NEW CASTLE —
There are a lot of men out there who are gifted in home repair.
I'm not one of them.
I can change light bulbs, but anything past that, I call a service technician.
Changing a vent hose on a dryer looked like a pretty simple repair that I could do in five minutes.
My loving and supporting wife said, "Knowing you, you'll have complications."
I'm not sure how she knew that, but she was right.
Here is my story.
We had a hole in our dryer vent hose.
I went to a very large home repair store, plopped down $10, and purchased a brand new, shiny aluminum flexible hose.
I always like the word flexible on stuff that I buy.
When I got home, I got out about six screwdrivers and a folding chair, and sat down to remove the old tube.
I selected the perfect screwdriver, and with no trouble at all, I loosened the two screws and removed the old hose.
Guys, as a side note, I noticed that wives don't dust inside dryer vent hoses.
The next time you see her dusting, you might want to remind her about it.
The new vent tube had to be pulled apart. Again, no trouble.
During the next step, complications began to set in.
The stupid hose didn't fit on the 90-degree outside vent pipe.
I got out the vise grips and gently bent the pipe in at the edges.
That didn't help one bit.
After one hour, and damaging the new vent hose beyond recognition, I gave up.
I took the 90-degree vent pipe and went to our local appliance dealer.
Some young kid took it, got a new vent tube, and within one minute had it on.
They charged me $5 for the new pipe.
I was ecstatic.
I asked the secretary to give him a little kiss for me, but she refused.
For some reason, the local appliance store hose fit, and the one at the large home store didn't.
Maybe some repair genius might know why, but I sure don't.
There goes my branching out into the home repair arena.
It's back to light bulb changing for me.
Gary Church
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About Gary Church: Gary is a columnist and contributing writer for The News. He’ll share his thoughts on this blog each Tuesday and Friday.
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The vent tube I mangled. Yep, I mangled it.
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The vent tube I bought and had put on at a local appliance store.
Discussion
Gary Church: During failed home repair, a light bulb went off — I’d been hosed
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