yea, the amount of things i ended up repairing at my parents' house during the pandemic alone was pretty wild. learned hvac, too. fixed a broken pump (which i did replace, even though i repaired the commutator), redid all the piping/hosing, then for good measure learned how to replace the refrigerant which was also long-overdue (and didn't require too many new tools). there's really no excuse for people these days. things are more complex than they were in the past if you buy new, but things from the 80s and 90s or 00s are easily repairable, and it takes no time to just look up how to do it on some do it yourself or repair websites + some forums + youtube. and you're going to do a better job fixing things yourself than some stranger is going to care. again, i get it for certain types of like automotive things or things that involve really intensive labor (i'm not going to re-roof a house on my own). but i do most vehicle stuff on my own now, too (even ran a bunch of new vac lines recently to fix an evaporative issue).
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