Dear Maintenance Men:
Dear Maintenance Men:
The phone jack in one of my units is missing. There are
four colored wires; green, black, red and yellow. How do I hook them back up?
John
Dear John:
Most modern phone jacks are pre wired and color-coded. Strip your existing phone wire back about two inches and expose all four wires. (Careful, these wires are very delicate.) Then strip each individual wire about ½ inch. Match your individual phone wires with the color-coded wires in the new phone jack. Loosen each screw in the phone jack and attach the each phone wire by twisting the wire clock-wise around the screw and tighten. Reattach the jack to the wall and you are done. The black and yellow wires are often used for a second phone. The red and green wires are used for single phone applications. You don’t need all four wires to make the phone work.
Dear Maintenance Men:
One of my residents is requesting a grab bar for the
shower/tub. What do I need to get
and how do I install it safely?
Bob
Dear Bob:
This is a subject that is surfacing more and more as our
residents are getting older. The
use of handrails and safety
bars help provide stability and extra support required by the elderly and
people with limited mobility. Shower
and bathroom safety grab
bars are available in a wide variety of configurations,
colors and finishes. The most common is the stainless steel or chrome finish.
Installation
of grab bars must be done securely.
The bars must be able to support a dead weight pull of 250 pounds.
The preferred method is to bolt directly into the wall studs.
This is not always practical, as the stud might not line up were they are
needed. Grab bars can be mounted
vertically or at an angle to match wall stud spacing. Horizontal installation
can be difficult because stud spacing and bar size do not always match.
If finding studs becomes a problem, alternate installation methods are available.
If your walls are in good condition and have not been compromised by
water intrusion, you may use large toggle bolts or if you have access to the
back side of the shower or bath walls, insert a backer plate or add a new stud
for an anchor point. Safety grab
bars can be found at any local hardware store.
Dear Maintenance Men:
I
need to replace a dishwasher and I am little intimidated
by the process. Can you walk me
through the installation
procedure.
Mac
Dear
Mac:
The installation of a dishwasher
is not as complicated as it looks. Turn
off the electricity leading to the
machine. Turn off the water at the
main shut-off. If your dishwasher
site is not pre-plumbed with a separate water valve, remove the existing hot
water angle stop valve under the sink and install
a double threaded angle stop/shutoff valve
under the kitchen sink.
Use a stainless steel braided flex water line to hook up to the
dishwasher. You may need to
buy a fitting to screw into your dishwasher to accept the hose. Most new
machines don’t come with the fitting, or remove the it from the old
dishwasher. Next, connect the
drain line from the dishwasher pump motor outlet to the garbage disposer inlet.
(Don’t forget remove the “knock-out” in the garbage disposal inlet.)
Be sure to use an “Air Gap” between the dishwasher and the garbage
disposal. The air gap is installed
next the faucet and stops the water from draining back into the dishwasher by siphon
action. If you are unable to install a true air gap device, loop your
drain line over the dishwasher before hooking up to the garbage disposal.
Both methods will prevent debris from sucking back into the machine.
Look for a small electrical box under the dishwasher, remove the cover
and pull out the wires. Connect
your wires or pig tail to the machine (A “Pig Tail” is a wire with a plug on
one end and bare wires on the other end). Be
sure to hook up the Green ground wire for safety.
Carefully push your machine under the counter. Once in place, adjust the legs by turning them in or out to
level the machine. There should be
two tabs at the front top of the dishwasher, use these to secure the machine to
the counter top with screws. Now
turn on your water and electricity and test your dishwasher and check for leaks.
Bio:
Jerry L'Ecuyer is the owner of JLE Property Management & Buffalo
Maintenance and is a licensed contractor & real estate broker.
He is currently on the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Education
Committee for the Apartment Association of Orange County. Jerry has been involved with apartments as a professional
since 1988 and can be reached at (714) 778-0480 or jerry@JLE1.com. Frank Alvarez is the Operations Director for Buffalo
Maintenance. He has been involved with apartment maintenance for over 14 years.
Frank can be reached at (714) 956-8371 or visit the office at, 202 E. Broadway
in Anaheim, CA 92805. Please view our web site at: WWW.JLE1.COM