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Handyman Training and the Impact it Has

...or how does handyman training change a person

Handyman training does change a person. How you may ask? Well, primarily by changing one's perspective on problems. Ordinary people see problems as problems, handymen see problems as potential profit. Fixing problems is how we earn a living. Sure you say, solving home repair problems, maybe, but what about real problems? Real problems? You mean like flooded basements, or living in the dark because your power doesn't work, or sweltering in a mobile home that reaches 130 degrees inside during a typical August day in Arizona problems? Or are we talking about problems like which shade of mint goes best with my eye color problems? Actually, given a Sherwin Williams fan deck and a little patience, the typical handyman could solve that problem for you too.

Handyman training lets you see the whole problem in terms of how to solve it, rather than how it interferes. This change in perspective can carry over into almost every aspect of your life. If you see your Master's degree dissertation as a problem rather than as a challenge to be beaten, how do you face it? Facing problems in terms of their solution rather than in terms of the obstacle they represent can be a hugely beneficial paradigm shift.

In addition to changing your everyday perspective on the bulk of problems you face, handyman training can also save you a ton of money even if you still hire a contractor to do all the work. Knowing what's involved in a repair or construction project can greatly affect how a contractor treats you, and charges you. Being self sufficient also gives you greater latitude in solving the problem yourself partially or in its entirety.

Handyman training also breeds greater self confidence, because it helps to eliminate the unknown, the mysterious "how do you fix that" that many homeowners face every day. It is precisely that "Huh" factor that handyman training can eliminate from your life by giving you practical know-how and a new perspective on problems, which in addition to saving you money, can also save you embarrassment when the handyman you hire flips a switch and charges you $80 for doing it.

Here's to your independence,

Noah

How to Replace an Exterior Mobile Home Door

How to Replace an Exterior Mobile Home Door With Damaged Subfloor.

Before you begin the project, be sure you have a replacement door, prehung, the correct size for your mobile home...you will need to know: Wall frame thickness, ie: 2x4, 2x6, or old style 2x3. In some cases the original door was actually a standard door, but up until about 5 years ago mobile home doors were much shorter than normal doors because exterior wall height was lower.

Once you have the new prehung door on hand, look for the screws that hold the old door in: sometimes they are located behind the weather stripping where the door meets the frame, you also may have to remove the thirty or so screws from the exterior frame, usually concealed behind a plastic moulding.

Now that all the screws are removed, you can push the door out to the exterior side. Now you can remove the putty from the outside of the building where the metal frame was screwed in.

The sub floor is normally 5/8 particle board. You will have to locate the floor joists under the floor by finding the nail lines, then cut out the old subfloor in nice square lines. I have found it best to cut next to the joists, then tag in a piece of 2x6 on the old joists to hold up the replacement piece. This method is faster than trying to cut the old floor down the center of joists where the nails are.

Once your floor is repaired, you can install the new door. First you have to determine if the floor under the door is level, and the hinge side jamb is plumb. if so, you're lucky. Otherwise you are going to need a small mountain of door shims from the local hardware store.

Set the door in place and check to see that the space between the door and the frame, as viewed from inside, is equal top to bottom. This spacing is called the margin. When the margin is equal from top to bottom the door is square. You can shim the door square as needed, then apply a bead of clear silicone between the outside metal and the wall, in order to seal the door frame from further water leaking, then set the screws through the jamb behind the weather stripping. Do the hinge side first, then recheck your square.

Once you have installed all the screws, you can further seal the door by caulking around the bottom inside and out. Reattach the interior trim, caulk the interior with latex caulk, make sure there is no silicone on the exterior that will be visible or interfere with your touch up paint, and you're done...except for the painting of course = )

Noah

For text and video training guides on a variety of handyman skills for the homeowner or the handyman in training, pop over to http://www.thefixitteacher.com/residentialproducts.html

The Handyman and Renewable Energy

Okay, so you have gained some handyman skills and want to use them to make some money, right? So what is a great way to do that, and provide a service no one is doing at a reasonable price? Enter the renewable energy phenomenon.

Renewable energy as it stands today consists of solar and wind generation technologies. Solar and wind contractors are making a killing, even in the current economic slow down, perhaps even because of it. Commercially available solar panels and wind generators are down right pricey, not to mention the charge controllers, inverters and battery systems necessary to make a workable system.

So how can the average handyman take advantage of the renewable energy trend and save their customers money at the same time? Well, thanks to readily available plans and instructions, we the handy people, can make solar panels and wind generators, couple them with reasonably priced charge controllers and even reconditioned batteries to provide our customers with viable and reliable renewable energy systems. Usually at less than half the cost of commercially available systems.

In addition we can also install these systems at less than half the cost of solar energycontractors' labor rates, and we still make out great.

If the potential of building and installing solar and wind energy systems appeals to you, the best instruction manuals will be of utmost value. Since I have actually purchased and checked out four of these sets of instructions,I can make some informed recommendations. Earth for Energy has excellent instructions and killer videos for making solar panels and goes into some decent detail on charge controllers and inverters, where to get good units at below market prices and such.

The Poor Man’s Guide to Windmills and Battery Systems is far more complete on windmills however, and provides a far better treatment of the battery issue, including teaching you how to recondition batteries yourself, and even get batteries for free. As an added bonus, you get a detailed illustration of how to use batteries to build a mobile welding system which I have found quite useful for welding gates and such on the rural ranches where my business is located.

While the two books both say that its possible to build either a solar panel or a wind mill for about $200, in my area its closer to $300 a piece. Add another $300 for installation and you can come in way lower than commercial solar contractors.

I have a great little side line just building a renewable energy system to run wells in my area. After the time it takes to make the system components, and my initial investment in parts and so on, I now have the hourly earnings to roughly $60/hour and can come in at about 30% of the cost of the local solar companies!

Ask around in your service area to see if you can effectively sell the systems, and if so, I would highly recommend purchasing both Earth for Energy and The Poor Man’s Guide to Windmills and Battery Systems. Build one of each and put them in service on your own home or well so you can get a good idea of the energy cost savings you can create for your customers and so you can show them that you're using your own systems on your own home.

With a little practice you can easily build a panel and a windmill generator in a weekend, and install them in about half a day. So, do your local research, buy the e-books, read them, build the systems, and make some good money while you're at it.

Here's to your independence,

Noah

ps
For information on similar skills you can use to make a good side income, be sure to check out The Fixit Teacher website.

Learn to be a Handyman

Learning to be a handyman can be a really long road, or one of just a few weeks, depending on how you train. The old school way of becoming a true handyman was through many years of on the job training in various trades and some trade school or continuing education training, coupled with a desire to learn more and doing it. Today there are alternative methods to learning to be a handyman.

In today's minute-to- minute society, we can learn things in days that used to take months, including how to be a handyman. Through online courses we can now learn the four basic areas of handyman skills within a few days. We will have video to show us how stuff works, and point out the most common problems, coupled with text or audio to fill in the gaps.

By choosing the right online program, we can advance ourselves to competency fairly quickly, at least to the point where we can start to address the problems in our home with confidence, which will lead to the confidence to take it to the next level and begin helping others for a profit.

If you learn to be a handyman, you will be entering a field with no saturation limit. As long as people own homes, they will need people to repair them. Handymen are usually very capable of those jobs and at much lower cost than regular contractors who have huge overhead expenses and such. Think about it: at $25 an hour a handyman is less than half the cost of a plumber or electrician. And in a one man operation that entire $25 goes to the person doing the work, not like the technician working for a contractor, who typically earns 20% of the labor charges.

Learning to be a handyman is one of the most rewarding real world ways to become self employed. You get to help people solve their problems all day, and make decent money for it.

For more about becoming a handyman, check out The Fixit Teacher website.