The afternoon two plumbers convinced me I could fix many things as well as pros.
A few years ago I had a faucet that needed a new cartridge — a common ten-dollar fix. The catch: I couldn't get the decorative trim sleeve off to reach the cartridge underneath. It was seized solid. So I did the sensible thing and called a plumber.
Two of them came out. They couldn't get it off either. After a while, their professional recommendation was to take a Sawzall to it — cut the whole valve out and start over. And standing there in my own bathroom, I had the thought that more or less became this publication:
If the fix is to saw it off, why am I paying someone to tell me that? — the thought that started The Fix Diary
So I said "thank you," paid them, and sent them away. Then I tried something they hadn't: I soaked the seized trim in PB B'laster, gave it real time to work, and backed it off without destroying anything. New cartridge in. Faucet fixed. Total cost: a few dollars and one patient afternoon.
The actual fix. Cheaper than one plumber visit, let alone two, and it has earned a permanent spot on my shelf.
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I'm not telling that story to dunk on plumbers. Good ones are worth every cent, and there are jobs I will always hand to them. I'm telling it because of what it revealed: a professional does not have a monopoly on competence. For a surprising number of household repairs, the only thing standing between you and a fixed thing is the right part, the right product, and the nerve to be decisive.
What this is
The Fix Diary is a publication about fixing things, written by someone who actually fixes them. It's a running record of recurring household problems, the specific parts and repairs that solve them, and the cost-benefit thinking behind every fix — with your time and your Saturday counted as real money.
There are two kinds of pages here. Entries are the diary proper: dated, first-person, a repair I did with my own hands. Field Guides are the open research files: everything that goes wrong with a machine, gathered from owners who've been there and from official guidance. Every fix, in either kind of page, is labeled with where it comes from: I did this, owner-reported, or official guidance. We never blur the line between what we did and what we read.
And yes: when an entry points you to a part, that's usually an affiliate link, and I earn a small commission if you buy through it. I'm telling you that plainly because the whole publication runs on trust. The commission never decides the recommendation. The full disclosure is here.
The method behind it all is on one page: how we decide.