Songerisms­

  The first cold morning hit, the furnace kicked on, and the whole house smelled like burning dust for a day. That's not the furnace dying. That's a summer's worth of dust cooking off — and a filter that's been sitting there since spring doing nothing useful. The job: find the filter slot (usually right where the duct meets the furnace, or behind the big return vent), slide the old one out, slide the new one in. Mine came out grey and felt-like, which is what a filter looks like when it's stopped filtering and started blocking. Five minutes, start to finish, and most of that was finding a flashlight. The arrow matters: every filter has an airflow arrow printed on the frame. Arrow points toward the furnace. Put it in backwards and it doesn't work right and can shed fibers into the system. That's the whole trick, honestly. Buy the right size: the size is printed on the edge of the old filter's frame — 16x25x1, whatever yours is. Take a picture of ...

  First cold snap of the year is when mice start shopping for a warm house, and apparently mine had good reviews. I found droppings along the garage wall and decided I'd rather spend one afternoon sealing the place up than spend all winter setting traps. The thing nobody tells you: a mouse can squeeze through a hole about the size of a dime. A quarter inch. If you can poke a pencil through a gap, a mouse can probably get through it. That's why traps alone never fix the problem — you're catching them one at a time while the door is still wide open. The walk: I went around the outside of the house with a flashlight and actually looked. The gaps are always in the same places: where pipes, wires, and the AC line come through the wall, the bottom corners of the garage door, cracks along the foundation, the dryer vent, and the gap under the back door threshold. I found six spots in twenty minutes. Six open doors. The fix: stuff every gap tight with copper mesh . Copper w...

  Building a go-cart with an old weed eater motor can be a fun and rewarding DIY project. It's a great way to reuse an old motor and create something new and functional. Here's a step-by-step guide for building a go-cart using pine wood and an old weed eater motor. Gather materials: In addition to the weed eater motor, you will need a few other materials to build your go-cart. These include pine wood for the frame, screws and nails for attaching the wood, a chain to connect the motor to the wheels, and wheels and axles. You may also need other tools such as a saw, drill, and hammer. Cut the wood: Begin by cutting the pine wood into the pieces you will need for the frame. You will need two long pieces for the sides of the frame, two shorter pieces for the front and back, and four smaller pieces for the crossbars. Assemble the frame: Next, use screws or nails to attach the wood pieces together to form the frame of the...