DIY Life

Looks like it's time to bid farewell to another hot, humid summer and welcome a cooler season. But before you say goodbye, give your air conditioner a good cleaning to thank it for its hard work these past few months. AOL's Mr. Fix-It Eric Stromer shows us how...




An important thing to remember:
Call a technician if you have a defective condenser or any problems with the refrigeration system -- this is a closed system that you should not attempt to repair without the aid of a licensed provider.

And of course, the cleaner your air conditioner, the less maintenance you'll have in the long haul. As with all appliances, keep your unit clean, tidy and up to date on all repairs and/or maintenance checks. You'll be glad you did when next summer's heat wave hits!

Speaking of air conditioner's, consider a fun (and green!) way to garden with the last few days of air conditioner use you've got...

The box air-conditioning unit is a necessary evil for many apartment dwellers. (Those of you about to head off to college, take note!) These things come with a few big cons: they are noisy, they are unsightly, they block the view out of your window, and they are a pain in the neck to install and uninstall.

At least the unsightliness factor is something you can fix! Here are a few suggestions for hiding your air conditioning unit from New York Magazine:

• Decorate it with something pretty like wallpaper scraps.
• Build a decorative cabinet around it, but be careful not to block air flow.
• Disguise it from view with a sheer curtain.
• Hide it with a screen.
• Cover it with artwork and frame it.

[via Apartment Therapy]

Join me each week as I explore the naturally aromatic side of DIY. Helpful recipes for your "scentual" pleasure: from essential oils, herbs, and other botanicals to soap-making, body care products and other useful blends.

The mint in my yard is running wild just about now, begging to be plucked and used. That sure is handy, since it's hot outside! I could really use some cooling fresh mint in my beverages, to combat this sweltering heat.

I'm sure you must also have some peppermint essential oil around the house, right? You've got to have some left over, after making your chocolate mint lip balm and ant repellent, so pull it out and add some cool to your summer drinks.

After the break, I'll share recipes for simple syrup with mint, which can be used for a number of summery delights, and other refreshing minty recipes to keep your beverages interesting -- as well as hydrating.

Aaahh. The cool breeze of the ceiling fan is absolute heaven here in Tallahassee, Florida, where the summers are swelteringly hot and humid. In fact, this fair town -- Florida's capital -- was just voted 3rd sweatiest city in the country. A dubious distinction if ever there was one....

Anyway, when it's this hot, ceiling fans really help cool you down. Plus they help save you money: the more you rely on your fans, the less electrical juice you'll need running the a/c. Anyway, to get the best from your fans, make sure they are set to rotate counter-clockwise in summer.

Most ceiling fan-light fixture combos can be easily adjusted by flicking a small switch on the electrical housing somewhere on the unit. For example, the switch on one of my ceiling fans is clearly visible in the above photo.

Want more ceiling fan advice? Check out Dan's post on how to silence a noisy fan. For tons of helpful info on choosing and installing ceiling fans, click over to Kelly's post, 'Install a ceiling fan now!' or this one from Bill: 'Ceiling fans: how cool are they?'

[via Lifehacker.]

Join me each week as I explore the naturally aromatic side of DIY. Helpful recipes for your "scentual" pleasure: from essential oils, herbs, and other botanicals, to soap-making, body care products, and other useful blends.

Making your own bath and body products is good fun on so many levels. Not only do you get to concoct what you like using all-natural ingredients, but you can customize your products for the season.

Here we are, about to embark on the three-month stretch that we call summer. My three favorite products to make for the sweltering days: powder, body spritz, and skin soother (for after sun exposure). After the break, I'll share recipes and scent blends.

You've got a few friends over on a Friday night. There's good stuff grilling on the barbeque, there's a table full of salads and desserts, there's cold beer in the ... Oh, no!

You forgot to put the beer in the fridge. It's sitting on the porch where you set it down to unlock the door. And it's about 87 degrees out there. You can stick them straight in the freezer, but it'll still be half an hour at least before anyone has a cold brew in their hot little hand. Don't you just wish there was a cooling-down version of the speedy heating-up efficiency of a microwave?

There is! The not-so-dumb folks over at Dumb Little Man have the answer. If you have a container large enough to hold a few bottles, enough ice to cover them, some table salt, and enough room in your fridge for it all, you can have icy-cold beer in about three minutes! Follow the Dumb Little Man link for full details.

For those who need to know, the reason is this: salt speeds up the melting. When a substance goes from solid to liquid, it absorbs extra heat, keeping the water extra cold. So there. Your grade ten physics teacher was right: the subject is relevant to your day-to-day life!

[via Matthew Yglesias]

As you fire up your central air conditioner, is the temperature really what it says? If it's not, you could be spending extra bucks on your electricity bills. The good news is that you can take care of it yourself without calling a service person. And if you know it's not right, follow these steps before buying a new one:

1. Turn off the power to the heater and A/C.
2. Remove the cover.
3. Obviously, change any batteries.
4. Clean the bimetal coil with a soft, clean brush. On a round thermostat, you might have to turn the dial for complete access.
5. Remove the body from the base on a round model. There are usually screws involved.
6. Clean the switch contacts with a piece of bond paper.
7. Replace the body on a round model.
8. Adjust the anticipator. Start by finding and noting the amp setting; it may be in your manual, on the furnace service panel or on the boiler's transformer. Look at the anticipator setting on the scale. If it's off, adjust it with your fingernail; or you nail-biters (you know who you are), use the point on a pen.
   NOTE: On an air heating distribution system set it to the amp setting. On a water heating distribution system set it to (amp setting X 1.4). I have no idea why.
9. Replace the cover.
   

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Goodman Manufacturing Co L.P., has announced a voluntary recall of about 1,000 Package gas-electric heating and cooling units. The serial plates on the units contain inaccurate information which could result in consumers using undersized installation wiring, posing a fire hazard.

The recalled single package gas-electric heating and cooling units were manufactured in the United States and sold by heating and cooling equipment dealers nationwide from December 2007 through February 2008. Please check the CPSC press release for model and serial numbers involved in the recall.

Goodman is directly contacting consumers who have purchased the units to arrange free replacement of the serial plates and a free inspection of the installation wiring. Consumers may contact Goodman at (800) 394-8084 or visit their website at www.goodmanmfg.com.

In my ongoing mission to conserve energy (and thereby lower my electricity bill), I'm always looking for ways to tweak my energy efficiency. Some of these cost money initially, but my favorites are the ones that are almost free. Check this one out.

My garage/wood shop is of the attached-to-the-house variety as I described in the recent walk-in-pantry article. Because of the way the house is located, the exterior brick wall gets a lot of afternoon sun, which is quite fierce in the summer. The bricks absorb the heat and relay it into the garage. And of course, it used to make the AC work very hard to cool the kitchen area.

My solution? I attached some lattice to the brick and planted some English ivy in a 10" terracotta pot at the base of it. It really likes the lattice and had not issues with climbing up it. It's also starting to spread to the non-lattice area by setting its creepers into the mortar. I did this about three years ago; it's not an instant fix. But once it takes off, it acts as a natural insulator and really looks great!

Stumped by a difficult DIY task or a fix-it job gone wrong? Here's a possibility to consider: How to Mend it.com. This Brit site lets readers submit questions for other readers to answer. It's a lot like super-popular Yahoo Answers, but it's devoted entirely to fix-it topics. Car repair, home maintenance, renovations, large and small appliance jobs, computers, plumbing, lawn mowers, film projectors, boats, heating and cooling systems, toys, roofing, car alarms, and even musical instruments. Yep. They're all covered here.

Lots of questions seem to go unanswered. However, many others get one or even several replies. Worth a shot if you're having a problem and don't want to pay big bucks for a repair service. To test the site's mettle, I searched washing machine repair. This brought up over 15,000 questions on the topic. Problem is, (assuming you're searching for answers) you're going to have to hope that plugging in a more specific search term will take you to the questions best-suited to your situation. Obviously, you are not going to want to scroll through all those questions page by page.

Bottom line: if there's one fix-it this site could use, it's a more sophisticated search function. But give it a whirl anyway. It's free advice, people!

My husband has bins of random old computer parts, and I've begged him repeatedly to get rid of them. He has always said that you can never be sure when you might need one of those parts. I'm sure he's got useless stuff in there, though, like maybe a broken CD drive. Who needs that kind of junk? Well, apparently a broken CD drive isn't necessarily junk after all.

This instructables tutorial teaches us how to make a USB cooling fan for a notebook with a old CD drive. If you've got a bin like ours, you probably already have everything you need for this project.

We use our smallest room as an office. My husband and I each have a computer and so do each of our boys. This little space quickly becomes the hottest room in our house and is almost unbearable to be in. To top it all off, our clothes dryer is right outside the door, so the heat from that probably adds to the problem. I think you get the picture, but this is a very hot room. While there isn't a whole lot that can be done, there are a few good tips on keeping computers from putting out too much heat. Overclock.net answers this common question How can I cool my room down from my computer heat? This short article talks about lowering the amount of heat certain parts generate by lowering their voltage or frequency, which although technically possible is probably pretty extreme for most people.

In a room like ours, it helps to make sure that any computer that isn't in use is powered down, by setting the power management settings appropriately. It helps, a bit..

I would rather work on a laptop under a shaded tree in some quiet park, but for now, this is my workspace and it sure needs cooling down. If your office heat is getting to you, try some of these tips, but don't forget the obvious; leave the door open, and add window and desk fans, they go a long way too.

Some tips for keeping your energy costs lower this summer, provided by EnergyStar.

According to the U.S.Department of Energy, there is a checklist of items which you can look at around your house to determine if you are doing your fair share to support your home in its energy conservation program. You see, your house wants to save energy. If you could ask, it would tell you so.

Houses which have higher efficiency rankings also have fewer problems related to mold, mildew, rot and decay. An energy efficient house is not as prone to moisture damage caused by condensation as a poorly insulated house is. When thinking about water damage to homes, flooding is the first major cause, leakage from above is second and condensation due to poor insulation runs a close third.

Not everyone thinks about this, but your computer gets dirty just like the rest of your house. Like most machines will tell you, a clean computer is a happy computer. That doesn't mean you can just wipe off the outer case of your PC and clean the screen on your monitor. Those tasks are fine to do but if you want to keep a computer happy, you'll need to go a little deeper inside. The cooling capacity of your computer is crucial to its health and performance. Additionally, a build up of dust within the sensitive components of your computer can actually leech performance every millisecond your system is operating.

You may want to start the project by taking a few digital pictures of your system from all sides. You may be detaching numerous cables and it's nice to have a diagram when it comes to putting things back together.Taking pictures of your system is a good idea anyway, in case of unforeseen mishaps leading to insurance claims. Take your pictures, print them out and then prepare to clean that computer using the following outline.