In our home, there’s always something that needs fixing. If it’s a big enough problem, I usually get right on it since there are some problems that are just not worth avoiding, like a leaking sink for example. Then there are those problems that are not in-your-face noticeable, but over time drive you mad. In today’s post, we show you two of those long, nagging issues that we quickly fixed using vaseline.
Quiet a Noisy Door
In a home with two little children, silence is golden. We had a nursery room door that didn’t subscribe to that philosophy and routinely squeaked whenever it was touched. No big deal normally, but when your five month old is sleeping and any small noises will wake her, that noisy door is suddenly a liability.
Here’s how we silenced our door. We removed each hinge pin and one at a time coated them with a light amount of vaseline and then reinserted them back into the hinge. It’s easier to do them one at a time like that then to remove them all at once. Also keep in mind that we added a dollop of vaseline to some tissue paper so as to not get the vaseline contaminated with the crud that’s on the hinge pin.
To remove each pin, I used a small roofing nail to hit the hing pin from below with a hammer.
A noisy hinge is caused from metal rubbing against metal. The vaseline gets between them and lubricates the joint. You can see from the picture of the hinge pin below that there was some metal to metal rubbing, which is why there are dark spots.
With all three hinge pins lubricated, the door is dead quiet.
Unstick an Entry Door
Since we mainly enter and leave our home through our garage door, the front door is really only used when we have company or if we get a package. Consequently, it tends to stick after it’s been closed for a while. It takes a good solid pull to open it. It’s not sticking from the door making contact with the frame. The door appears to be adhering to the weather stripping.
So, back to the vaseline. I used another dollop of the petroleum jelly and applied a thin layer of it to the weather stripping where it makes contact with the door. I added to both sides and the top.
That’s it. The door no longer sticks.
That wasn’t so hard.
Do you have any home improvement uses for vaseline?
