No one jumps in and builds a house or a skyscraper or race car on their first try unless they are crazy. The fact is building and fixing things takes years to learn. The good thing is most of us have an opportunity to learn about how things work as we grow up.
The first step in changing a flat on a monster caterpillar truck is changing the inner tube on your 10 speed bike as a kid. The first step to plumbing your new bathroom is fixing the hose in the yard as a kid when it breaks.
Every small job you do prepares you for the next larger one.
Along the way you may decide to seek help from your parents or a friend, read a book or watch a video. You might take a class in high school or even attend a school full time and get a degree or certification in repairing homes or cars or appliances or nuclear reactors.
This is the way you should approach learning to repair things.
First you need to master the basic skills of measuring things, hammering nails, using a wrench and cutting a piece of wood or steel straight. Once you have these basic skills and a few more you can basically repair anything if you take the time to understand the steps needed to complete the project and break the overall task in to things you know how to do.
For instance replacing an Axel in your truck requires the ability to use a wrench, pry bars, a jack and jack stands. You will probably need to use some specialty tools like retainer clip compressors, a torque wrench or other specific tools but most of the work will be basic skills and then learning that last 15% that you didn’t know before.
Every time that you accomplish a job that you haven’t performed before you learn a little more and just like that new wrench you bought.. you have added another tool in the form of a skill that you can use in your next job.
This is why it is important that whenever you have a chance to see someone performing a skill that you have never done before that you take time and notice how they are doing it. You could be driving by a construction site and see someone operating a backhoe or you could take a few minutes and watch someone put siding or stucco on the side of a building.
Now you may never need to use a backhoe but if you do and you have asked a few questions of that person you were watching you may have learned how to dig out your sewer service line by hand or understand maybe that’s not something you can do yourself and you need to hire someone.
So, basically that is how you learn to do things. Well that is how you teach yourself to do things. If you are the son of a garage owner you might get taught how to fix cars but if you want to do it yourself then you just have to jump in and start learning.
Begin with small things that you think you can accomplish. Then take on a project that you know will save you a ton of money in labor if you do it yourself with the understanding you can always call a tow truck and have a professional do it if you get stuck.
In other words sometimes you have to be a little brave but not so brave that you haven’t prepared yourself by completing small projects, reading and asking people about the new big project you expect to attempt and getting a good manual that explains the steps.
Reading manuals is very important. Whether you are repairing a car or a Water Heater the manufacturer or some after market publisher will provide detailed information about how to go about testing the item to understand exactly what is wrong, disassembly and reassembly in detail.
Normally before I start any big project that I have never attempted before I will have done all of the work in my head.
I will know exactly which parts come off in what order. What to look for to tell if a part is bad and how it all goes back together. I will know every tool I need, every socket size and whether I own all the tools necessary to complete the job.
Preparing your mind is just as important as ordering parts.
And remember no matter who you are or how qualified you are suppose to be there are going to be things you come up against that you have never attempted. As a matter of fact with new technologies and methods no good repair person of any trade will ever know exactly what they will come up against even if they have worked the job many times before.
The good thing is even if things change you will have the basic skills to complete the job and all you will need to learn is that last 15% of special tasks that you can get out of a manual or ask someone about.
And remember Parts Suppliers are your friends. They may not know everything about every part but because they sit there all day listening to people complain about how things didn’t work out on their last project they have the knowledge to steer you in the right direction for your problem.. and if they don’t they know they won’t be selling you parts which earns them money to buy stuff that they need to learn to fix.
Final Note
So, learning on your own to fix things takes a lot of work and that work happens when you are learning basic skills performing smaller jobs.
If you ever do have to pay a mechanic then ask them a lot of questions, go stand by the bay door and watch them do the work and learn but don’t get in their way and then maybe next time you may not have to take your car in.
If you want to build a house then start by building a deck or a shed.
It does take time but to become a good carpenter means you have hammered thousands of nails.