Home Repair Guides for Los Angeles Homeowners
17 guides, written around jobs we have done in Los Angeles houses. Each one takes a repair as far as it sensibly goes on your own, then says plainly where to put the tools down.
Most of what goes wrong on a small repair in this city is behind the surface rather than in front of it. A wall that looks like drywall turns out to be lath and plaster. A wall that looks solid is stucco over wire mesh. The box holding your light was rated for a bulb and nothing heavier. So these guides spend their time on what to check before the drill comes out, and on the point where the job stops being worth your Saturday.
Pick the job in front of you
Every card says what the job involves and who the guide is written for, so you can tell from here whether it is yours.
How to Tell Your Gutters Are Clogged Without Climbing Up
You can diagnose a blocked gutter from the ground in about ten minutes. Almost none of it needs a ladder, and the one part that does is the part worth paying someone else for.
For the week before the first rain. The downspout, the soil line under the gutter and the fascia each tell you something different, and together they say whether it is dirty or packed.
How to Fix a Door That Sticks in Winter
A door that binds in January and swings fine in August has not warped. It has swollen, and the fix is at the hinges and the strike, not at the plane. Planing a door in winter is the mistake that leaves you with a draft in summer.
The door you have to shoulder closed in winter. It is usually four screws and a shim, and the order you do them in decides whether the fix survives the next wet month.
How to Mount a TV on the Wall
Mounting a TV yourself is doable on a drywall wall with studs. Five steps keep it safe and level.
Weekend reading, before the TV goes up. Most of the job is finding two studs and proving they are studs. The rest is what to do when the wall turns out to be plaster, brick or tile.
How to Fix a Drywall Hole
From nail pops to a doorknob-sized hole, a patch done in thin coats leaves the wall looking like new.
Anyone whose last patch showed as a dull ring once the paint dried. Filling the hole is the easy half. Texture and primer are where a repair gives itself away.
How to Install a Ceiling Fan
Replacing a light with a ceiling fan? The key is a fan-rated box that can hold the weight and motion.
Best read on the way to buy the fan. The box already in your ceiling decides whether this is an afternoon with a screwdriver or a job for an electrician.
How to Replace a Faucet
Swapping a kitchen or bath faucet is a manageable job if the shutoff valves work. Test those before anything else.
Go and turn the shutoff valves under the sink tonight. One that will not move is what turns a two-hour swap into a plumbing job, and you want to know before you buy anything.
How to Hang Halloween Decorations Safely
Most Halloween decorating happens from a step stool, and that part is fine. The trouble starts above it. Second-story balconies, the roof line, the tree out front, and one extension cord asked to run a fog machine, two inflatables and a projector through a single outdoor outlet.
Before you climb for the witches: ladder angles, stucco without new holes and outdoor power that won't trip on the 31st.
Putting Lights Up Is the Easy Part. Here Is What People Forget.
By the middle of November, the question is usually whether anyone can hang lights this weekend. The honest answer by then is usually no, and not because anyone is precious about scheduling. The good weekends are gone, and whoever is asking is about to spend a Saturday on a ladder in the dark.
Before Anyone Picks Up a Tool, Agree What the Job Is
Most of the friction I see on a job was decided before the work started, usually in a conversation that was shorter than it should have been. Not because anybody was being difficult. Because two people used the same words and meant different things.
Five Things to Check on Your House Before the First Rain
Rain here is late, and that's the problem with it. By the time the first real storm arrives in late November, most of us have gone seven months without looking at the roof, and the small thing that was an hour of work in October has become a stain on the ceiling in January.
Repair or Replace? What to Check on Your Deck Boards
A deck in Los Angeles can go all summer without rain and still rot. Downtown averages less than a twentieth of an inch in July and again in August. Meanwhile the boards near the beach sit in fog most mornings in May and June, and the corner next to the lawn may get a sprinkler every morning of the year.
For a deck with one soft board. How to tell a board swap from a frame problem, checked yourself before the rains.
What to Check on Your Sprinklers in October
Rain in Los Angeles is mostly a rumor until December. Downtown averages just over half an inch in October and under an inch in November, then close to two and a half in December. So most lawns go into fall on the schedule they ran in July, while the days get shorter and the grass needs less.
For a yard still on its summer schedule. What a geyser, a wet spot or a brown stripe means, and what you can fix before the rains.
Before You Tile a Backsplash
A backsplash is the last thing to go on a kitchen wall and the only part anyone sees. How it looks in five years depends on what's behind it, the grease, the patches, the outlet boxes and where the first full tile lands.
For a kitchen with the tile already picked out. How to check the wall, the outlets and the layout before anyone mixes mortar.
Why Your Gate Sags, and What to Check Before the Wind
A gate doesn't fail in one day. First it needs a little lift on the handle before the latch will catch. Then it leaves a gray arc on the walk where the bottom corner scrapes, and one morning it won't close at all.
For a side gate that scrapes the walk or only latches with a lift. How to find out whether it's the post, the hinges or the gate, and which fixes you can do yourself.
A Drafty Door in LA? Find the Gap, Then Seal It
Turn off the hall light on a sunny afternoon and look at your front door from inside. If you can see a thin line of daylight down the latch side or under the bottom, air has been coming through there all year. The first storm will show you whether water does too.
For the front or back door you can feel air around, or that leaves a damp line on the floor after a storm. How to find the gap, which seal fits, and what you can fix in an afternoon.
Smoke and CO Alarms: When to Replace the Whole Unit
Turn your smoke alarm over. There's a date printed on the back, and it tells you more than the battery does.
For an alarm that chirps at night, or one nobody remembers putting up. How to read its age, which kind you have, and where California wants smoke and CO alarms.
A Wet Spot That Won't Dry, or One Weak Sprinkler Zone
Step on the lawn two days after the sprinklers ran. If one spot gives under your shoe and water seeps up around it while the rest of the yard is firm, that water isn't left over from the schedule. It's coming up from a pipe.
For a patch of lawn that stays soft days after watering, or one zone that sprays short while the rest look fine. How to find the break, why roots cause it, and what to leave to someone else.
More reading: seasonal home checklist for LA houses.
Where it stops being a Saturday job
Every guide here ends at a line, and it is close to the same line each time. These four come up most in Los Angeles homes. Each is worth knowing before you start rather than halfway through.
A blocked gutter can be diagnosed entirely from the ground, which is why that guide never puts you on a ladder. Going up changes the risk completely. A tile roof, a second story, a ladder that will not sit level, or nobody else in the house: each one on its own is a reason to stop. Clay tile breaks under a knee, and that repair costs several times the cleaning.
Hanging a fan where a fan already hangs is handyman work. Kill the breaker, prove it dead at every conductor, check what the box is rated for, wire it. Running power to a spot that has none is a different job and belongs to a licensed electrician. So does a panel whose labels turn out to be wrong.
Test the valves under the sink before you buy the faucet, not after the old one is in pieces. A valve that seeps or seizes after ten years untouched is now the job, and forcing the stem hard enough to snap it is how a two-hour swap becomes an afternoon with the water off at the main.
Popcorn ceilings went into a lot of Los Angeles houses between the sixties and the eighties. Have the material tested for asbestos before a scraper touches it. That test is not optional, and what comes after it is not a do-it-yourself job.
Soft wood is the fifth, and it hides better than the other four. Fascia that gives under your thumb, a deck post that takes a screwdriver where it meets the soil, a stair stringer that feels spongy at the bottom tread: that is rot or termites, sitting under paint that still looks sound. Clearing the gutter, repainting the post or swapping the board leaves the cause exactly where it was.
What it costs to hand it over
Each guide leads to one job on our list. These are the Los Angeles ranges, quoted flat and approved before anyone starts.
Every range on the site comes from the same price list. See all 42 services and what they cost.
Help guides: FAQ
Who writes these guides?
We do. Every guide here is written around jobs Construction Hub has done in Los Angeles homes, which is why the awkward parts get the most words: lath and plaster behind a bedroom wall, stucco with wire mesh under it, a ceiling box that was only ever meant to hold a bulb.
How do I decide whether to try it myself or call someone?
Read the part that says where to stop before you read anything else. Every guide has one. If its stopping point is already true of your job, a seized shutoff valve or a second-story gutter, the guide has answered the question and saved you the afternoon.
Why only 17 guides?
Because these are the jobs homeowners actually attempt before they call. A handful of guides written from real jobs beats forty written from nothing. More get added when there is something worth saying that the service page does not already say.
What does it cost to hand the job over instead?
The jobs behind these guides run $80 to $1,200 in Los Angeles, depending on which one it is and how far it has gone. You get one flat price for the visit and you approve it before any work starts. Every service page carries its own range.
Can I call and ask a question without booking anything?
Yes. (424) 645-8655, Monday to Saturday 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM, Sunday 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM. If the answer is that you can do it yourself in twenty minutes, that is what you will hear.
I started the job and it went wrong. Now what?
Call and describe what happened. A half-finished job is a normal thing to quote and we see plenty of them. It usually costs less than people expect, because the part that took you all morning is rarely the part that takes us long.
Rather not do it yourself?
Tell us the job and your ZIP. You get one flat price to approve before anything starts, and a same-week slot anywhere in our Los Angeles service area.