Appliance Tips

Don't put wet shoes in your electric dryer - the vibrations caused by the shoes banging around on the drum can break the heater coils when they are hot and fragile. Put all of your wet shoes down in front of your self-defrost refrigerator. Confirm which side of the toe plate has warm air coming out when the refrig is running (it's usually the left side) and put the shoes in the air flow.

Thoroughly clean the area to be repaired and dry with a hair dryer. Put as much of the magnetic strip back in the seal as you can. Lay down a thick (at least 1/16 inch) layer of white silicone sealant over the area to be repaired. Cover the exposed magnetic strips and fill in any areas of the door seal that are missing. Now cut strips of wax paper that are about 2 inches wide and completely cover the silicone sealant on the front surface of the door seal. You can fold the edges of the wax paper down around the old seal and it will create a mold for your new seal. Now gently close the door. The sealant will conform to the space between the refrigerator and your old seal. Make sure that the sealant fills in all air gaps in the seal. The wax paper can be removed about 8 hours later. A good time to make this repair is just before you go to bed and you will have a new seal by breakfast.

Give your appliances a waxing using ordinary car wax (doesn't have to be the expensive stuff). They will shine like new and rusting is inhibited.

Place a carpet pad on the top of your dryer to prevent dents and scratches when you use it for a workbench. Carpet samples or scraps work great!

Bob Wennerstrom's tip:

I have what I think is a better repair for refrigerator door liners than the "washers under the screws" idea. I have done 8 or 10 of these (especially on Admiral/Wards brands) and they have all held up to this date. I have seen many of these Admiral door liners so cracked that washers would no longer repair them. My repair solves this problem.

Remove the door liner and lay it on some sawhorses. Cut 2" strips of fiberglass cloth 2-3' long. Mix up fiberglass resin and spread around outer 1-2" of door liner. Embed the cloth and soak with more resin and a plastic spatula. After it dries, use a utility knife or those scissors-that-cut-pennies to trim off all the fiberglass around the edges. The screws can usually be forced through the cloth with some pressure on a 1/4 inch nutdriver so you don't have to re-drill all the holes. the resin is usually clear enough so you can see where you need to push. Leave the top and outside edge screws loose until the door is reinstalled so that it can be tweaked into true. Much cheaper than a new $100 door liner.

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