Living in a vacuum

I've been busy. Lots of stuff going on around the house. But things are getting done.
The stairway and hallway are done.
The grass has been cut.
The tires rotated.
Now the vacuum cleaner has been fixed.
Our trusty old vacuum cleaner is, I think about 15 years old.

But it's a good one. Everything still works great. The motor is as powerful as ever. Except that the body was cracked. A 30lb kid was jumping on it and pushed in the swivel wheel and we were losing suction. I taped it up with some tuck tape, and it was working fine for probably a year now. We didn't know if you could get parts still. When things are this old, usually the answer is 'no'.

But a visit to our friend Andy who can fix anything, pointed me in the right direction. It was a little tricky to disassemble, but I got it done and didn't break anything in the process. Not sure how much Sears parts and repair would charge for labour, but it took me about 2 hrs to get it all apart and back together. I cleaned the inside too before putting it all back together. And made sure it worked before snapping all the pieces in.

Lower wand $39.99
Lower body $62.99
Total w/tax $116.37
Satisfaction of not getting ripped off in service and saving something from going to landfill...Priceless.

A new vacuum equal or better to what we currently have, will run min. $500.00 plus tax.

DIY and FIY (Fix It Yourself) isn't about being cheap. Some things aren't worth fixing. But much of the new stuff today, doesn't last as long as the stuff from years past. And they are designed to be replaced by the new and improved model. It's business.

Big Corporations need you to buy new stuff so that their CEO's can get million dollar bonuses so they can buy a new Land Rover, or bigger yacht or that island in the the south pacific. They can't live in a 10,000 sqft home you know, it's just too small to hold their egos. They can't fly economy...it's just wrong to mingle with the common people.

DIY and FIY is about learning to do things for yourself. Take as much responsibility and ownership as possible. Reduce, reuse and recycle....and repair. It just means one less vacuum cleaner in the land fill.



Now I can go get my hair cut.
And Kieran's too, when they come back from the cottage.

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