That reminds me of when we got our new dryer last year, and it had a working light. I don’t think the light worked in the old dryer ever.
IMHO, new electric>old gas>old electric. My new electric oven hits actual temperature better and fluctuates way less than any oven I’ve previously owned. I’d still prefer gas burners though.
The wife takes care of that by leaving the dryer door open and killing the bulb in record time.
If I was really into spending money on a range, I would go for a combo unit with electric oven (well, two electric ovens, as long as we’re dreaming) and gas burners. But the gas burners are so far superior to electric that the slightly inferior oven part doesn’t matter to me. I happily swapped out the electric range that was in our house when we bought it for an all-gas one.
Yeah, same for me. The issue here is that it wouldn’t only be the cost of the range but the cost of buying an outdoor gas tank and running lines. Assuming that I even had the room near my house, which I don’t.
I would never have done it if there wasn’t already gas service at the house. Then again, I probably would not have bought a house that didn’t have natural gas service. The stove is almost right above the furnace anyway, so having a gas line run up through the floor was just a trivial addition to some other work we were having done in the kitchen.
Hey, this was us as well. I replaced it with a tiny LED and it is amazingly bright.
I do wish I had something besides an older electric range and oven.
I’m amazed some of you haven’t had a freezer light. I have a not-really-special 12 year-old Whirlpool side by side and it has two lights in the refrigerator and two lights in the freezer. During it’s lifetime I’ve replaced one light. I have replaced both the ice sensor and ice maker, however. YouTube and Amazon saved me with a pretty painless repair.
A dryer light?!? Mind blown again. Never seen one of those either!
I gotta quit buying budget models I think. My range was the first appliance I bought that wasn’t a budget model, hence it had a light.
Actually my last washer and dryer (before my current ones) were relatively expensive, but the dryer had no light, and my current washer and dryer were $299 each, so I expected nothing for options there.
Side-by-sides are pretty rare in the UK. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a light in one of those. Most fridges you see in the UK have a relatively small freezer compartment in the bottom, where a light wouldn’t travel very far before it got blocked by food or frosted over trays, or even just an ice box. My (American) parents had a side-by-side for a while in their previous house, but that was quite a novelty.
Those have picked up here as well but I have yet to own one. I do find it strange that we have top, bottom, and side-by-side, all sold as new models these days. There are even French-door styled models, with a bottom freezer drawer, but side by side refrigerator doors up top.
Henry Ford would find all of that incredibly too much choice.
I have a 1997 Ford Explorer. For about the past 10 years, it’s had a problem that I just never got around to fixing because I thought it would be too difficult for me, as I’m not mechanically inclined, and figured it would cost too much to have a pro do it.
The problem was that the damn hood would not stay open. It has these gas-filled struts that are supposed to hold it open, but they eventually quit doing the job many years ago, resulting in the hood falling on my head as soon as I’d stick my head under the hood. So for years now, I’ve been propping the hood open with a tire iron. Clumsy, but effective. It was annoying though to have to dig out the tire iron every time I wanted to so much as check the oil. Also, the tire iron would sometimes be in the way if I needed to get to a part in that area.
Finally, I got tired enough of the procedure that I decided to give it a try. I was surprised to find that eBay had multiple sellers that sold a brand new set of struts for around $10, including shipping. Far less expensive than I had assumed.
Received them in a few days, but didn’t do anything with them because I anticipated it would take me half a day to figure out how to install them.
Finally, I decided to check on Youtube to see if anyone had a video about it. And I found this one right away. Took about 2 minutes to watch, and only required a regular flat-head screwdriver. As a novice, it took me about 10 minutes to complete the project, and now the hood works like new. It practically opens itself once you lift it past a certain point. And it stays open. I was elated.
Now I’m just kicking myself for putting this simple task off for 10 whole years. A task that was no more difficult than changing the batteries in a flashlight. Seriously. If you have this problem on one of your own cars, just do it. It’s a cheap, fast, and ridiculously easy repair.
I’ve used youtube as a reference for a TON of repairs I’ve done. It really is a great place for things like that. Good job on the hood struts!
Yep I’d be the worst fixer ever without YouTube. With it I fix almost everything myself.
Yeah, for the dissemination of practical “how-to” knowledge, YouTube is extremely valuable.
I hardly ever think of it first, though, except for auto repair. I just finished repairing the plumbing for my under sink water filter, and my first and only instinct was to haul ass over to the local hardware store, broken parts in hand, and ask for advice.
Have I got a great little problem for you guys!
So I have an overhead light fixture, bare bulb, in a room. I need some electricity so I bought one of those light fixture adapters that adds an ungrounded (two prong) outlet on both sides and then also acts as a pass through for the bulb.
Here is the problem. At another light fixture like this I removed the bulb, put that adaptor in, and then plugged in and was fine. The socket just stayed empty, no big deal. At the new socket, the adapter only seems to work if the light bulb is screwed in. If I try it with the light bulb out I get no power to the outlet. Screw the light bulb in and it works fine. Same adapter. Any thoughts?
Adapter looks almost exactly like this:
Are there any smart controls or timers on that circuit? Sometimes those have minimum current draw requirements and if a lamp is drawing too little it will not get turned on. It’s based on the current sensors in circuits with self-powered timers and such I think.
All the ones I know like your photo are cheap and have no moving or electronic parts, so any power coming from the socket should flow to all outputs as you expect. Do you have a multimeter or continuity tester you can check to make sure the contacts are all connected? It could be possible that there is a mechanical interlock so the outlets only work while a bulb is screwed in for some reason? If you have a bulb which is blown out you could test that way.
Edit:
There is also a chance it is a mechanical tolerance problem. I have seen sometimes a cheap socket insert doesn’t make full contact but if you put the weight of the bulb on the end it provides some leverage pressure in the socket and makes contact. You could test this by wiggling it with no bulb in it and see if it comes on with some pressure in arbitrary directions but no bulb.
Stupid question, but does it only work when the light switch is on?
Thanks for the advice and cousel. As always it was the stupidest, most obvious answer there is. When unscrewing the light bulb the torque also slightly unscrewed the adaptor. I only had to tighten it. E viola!
Thanks @Guap for updating with the solution, as I had been formulating an entire paragraph of response in my head while I was reading your problem that I no longer need to type out. And it would have not helped, and would have been the dumbest theory a person could imagine.
It was along the lines of: “It’s a safety feature, to keep you from using it until a bulb was installed, to keep you from sticking your fingers in the socket by accident while plugging something in.”
You never know, that might have been the answer.
The dryer again. Something different this time.
My wife was doing laundry last night so we can travel to a funeral, and at about half past ten, we discovered the dryer wasn’t heating. I got up this morning armed with multi-meter, repair book, and socket wrench. Two hours later, after testing the thermal fuse and the heating element, I was at a loss, so I looked on the internet and found this video which goes over everything one can test for this problem and how:
When he tested the funny round thing, which I didn’t know what to call or what it did, it had continuity and he said it was good. Mine didn’t have continuity when I randomly tested it, but I didn’t know if it should. He said it was the nonresettable thermostat. That sounded like a trip to Sear’s. But then he linked to a video showing how to reset a nonresettable thermostat: you slam it on a hard floor until it tests positive for continuity:
It only took me one firm smack on the garage floor to reset it, and we’re back in business.
And I am resolved to empty the lint trap more often.