… with the emphasis on “odd”.
At first glance these two photos may appear to be what they look like: a pair of closed balcony doors and an electric fan. But in fact they are examples of “if you don’t look too closely it’ll pass muster”. As some of you know there are six fabulous balconies here at casa az, which let in lots of light and really make the apartment feel bright and spacious. But none of the balcony doors have ever closed properly due to the landlord not doing regular maintenance – they are all warped and rotting because of this neglect. But suddenly, after years of neglect, this week Pepe the landlord took the too-little-too-late decision to hire an old carpenter to come and “fix” the doors. On all the apartments. The poor old geezer – he had no idea what he was in for. By the time he got to my apartment (the last) he was so fed up that every door caused him to exclaim that he hated doing work that was futile and that all these door should be ripped out and replaced … and of course I agreed. But I was very impressed that he actually managed to get all my doors to close again with the latches. There are still gaps but at least now they don’t blow open with every gust of wind. And so when it came to fixing my bedroom electric fan today I decided to take a lesson from lovely ol’ Juan (we were quite friendly by the end, a bit like comrades in arms) and try to make do with what I could find at hand…
Last summer I was woken during the night when my fan suddenly went SPROING!!! as the moulded plastic band keeping the front and back grills together decided it had had enough. And since Azar and Sunny couldn’t easily get in harm’s way from the spinning blades, and frankly showed no interest in the fan, I used it for the rest of the summer without the front grill. Enter Loki! And everything has changed. I had to get out the livingroom fan a week or so ago and Loki seems to be on a mission to find a way to play with the fun-looking spinny thing inside, so I knew I couldn’t leave the bedroom fan unprotected anymore. But when I went down to the appliance parts outlet and they informed me it would cost 12 euros for another front grill and band (duh, can’t buy the band on its own, which probably costs 2 euros) and so I decided to try fixing the band myself. But everything I tried (crazy glue, tape, wire) ended up with the damn thing going SPROING!!! again as soon as I tried attaching it. And then I thought that there was no reason I couldn’t just tie the two grills together…
Here’s Juan’s version of bringing the mountain to Mohammed.
And this is me making clever use of freezer bag twist-ties.
I’ve heard that duct tape will fix just about anything.
What are some of your favourite quick-fixers?
casa azahar 
Hey, I had a fan that I did with twist ties back when I was married! I had accumulated a bunch of little gold ones too, so it looked snazzy.
I’m driving around right now with the Sledmobile’s hatch held down by a bungee. The lock, after twenty years, just wore out and my mechanic, who likes this kind of thing apparently, removed it completely and is grinding a new part on a metal lathe because Honda doesn’t make a replacement any more.
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The thing about the bedroom fan (bought about three years ago) is that it’s not only very “airy” with those big blue blades, but it also has a timer on it. I don’t actually like having a fan blowing all over me all night, especially after it gets cooler, but it’s perfect having it on for the first hour or so.
The living room fan (a cheapy thing bought last summer after the old living room fan’s motor caught fire – no, I don’t make these things up) is not nearly so coolifying. That’s the one Nog uses at night because he likes having the fan going all the time.
Anyhow, the only drawback to the twist-tie fix is that I like to take the fans apart at least 2-3 times during the summer to clean the grills and blades – they get all caked with dust and cat fur – and I am imagining the HELL of redoing all the twist-ties…
I love your mechanic! Meanwhile, bungees are also a great quick fixer.
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How about cable ties (zip ties?)?
Do ’em up – cut off the loose ends, then when you want to clean, cut them off and replace with fresh ones? I can’t imagine that they cost much for a bag of 100s.
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I know the ties you mean! But I think they would be too obvious. Right now the fan is about 6 feet away from me and I can barely see the twist-ties. And to be honest, with the previous stupid twangy plastic band – which cracked at the bottom first time I assembled the damn thing! – I was always loathe to take it apart lest it, well, went SPROING!!!. Now I will know that it’s only a question of an hour’s work and that the worst has already happened.
Who knows? Next I may try taking apart the old Casio camera (since the moulding is peeling off anyhow) to see if there is a way of fixing the clicky button…
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True – though they do come in pretty small sizes.
I’m sure if you google the camera some bright spark somewhere will have instructions on talking apart etc, and if you’ve got nothing to lose . . .
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I want one of these babies – http://www.dyson.co.uk/fans/ –
but I’ll wait a few years until they come down in price.
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Wow, that dyson thingy looks totally cool. I really like the easy cleaning feature.
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Then again…. http://gizmodo.com/5379890/dyson-air-multiplier-review-making-a-300-fan-takes-cojones
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looks cool but $300 for a fan is way out of my price range
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Wow, what a great design! Though if I had a spare 300 euros I’d probably buy this netbook…
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I’d never heard of the Dyson fans before. That is brilliant, albeit ridiculously pricey.
TRiG.
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I highly recommend hot glue or zip ties (those plastic ties which “lock” when you feed one end through the hole in the other end) which come in a variety of colours, sizes, and lengths. In this case, I would go for the zip-ties because they can simply be cut off and replaced when you want to clean the fan. I buy them at the dollar store in big bags.
Duct tape, I find doesn’t do what I want it to and eventually leads to sticky adhesive on the item and peeling tape. While men invariably turn to duct tape (which, as my chiropractor said this morning, “The only thing you can’t use duct tape on is ducts”….) women generally turn to hot glue. I use that for everything from the backs of paperbacks which often fall off to making Christmas decorations (squeeze out the shape you want onto parchment or non-stick paper, add rhinestones or beads, sprinkle with glitter and “Bob’s your uncle”).
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I have a fan which has two fans mounted above each other. The whole thing tilts back and the bottom fan can tilt separately. They also each have their own controls so you can have them both on low, doubling the circulation but with half the sound. I love it…
http://www.honeywellstore.com/heating-and-cooling/fans/HT-8800BP
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I’ve never seen anything like that. But having extra fannage wouldn’t do me much good, especially in August, as the air in the house is so hot that sitting in front of the fan is not unlike being “cooled” by a blow dryer.
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It’s a good thing I got that front grill tied on … got into bed last night and straight away Loki was mesmerised by the fan. Here he is sitting on the end of the bed…
mesmerised
(excuse grainy quality of pic – taken with iPhone with hardly any light)
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My magical fixing it moment was replacing the element in our electric oven. On the day the in-laws were due for a roast dinner..
Admittedly, I had to replace the whole thing as it had an inch-long piece missing from it, but that still felt like quite the feat! And the roast later that day was lovely.
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