I get emails very often from people who have avoided expensive service calls on their garbage disposal by following the tips in this easy tutorial.

Your garbage disposal can stop working at the most inopportune time. It seems like it has a built in timer so that it jams or does not turn on just after a big dinner you've hosted for family or friends.

But I'll show you how make the repairs you need quickly and possibly save $100 or more in a plumbing service call. In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the most common garbage disposal repairs and also tell you how to avoid clogs and slow draining situations.

And get familiar with how the garbage disposal is constructed with Anatomy of a Garbage Disposal for a graphic overview of the disposal's components. And if it's your sink that's causing trouble, see Unclogging a Sink.

Cleaning a wood deck and preparing it for staining can be a lot of work but the power washer can make short work of the cleaning process. It can also absolutely ruin your wood if you use the tool improperly with too much water pressure or getting the tip too close to the wood.

In the tutorial How to Power Wash a Deck, I'll give you an overview on how to use this tool so it stays a "power washer" and not a "power engraver." We'll review the steps and issues you need to know about safely cleaning your wood deck with a power washer without damaging the wood.

OK, I'm blogging this just for the sheer bizarre value of the study. Livescience.com reports that a study out of University of Massachusetts at Amherst has allegedly determined that women were about 10 percent more accurate than men at hitting a nail with a hammer in the light. Men were about 25 percent more accurate than women at hitting a nail in the dark. Now since I don't know of much construction or home repair that goes on in the dark, I'm not sure how valuable a skill hitting a nail in the dark really is.

So to all my male compatriots, I say, Practice Boys! Read up on the tutorial How to Use a Hammer and let's learn how to use these things in the daylight!

Vinyl siding has limitations. It is prone to impact damage (the photo shows damage due to a hail storm), melts when exposed to extreme heat and becomes increasingly brittle as it gets cold. But even in the summer if a baseball or golf ball hits it, your vinyl siding can break or crack.

Then what? With colors and textures often not found in nature, matching existing vinyl siding can be hard to achieve. And without knowledge of how to separate the strips of siding, you'll never get them apart.

Well, don't worry. I'll show you how to repair damaged vinyl siding for under $10 (if you have spare siding material). And I'll also let you know where you can find discontinued siding styles and colors so that repair looks great!