Replacing Food Disposer Garbage Disposer

As a home owner, after a few years, you may find that the food disposer in your kitchen sink stop working.

There are many reason that a food disposer can fail to work. The most common reason I noticed over the years was the corrosion inside the food disposer cause the water to leak to the motor and or electronic compartment below.

Replacing a food disposer is a simple DIY projects that I feel anyone can do within a few hours to save money.

The first step is to remove the old disposer.
For safety reason, unplugged the disposer from the wall outlet under the sink.

Remove the drain hose from the washer from the dishwasher to the disposer.

 Next remove the 2 nut from the disposer to the drain pipe.

Loosen the pipe connection and wiggle the pipe from the disposer.

Next, use the wrench that come with the new disposer or the old one to open the disposer.
Turn counter clock wise (if you look up from below) will normally unlock the disposer.
Note: you may want to have small block below or make sure you hold the bottom of the disposer to avoid dropping it.

Now take a look at the new disposer.

 On the side, it will be the hole for dishwasher drain connection. You don't have to do this step if you don't have a dishwasher.
If you do, use a screwdriver or in my case, I use the ratchet to pop the nut out.
(Refer to your new disposer instruction for more information)

This is the nut that got removed from the step above. I just throw it away.

Now turn over the old disposer.
I reuse the power cord from the old disposer.

 Open the cover, there're connector nut, just remove it so I can have the power cord.

Now onto the new disposer.
I just connect the power cord to the black and white cord, and green cord for ground to the new disposer. Don't worry about which wire to black which to white. Just making sure green is ground and connect to the nut below the new disposer.

From this step on, it just the reverse steps of removing the old disposer I did earlier.

Tighten the 2 screw that connect the disposer to the drainage pipe.

Tighten all the connectors.

As with all DIY project, please consult professional if you are not sure with any procedure.
I hope you enjoy this post and hope it will help you more confident replacing your disposer save some money.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Please comment below if you have any question.

Small shed

Storage spaces seem to be the problem that many homeowners are facing. There are many types of storage sheds that are manufactured. To save money, you can buy all these shed kits that you can put together yourself. However, they come with a size that requires you to have a big enough yard to put it in. As the lot for the new house getting smaller and smaller, homeowners like me find ourselves with small yard and adding a shed can mean no yard. Home improvement stores also sale these small plastic shed that too small to store my tools and to expensive if buying several so I decide to build one myself.

The shed size is about 8 ft x 3 ft x 6ft since I only have about 3 feet between the house and the fence.
Below is the picture of the finished shed that I built.

First step is to build a frame for the shed.
The picture below is for the front of the shed.

For the front, I cut 8 piece of 2x4 to a 6 ft length since I want the shed to be 6 ft in height. For the top and bottom front, use the 2 ft wood left over from the 6 ft cut.
For the back frame, I have them at 8 feet so I don't have to make any cut for them

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Since this shed will lay next to the fence to save space, I go ahead and attach the back using metal corrugated sheet laying side way



In my case, I want the shed to be above ground to prevent rotting so I pour 2 concrete column in the ground. You can do the same thing or just use the concrete deck blocks that are available on the home improvement store.
As in the picture, you see the base sit on the concrete base that I poured on the left bottom of the picture.
For the base, I used pressure treated lumber to prevent rot. As you see, I also add a strong tie to hold the base down.
And the next step is to attach the back frame on top, as in the picture.

Next I attached the front to finish the frame.

Next step is to add the siding. I use hardy plank for my shed so it match the back of my house.
This is the first time I cut Hardie plank, and I found it really easy to cut to length with just the utility knife. We just need to score it with the knife. To be sure it's a clean snap, I score both sides. After that I clamped it against the edge of a table and just break it.

Next, I secured the sidings to the frame that we previously built

For the door, I bought a 4 x 8 ft plywood, have the store cut them down to 6 ft length and another cut in the middle so I ended up with 2  2ft by 6 ft.
I add 3 strip of wood to re-enforce the door where the hinges will locate.
For the top, I also use the metal panel to finish off the shed.

After that, I paint the shed and add the 1.5 in x 1.5 in metal strip for the trim and the shed is finished.

I love this custom shed since it give me both sides for storing the tools that I have and in the middle, I can also store any taller item like the pressure washer in the picture.
This is my first time building a shed, and I choose material and size that save time and money so it may not look as nice as a pro do it but nothing beat the satisfaction of doing it myself. And if you wonder how much it cost, it cost less than the same price of buying a 2 x 4 feet plastic shed at the home improvement store. So I got more than double the storage space with less cost.
I hope this will give you idea on how simple it is to build your own shed.

As always, thanks for reading.

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Understairs storage nook

As living in a small house, storage seem to be the problem.
My house was built with a few shelf under the stair, however the space was not enough so I decided to cut it open and add more space to it.
This is a small project that you can do in the weekend. The most time consuming part is painting and let it dry. For this project, I painted all my wood/panel with white color prior to working on the project. This way, I can avoid inhaling the paint smell in the closed area. The whole project would cost less than a hundred dollar.

As you can see, this is the original closet under the stairs.
It only has a few shelves that are not enough storage spaces for my need.

Before open up the storage, I cut a small hole to check the space behind the wall to make sure that it is something that I can work with.
After I feel comfortable with what I see, I the hammer and removed the existing shelves.

Next step, I cut out the drywall to open up.
As you can see, now has a lot more space under the stair mid landing and under the stairs itself.















With the stud in the middle, I find it hard to access the space inside. After reviewing the structure, I find the middle stud is not structure support so I also removed it for easy access to the space.
After removing the stud, I also add extra support for the header just to be sure. I don't think this is necessary but for the piece of mind, I added them anyway.

Next up are just covering up the sides.
I used 1/2 cardboard to cover up the sides and top but it was a little hard to work with.
With cardboard, it is hard to cut, especially, the space underneath it not exact measurement, I found myself spending a lot of time trimming it to side. I'd recommend using drywall as it would be easier to cut and trim to fit the space.

After that is just put in the floor. For my case, there is a water supply/drainage underneath so I have to put down some 2x4 to raise the floor up and put a 3/4 on top to make the floor.
I calked the gap, add the trim and add the paint.
I also add a closet light.

This is the finished image.
It can be used as a hide out for my kids or to store their toys.
Happy DIYing.

As always, thanks for reading.

If you find my blog helpful, please click on the ads to support this blog.
See you in the next Weekend DIYer tip.