Home improvement questions

[edmicman]

Sigh....after recently buying a house I've got some "fix-it" questions that I thought I'd throw up here. Is there any recommended online resources/forums/pages to learn how to do things that fall under the general "do it yourself" stuff for houses? I mean, searching Google for "do it yourself forums" or "handyman forums" turns up a billion results. Is there a "go to" place for this stuff? Lowe's CS has been less than stellar. Anyway, I'll throw it to the mercy of ATOT:

First, we have a shower that is tiled, regular bathroom ceramic tile. We want to replace the janky door that's on it with a rod; in the process of taking the door off, we broke a couple tiles. So we need to replace a couple tiles - they are actually two half-tiles, so we essentially need one cut in two. All of the tiles at Lowes are muck thicker than the ones we need to replace, such that putting a new one on would have it sticking out noticeably. The people at Lowes didn't seem to know anything. Are there different thicknesses to tile? Where do I even begin?

Second, we have a different shower with a showerhead that is abnormally short. I'm 5'6" and have to partially duck down to use it(!!). It's just a plain showerhead right now - what options do I have to try and raise it? Do they have extensions or something? It's going into the wall near the top of the plastic tub/shower thing that makes up the shower...going back into the pipe in the wall I think would mean tearing out the whole thing, and that's not an option right now. Do they make any sort of "Z" shaped extension things or something? Is there some other way to make it taller?

Happy Monday!

 

[CatKillaZ]

Home Depot/Lowes have free classes on weekends for all types of stuff. Might be worth looking into

 

[PingSpike]

doityourself.com

 

[JackRipper]

About the tiles:

Tiles may vary in thickness, depending on how old ur house is. If ur lucky, most of the time you could look at other places (besides lowes and hdepot), discount tile places that may have the tiles u are looking for.

About the showerhead extension... it may be risky but not that risky. Remove ur showerhead. Use a strong grip (preferably the robogrip clamp plier) and turn the pipe that is sticking out. Those pipes are replaceable and get the one with the length that u need. The risky part is depending on how old ur house is, u might snap the pipe off near the thread when trying to turn. The rule is if ur using an extreme amount of force, i don't recommend fuxing with it because most likely it would snap. The alternate and easiest way is to replace the showerhead w/ something like this:

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/heads.html

neway good luck...

JR

 

[edmicman]

Thanks for the notes! I'll be checking out that other board, too....

 

[dullard]

1) Anandtech loves to answer these questions. I'm sure there are lots of other online resources too.

2) As for helpful answers: Local hardware store >>> Ace = Home Depot > Lowes >>> Menards. Try one of the better places to ask questions.

3) I don't see why you'd want to get rid of a shower door and replace it with an impossible to clean/breezy/gets in your way curtain. But I guess some people like them. Anyways, yes, tiles come in all kinds of thicknesses. Find the same tile that your shower was made from, and you'll be set. That may be difficult to do. There are local shops that can probably order anything even tiles they don't carry.

4) Yes, there are extentions. But I think the easiest solution would be an adustable shower head. I have something almost exactly like this. Works quite well.

 

[dullard]

I guess JackRipper and I did the same Google search 2 minutes apart.

 

[edmicman]

Thanks! Re: the curtain/door....the existing door is like a folding/accordion style thing that leaves a gap at the bottom. They've had them on both showers, the one leaks, and the one with the broken tiles was just falling apart :-/.