Chris Mendenhall

Hi, I'm Chris. I'm not a contractor. I'm a homeowner who got tired of paying $300 for $5 fixes.

I picked up most of my construction skills working different trades jobs in my twenties, framing, drywall, a stretch with a plumbing crew, some electrical work. None of it made me a licensed anything. What it gave me was a feel for how houses are actually put together and which parts of a repair are the part nobody tells you about.

HomeFixer101 started after one too many trips to the hardware store for parts that cost less than a coffee, fixing things I'd been quoted hundreds for. My wife Megan kept telling me I should write some of it down. The third time we had friends over and someone asked me how I'd fixed something in their house, I sat down that weekend and started.

What I've actually fixed (a partial list)

So you know what kind of work I'm writing from:

• Pulled a Moen 1225 cartridge out of a dripping kitchen faucet in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee
• Patched a drywall hole my nephew put through a hallway with his shoulder, sanded, primed, painted, the whole stretch
• Sweat a copper joint in a frost-free sillcock to replace a spigot that had cracked over winter
• Re-cored a sliding patio door with new rollers (a two-person job, I had Devon help)
• Wired in a new ceiling fan, with a proper fan-rated retrofit box pulled in through the attic
• Replaced the anode rod in our 12-year-old water heater because I read somewhere it would buy me five more years (it has so far)
• Re-grouted the master shower, re-caulked the tub, swapped a P-trap, hung crown molding, scribed baseboards along an old uneven floor, mounted a TV with the HDMI cables fished inside the wall

This is not "watched a YouTube video once" territory. It's the kind of stuff you do enough times to learn which corners not to cut.

What I keep on hand

Tools that have earned permanent space in my garage:

• A basin wrench, the one tool that makes a bathroom faucet swap possible
• A spline roller (about $5, indispensable for screen work)
• A pin punch for hinge pins
• A small magnet for catching cartridge retaining clips before they vanish into the sink
• White lithium grease, the right stuff for hinges (WD-40 is the wrong tool, ask me why in any squeaky-door article)
• A non-contact voltage tester, $10 of insurance against electrical mistakes
• A wet/dry shop vac that has earned its keep ten times over on clogged AC drain lines

About the photos (or lack of them)

You'll notice this site doesn't have photos of my own repairs. I don't take them. By the time I think to grab my phone, my hands are wet with caulk or covered in drywall mud, and the phone stays in my pocket. The images on these pages are illustrations and stock photos. The words and the methods are mine. I figure it's better to admit that up front than to pretend otherwise.

When I tell you to call a pro

This site is for projects the average homeowner can safely handle. For anything involving gas lines, main electrical panels, structural work, or anything requiring a permit, I call a licensed professional, and the article will tell you to do the same. I'm not interested in being the reason somebody's basement floods or their house burns down.

Why I built HomeFixer101

Home repair information online is either too short to help (forum posts), or too expert (contractor manuals), or full of upsells (sponsored content). My goal is the thing in the middle: friend-with-a-toolbox advice, written for someone standing in front of a problem they've never fixed before.

Every article on this site is something I've either fixed myself or watched closely enough to know what actually works. I write the way I'd explain it to someone over a beer at the lumberyard counter.

Spot something wrong? Have a question I haven't answered? Got a repair I should write about? Get in touch.

Chris