84 JULY/AUGUST 2019 FAMILYHANDYMAN.COMGreat Goofs
Laughs and lessons from our readers
®ILLUSTRATIONS:STEVE BJÖRKMANTHE NOSE
KNEW
Recently, I bought
speakers to hang
from the ceiling of
our family room. I
tapped on the ceil-
ing to locate the
joists and then
drilled small holes
to make sure I’d
found solid back-
ing. Confident, I
screwed the brack-
ets to the ceiling
and mounted the
speakers. A few
days later, we
smelled some-
thing awful. We
suspected our
2-year-old, who
was in the midst of
potty training. He
denied any wrong-
doing, so I fol-
lowed my nose
and found a stain
on the speaker
bracket. The “solid
backing” I’d
screwed the
bracket into was
the toilet drain-
pipe instead of the
ceiling joist! Every
time we flushed
we got a small
leak. I tore out the
ceiling and
replaced the drain-
pipe and offered
my son a sincere
apology.
JOEY SHEATNAILED IT PERFECTLY!
To prepare for putting in my new wood floor, I removed all the base trim. I labeled
the trim to make sure the pieces would go back in the same order. I installed the
floor in a single day, and in all modesty, it looked terrific. Then I got out my compres-
sor and trusty nail gun to reinstall the base trim.
I had just nailed the last piece of base when my wife walked in and asked me why
the pocket door wouldn’t pull out of the pocket. I was baffled. After using every
muscle in my body to try to pull the stuck door closed, I realized the problem: While
reinstalling the base, I had shot nails through the trim, drywall, pocket door framing
and right into the door. Oh, well. Who needs to close a bathroom door anyway?
WILL HANSON
HONEY, SOMEONE’S
AT T HE FU R N ACE!
We needed a new doorbell, so my brother-in-law
helped us install one. Early in the morning a few
days later, the doorbell rang. We got up to check
the door but nobody was there. About a half hour
later, it rang again yet no one was there.
Convinced it was a practical joke, we waited by
the door. The bell rang again, and this time we
could see there was no one even ringing it. We
knew that a doorbell uses low voltage supplied
by a transformer. We traced the wires and found
they were connected to a transformer that was
also hooked to the furnace thermostat. As a result,
whenever the furnace came on, the doorbell rang.
We bought a dedicated transformer for the new
doorbell and are now sleeping in.
BOB SCHWINDT