Section

Around the house

Taps that drip, doors that bind and the small faults a house produces on its own schedule. Ordinary tools, one evening at a time, and a diagnosis before anything comes apart.

Section opened 10/07/2026 Latest entry 31/07/2026

An adjustable spanner, a screwdriver, a torch and a roll of PTFE tape lying on a carpeted stair tread beside an open toolbox, evening light from a landing window, close view. — The four things that fix most household faults, carried up the stairs together rather than fetched one at a time.

The entries in this section share one habit: find out what has actually failed before anything is dismantled. A tap that drips has one worn part among five, and a door that catches is usually held by a hinge screw rather than being too big. Both diagnoses take a couple of minutes and both are described in full, because the repair itself is generally the easy half. The door entry spends longer on a strip of paper than on the plane.

Nothing here needs a trade tool or a second person. What it does need is stopping the supply in the right place, working on one thing at a time, and replacing the part that has worn rather than the assembly around it. Where a fixing has to go back into a wall afterwards, the plug and screw choices are in the fasteners section; where an edge tool is used on paint or on a door edge, it will be blunt within a few strokes and wants ten minutes on the stones first.

Entries in this section

A dismantled chrome kitchen tap on a folded towel beside the sink, the brass headgear and a small rubber washer laid out in a row, cool daylight from the window above, close view.

Around the house 31/07/2026

A dripping tap, washer by washer

Telling a washer tap from a ceramic cartridge in five seconds, isolating the supply at the valve under the sink, getting the headgear nut out without rounding it, and sizing the new washer so the tap seals under two fingers.

A painted interior door held open with a wedge while a hand runs a strip of paper along the gap at the hinge side, hallway daylight, close view of the door edge.

Around the house 10/07/2026

A door that binds in August and swings in February

The paper strip test at fifteen points round the door, what each pattern of tight spots means, the 45 mm hinge screw that fixes a dropped door in ten minutes, and the one case where planing is justified.

Half the household jobs in this section end with something being screwed back to a wall or a frame.

Fasteners and hardware section