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Showing Original Post only (View all)YouTube Can Often Save You from Making a Service Call [View all]
Many people love to hate YouTube. That's not surprising.
YouTube can waste a lot of time, if you just use it to watch puppy or kitten videos, or whatever other fun thing you use it for. However, it is also a valuable public service system, too. There are videos about almost anything you can imagine. That's especially true if you have a problem that needs to be fixed at your home or with appliances or cars.
Here's an example from this morning:
The master bath tub and shower in the home we just bought was draining slowly. However, the drain plug in the tub was a type I had never seen before, and I wasn't sure how to remove it so I could unclog the drain. My wife said, "Just call a plumber." That is not my style. I have tools. I know how to unclog drains. However, I did not know how to remove that drain stopper in that bathtub.
So, I went to YouTube and searched for "remove bathtub drain plug." Sure enough, one of the videos that showed up had a thumbnail image showing exactly the drain stopper in my new bathtub. The video demonstrated removing the stopper. It's a little tricky, and I would have wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out. I just finished doing that and using a hook probe tool to pull out the hair clogging the drain. Five minutes and no plumber's bill.
What is amazing to me is that there are people out there making videos showing how to do such common repairs on all sorts of things. I used another such video to learn how to change the drive belt on a Hotpoint clothes dryer. Someone had made a step-by-step video showing the process on exactly the dryer I had.
Kudos to all the people who are making videos like those. The more specific you are with your search, the more likely you will be to find exactly the video you need. From car repairs to home repairs, there's a video for every job you can imagine. Need to replace the timing belt on an older car? Just search for it and someone will have made a step-by-step video to help you do it for yourself and save money and time.