause  the parts inside the lock to corrode. Some items you can just take the lock out and clean the parts with steel wool. However, don’t put oil in the lock as the this will attract more dirt. Always use a dedicated lock lubricant

For the best in lock quality and long-term performance choose the Taft YL88 Keyless Lock.

Now that you’ve got the toilet base installed, you’re in the home stretch.  You’ll find this part to be a real breeze, even for the most novice handiperson.

Your base should look something like this:

You see those holes?  Well, now all you’ve got to do is lift the tank and fit it into the holes.  All toilets are different, so make sure to read your instructions on fitting any necessary padding (provided in your kit, of course), et cetera., before you start bolting things down.  Also, make sure you have a bubble level handy - it’s VERY important to keep your tank as close to level as possible!

With the toilet tank seated on top of the bowl, you can now attach the supply line and turn on the water:

Great Caesar’s ghost - you’re about 90% finished!

If you’re anything like me, you want to see your tank fill up - I even snapped a picture:

So obviously, you’ll need to put the tank cover on, but go ahead and give it a test flush — it’s always nice to see your hard work in action! With everything installed properly, it’s now time to bolt the seat to the tank.  Again, this is *very* straightforward, but reference your toilet seat instructions, just in case there are any pitfalls or odd directions.

Your mileage may vary, but the toilet will look a little something like this:

So now that you’ve removed the old toilet, you’re ready to prep the area for the new commode.  The biggest potential problem you’re faced with is the mess the old wax ring left behind when you lifted up the old toilet.  This isn’t a problem — just grab a putty knife or five-in-one tool and get to work!  Make sure to scrape the area clean so the new wax ring seats properly on the new toilet.

Yes, that’s our waste stack. And yes, it’s very old. And rusty. But it’s clean!

I know I’ve been saying this the whole time, but you’re really close to wrapping this procedure up - you’ll just have to trust me!

With your toilet’s waste stack clean as a whistle, it’s time to turn the new toilet bowl upside-down on a towel or bathmat (so you don’t scrape/scratch/ding the porcelain) and seat the new wax ring.  Push firmly - but not too firmly - and you’re set.  Now head back over to the waste stack and make sure your bolts are still standing tall.  If not, your toilet kit should have come with new bolts, so install ‘em.

Fitting the wax ring

You’re now ready to lift the bowl back to an upright position (but careful not to get the wax seal all over the floor!) and set it down gently over the bolts and waste stack.  Since you’re now positioned over the waste stack, you can start tightening the nuts and bolt the toilet to the floor.

So you’ve made the decision to install a new toilet. Great!  But there’s one problem - you need to remove your existing toilet first.  Don’t fret - it’s actually very easy and should only take you about 15 - 20 minutes, tops.

The first step in removing your old toilet is to shut off the water supply to the tank, then flush to empty the tank.  There are some tricks to help you get the remaining water out of the tank, and odds are you have one in your kitchen - a sponge suddenly becomes a multi-purupose utility!

After you’ve sponged out the remaining water, you’re almost there.

The next step is to remove the wing nuts that attach the toilet tank to the bowl.  That was easy, right?  Now remove the supply line from the wall to the toilet tank and you’re ready to remove the bowl from the tank.

Again, congratulations - you’re oh-so-close to having your old toilet removed.

Finally, pop the caps at the base of the toilet to expose the nuts and unscrew ‘em.  If your toilet is caulked to the floor, use a utility knife to cut the caulk for some super-easy removal.  You can now safely remove the toilet from the floor and either repurpose it, or make life hell for your garbage collector.

First, a little housekeeping - I apologize for not being very active on the blog this month. There are some really cool things happening with my family (that I’m not really at liberty to divulge at the moment for fear of spousal backlash) that’s kept me away from the computer and not very active in things that I enjoy doing on a semi-regular basis.  I’m also wrapping up a second degree program and have been bogged down writing papers and doing a massive research project.

Excuses are a-plenty, but I do apologize.

One project that my wife and I recently embarked on that had “oh, yeah - this is totally blogable” written all over it was our upstairs bathroom toilet replacement.  The previous owners of the house had installed a somewhat horrible, small, round bowl-shaped toilet that used an awful lot of water per flush and just wasn’t very good looking.  We got the gumption when walking through our local hardware store to check out toilets and made an impulse buy.  Like it or not, we were installing a new toilet.

This series will walk you through how to remove your old toilet and install a new one.  Believe it or not, it’s not that difficult.  In fact, the hardest part is lugging the stupidly-heavy toilet from the store to your house.

In our last post, we talked about how to connect the spray nozzle to the faucet.  Now comes the fun part - attaching the faucet to the supply lines underneath your sink.

As always, the standard disclaimer applies - your mileage may vary. Our house was built in 1952, our kitchen was updated in 1970(ish)… so we’ve got solid plastic supply lines. You, on the other hand, may have something a bit more pliable, which would lend to easier connecting.  Since we’re going to “refresh” our kitchen in the summer, we opted to leave the plastic supply lines for now until we install our dishwasher and reconfigure our sink and cabinet situation.  (You can bet that there will be quite a lengthy series of posts about our kitchen remodel.)

Meanwhile, the faucet! Let’s get that dude installed!

First, double check that your surface is clean. You’ll want to make sure that there isn’t any standing water, bacteria, mold, mildew, dirt or grime hanging around. While it won’t actually make its way into your water supply, you obviously don’t want to take any chances with encouraging contamination.

Next, take your faucet and set it in the three remaining holes in your sink.

Okay, this is the fun part - get under your sink and tighten the nuts to hold the faucet in place. Just like when we removed the old faucet, if you have a decent basin wrench, things could go a lot quicker.  Now run the supply lines to the bottom of the faucet handles and secure tightly.

You’re done.  Almost.

Turn the water to the supply lines back on slowly and test the faucet by turning on the cold water only and monitor for leaks underneath the sink.  Let the water flow for a good minute and use a flashlight - if you see any drips, turn off the water and check the connection between the cold water supply line and the bottom of the faucet handle. Wipe the drips away and run the test again.  If there are no more drips or leaks, repeat this process with the hot water.

Congratulations - you just installed a new faucet!

This is the sixth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

With the surface area clean, now the fun begins - let’s get that brand-new faucet installed!

Before we go any further, make sure to double check those instructions.  Remember, while all faucets function the same (i.e., dispense water, have on/off handles, et cetera), not all faucets are installed the same way.  Again, the standard disclaimer applies: your mileage may vary!

Ok, with all of the reading, re-reading and checking of instructions out of the way, go grab that faucet and the spray nozzle.  You’ll want to install the spray nozzle first, so take the housing and attach it to the sink according to your instructions.  You’ll then want to feed the hose through the housing and run it up between the supply lines, through where the spigot will reside:

Now you can start attaching the hose from the spray nozzle to the bottom of your faucet, like this:

If you can’t get the connection tight enough with your bare hands, I recommend using a wrench to make sure you have a water-tight connection.  If you’re really paranoid, you can break out some teflon tape, but odds are, you won’t need it.

Cool! With that connected, it’s now time to go into the cabinet and secure the faucet to the underside of the sink and connect the supply lines.  We’re almost finished!

This is the fifth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

Now that we have the old faucet removed, it’s time to prepare the surface for the installation of the new faucet.  I used a putty knife to scrape the dirt, debris and caulk off the sink surface, then cleaned it with mild soapy water.

With our surface squeaky clean, it’s time to begin the other prep work.

Take your new faucet out of the box and read those instructions - because not all faucets are equal, you may have manufacturer’s recommendations to account for.  With our Peerless faucet, we found the directions to be really amusing (no, really - the directions were hilarious!).

Congratulations - the easy part is now out of the way. Time to move on to something a bit more, uh, “hands-on.”

This is the fourth post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

One of the most difficult steps in the install of the new faucet was loosening the supply lines that feed the water to the faucet.  Not because it’s a hard concept - in fact, it’s very easy (unless you don’t know about righty-tighty/lefty-loosey). It’s the most difficult because you put your hands in a very odd angle and have to loosen things that Thor himself tightened.

Your mileage may vary, but I had a really difficult time getting these dudes loosened.

We have a top-mount faucet, so we had to loosen the nuts from underneath the sink.  This whole process could have been made a lot easier if I had a basin wrench, but alas, I did not. Here’s what the bottom of the sink looked like from my perspective on my back:

Like I said, your mileage may vary, but I had a tough time getting everything loose (and subsequently an even harder time getting everything tightened again).

Once you have the supply lines removed, you’re free to remove the faucet from the top of the sink.  It should now look like this (from the bottom):

We’re now ready to proceed to the next step, preparing the surface area of your sink for the installation.

This is the third post in a series about installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.

First things first, if we want to get a new faucet installed, we’ve got to remove the old faucet.  This is a very simple, but at times frustrating task if you have deep cabinet.  Well, let me rephrase that. It can be a frustrating task if the person who installed the last faucet had kung-fu grip and felt that it was important to over tighten connections.  If that’s the case, I feel for you. I had to live that nightmare for this particular project.

It does help, though, knowing that you can go from this:

To this:

So, all that said, the first thing you’ve gotta do is clean out everything from underneath the sink. If you have animals (like we do), it may not be a bad idea to put them in a room so they can’t access the kitchen and sniff around all of those cleaning chemicals and whatnot.  Best case scenario, you don’t have any pets and you keep the area under your sink squeaky clean. Most likely scenario, you’ve got eight bottles of 409 with varying amounts left, two bottles of window cleaner and a whole galaxy of other cleaning products.

Pat yourself on the back. You’ve just finished the easiest step!

Now it’s time for the most crucial step: shutting off the water. You’ll want to make sure you have the faucet running both hot and cold when you shut it off to clear the lines of any and all water so you aren’t greeted with a wet surprise once you start loosening connections.

You should have access to the shutoff towards the bottom of your cabinet.  They’ll look like this:

Once the water is shut off, you need to begin loosening the water supply lines from the old faucet. This is covered in detail in the next post in this series.

This is the second post in a series about Installing a new faucet. If you happened upon this post through a search engine and would like to read from the beginning, please click here.