Category: DIY

Its been real cold this winter, 7 degrees F this morning, and I go to start the car and the engine barely turns over. On the second try, the engine doesn’t turn over, you just hear the dead battery clicking. The battery is just about dead. So the question is, how do you charge a dead battery?

I didn’t need to go anywhere immediately, so I opted for a battery charger; the kind you plug into the wall and attach two clips to the dead battery terminals. First I had to find our car battery charger in the garage. I was hoping I hadn’t loaned it to someone and then forgotten about it. This happens sometimes. But I did find it. The cables were pretty stiff from the cold, but luckily I have ample outlets in the garage. I popped open the hood, removed the plastic boot covering the positive terminal, and connected the charging cables.

There are a couple of different kinds of battery chargers, some are built to maintain a charge in the battery, sometimes called trickle chargers. These are good for vehicles that aren’t used regularly, as the battery can lose its charge slowly. Trickle chargers monitor the battery charge, and when it drops, it slowly charges it back up to full charge. These chargers can plug into a wall or use solar panel.

Fast chargers are meant to charge the battery quickly. How fast depends on the model purchased, and the state of the battery. The one I have charges a battery overnight, some will charge a dead battery in a matter of hours, but they cost more.

The other thing to think about is the age of the battery. Car batteries, as they get older, lose their ability to hold a charge. And if the battery has gone completely dead several times – called a deep discharge – the battery degrades quickly. Car batteries are built to provide a large amperage current to the starter for a short burst to start the car, they are not designed to be completely discharged.

Cold weather also degrades a battery’s ability to work. Its a chemical reaction in the battery that is providing the power, and in cold weather, this reaction doesn’t work as well. In some cold climates, I’ve seen car battery warmers that you plug in overnight to keep the battery warm enough to start the engine.

After an overnight charge, the car started up as normal, which is a good thing. If after a full charge, the battery still doesn’t work, or barely turns over the engine, its time for a new battery. Best to take the dead battery with you to the auto parts store, that way you can match it exactly, and the store can recycle the  dead battery for you.

What to do you think? Tell us your car battery stories below:

Martha,  a long time fan of GardenFork, sent me this t-shirt she embroidered. How Cool Is That? Each letter is hand sewn with a lot of detail – doesn’t show in the photos here, but its not an easy thing to do.

So a big public thank you to Martha. Look for this t-shirt in an upcoming GF video! eric.

Sink leaking? I bet the gasket in the sink strainer is leaking. This is a DIY plumbing repair I did at a friend’s restaurant, but the concept is the same. But if you need to fix your leaking chef kitchen sink, this is how to repair a leaking sink.

For this sink, which is a bit more industrial than your average sink, you remove the top ring from inside the sink. For most household sinks, there is a ring with tabs on it that attaches the sink strainer to the sink itself. For either type, you can buy a fancy tool to remove the ring, or you can use my favorite tools, a hammer and a screwdriver.

First remove the pipe that is connected to the strainer – this is called a tailpipe, btw. Tap on the tabs under the sink to move the ring counterclockwise. You might have to jam a screwdriver into the basket from the top to keep it from spinning. If you break the tabs, its ok, you can go buy a new sink stainer for cheap, and its shiny clean too.

Remove the the strainer, and clean it and the sink surfaces. There may be old plumber’s putty around the hole in the sink. Pick up a new gasket at your local hardware store, it will be a rubber gasket that also comes with a cardboard ring. If you are using the old sink strainer and there was plumber’s putty on it or the inside part of the hole in the sink, roll out a long hot dog of plumber’s putty about 1/4′ in diamter, and wrap this around the sink strainer and place the sink strainer back in the hole. Press down on strainer to squish out excess putty.

From underneath, place the rubber gasket onto the strainer, then the cardboard ring, then screw on the metal or plastic ring. For this restaurant kitchen sink, its a little backwards, but you get the idea. Screw the ring on tight, but don’t break the ring getting it tight.

Re-attach the tailpipe – the piece of pipe that connects the sink to the drain pipes- and fill the sink with water, and check for leaks. If it leaks, you may be able to just tighten up the ring a bit, if that doesn’t work, it may be that the sink hole is warped or has some crud in it that is not letting the gasket seal tight. You’ll have to take it apart, clean up the hole, and re-assemble.

Have you done some DIY plumbing repair? Let us know below:

We asked some of the GF contributors for their suggestions for Holiday Gifts, here are their responses:

Monica
• I’m doing my best to buy from my local shop owners, many of which are friends. It’s a happier season all around that way. Between the Green Home Store, the Wine shop, the fancy dog treat store, we’re basically covered for everyone.

• For product lovers: a Birchbox subscription.

• Tip: Hold off shopping until the last possible minute. The best deals are on or around December 22nd.

Mike
•    Arduino Starter Experimenter’s Kit
($34) – This generation’s Erector Set.

•    A Lodge Cast Iron Skillet
($19) – The most versatile pan in the kitchen. I never put mine away.

• A Bicycle Tune Up gift certificate from a local bike shop ($50 – $150 depending on the services) – Cables stretch, chains stretch, oil wears away, derailleurs get out of alignment, grease gets old, people don’t get their bikes tuned up enough, the riding difference can be night and day. Here’s an example from my local bike shop.

•    Gerber Needlenose Multi-Plier 600
($43) – The pliers can be deployed one handed. That’s extra handy when holding a bass by the lip with one hand and getting the pliers out to remove a hook with the other.

•    Apple iPad
– I use mine for hours every day. Music, magazines, looking things up, I have electronics tools on it, social stuff, schematics, data sheets, games. Most people I know who didn’t think they’d use it much end up attached to it. (Rick agrees and adds: The older ones eyes get, the more you gravitate away from smartphones and toward tablets.)

•    Get someone a bunch of really boring stuff that they use all of the time – something day to day they will no longer have to worry about. Imagine if you didn’t have to buy toilet paper for 6 months.
Rick

•    Apple TV box ($95) – and then cut the expensive cable. You can access Netflix and Hulu through the box, then buy TV shows from Apple on a pay-as-you-go per show basis. We’re saving tons of cash and we’re watching less TV. More importantly, all the TV we watch now is meaningful, not mindless habit.

•    Flashing LED front and rear lights for a bicycle to use day and night. The front flashing light has saved me a couple of times when people started to left turn in front of me and across my path.

•    Lewis N. Clark WaterSeals Waterproof Pouch
($16) – A waterproof swim pouch with waterproof earphones for an MP3 Player. I slip an old cheapy MP3 player loaded with quality podcasts (like Gardenfork) and swim without fear.

•    Jabra STREET2 Bluetooth Stereo Headset
($58) – Allows me to carry my iPhone on my belt but have the headset cord in my shirt and out of the way while gardening. It’s pretty much impervious to heavy sweat.

•    Becoming Jefferson’s People
by Clay S. Jenkinson – The most Gardenfork-y book I know of: self reliance, gardening, cooking, education, optimism, citizenship, philosophy.

•    What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)
by David Deardorff, Kathryn Wadsworth ($17) – One of the most helpful gardening books I own. The books is a flowchart with logic gates – starting with stem, roots, leaves, fruit, or flower – and then follows a branching logic tree to a diagnosis.

Tony
•    In the DIY vein, make a printed certificate for some task that you can do, and give it to someone who’s not so capable, or who may not have much time. Some ideas: paint a bathroom, make a four course roasted duck dinner (or something else nice they wouldn’t normally make), organize a garage, or hang shelving units

Sarah

•    OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner
($30) – For anyone who is a member of a CSA, has a vegetable garden, or otherwise eats a lot of greens. It makes cleaning greens so easy that it’s well worth the real estate it takes up in the kitchen.

•    Mr. Beer Home Microbrewery System
($33) – A great introduction to how to brew. Buyer beware: May instigate lifelong obsession with homebrewing.

•    Knife sharpening services – This is one of those things I don’t get around to nearly as often as I should and am always so happy when I do. A sharp knife isn’t just safer, it’s also far easier to use.

•    Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend, 2 Speed
($380) – The theory here is you can go through five $100 blenders that don’t meet your expectations or invest in a Vitamix upfront. My husband and a handful of family members went in on one for my birthday one year and we use it often throughout the week to process soups, puree winter squash, make baby food, and even grind our own flours.

•    Framing a sentimental photo – In the digital age we take so many pictures but rarely look at them months later. I love the idea of restoring an old photograph so that visual memory is not lost.

photo by mconnors