Who knew that storm door latches can break?

Last week, the handle on my storm door between my condo and garage broke. I wasn’t even barging through or anything – I just pushed the handle in and the metal failed in my hand. After discussing the issue with some other people, I decided that Home Depot would probably sell replacement latches and I could swap out the entire assembly. (I assumed that option would be cheaper and less of a production than swapping out the whole storm door. I’m not sure if I was right.)

So I bring the broken assembly with me to Home Depot on Friday night and the place is a zoo. I couldn’t find anyone to help me and after carefully inspecting my options, I chose one that seemed to be the same size and have the same screw spacing. It looked like it would work. There were no measurements on the packaging so I assumed that my assembly was a standard size and that the assembly I was buying was also a standard size.

I get home and start working (you know me and my wild Friday nights!) and pretty quickly realize that I need another hole in my aluminum storm door because the new assembly is shorter than the old one. (I kind of got distracted by that and wish I had THOUGHT to check for other issues.) I had no drill and since I only needed one hole I figured I could just hammer a nail to make the hole.

One of my favorite magazine advertisements from about 5 years ago was for a full-sized truck (Chevy maybe?) and it said, “Sometimes you need a bigger hammer”. Turns out, sometimes you need a bigger nail. I was trying to make a hole in the door and the nails I was using kept bending. I got very frustrated.

So after a lot of loud pounding of the biggest nail I could find, I finally made an acceptably sized hole. I struggled to attach the new assembly to the door, even with the aid of some duct tape. I spent way too much time and energy, and when I finally finished, I stepped back to admire my handy work and realized that the distance between the latch and the cut out in the door frame that it’s supposed to rest in is like 2 inches. Oops.

At that point, I figured I had two options: 1) I could remove and return the assembly and see if there was a different size that I didn’t see or 2) I could buy a drill and drill some new holes in my door so that I could reinstall the new assembly. After sleeping on it, I decided that it was time for me to purchase my own drill.

I bought a cordless variety from Lowe’s (too peeved to go back to HD), charged it up, busted out my safety glasses, and had a field day on Sunday, drilling holes and installing the handle assembly (and almost locking myself out of my house). A job that I figured would take me all of 20 minutes on Friday night ended up taking almost 2 hours spread over 2 days but I don’t even care because I feel so satisfied for having done something for myself. When I start a project, I always have an idea of how and what I need to do to get to my end goal. It’s funny how even with a game plan, the actual route always involves some detours.

I always say, even though I grew up in a family that never had any tools (at least the mechanical variety), as a mechanical engineer I am committed to spending the rest of my life making up for my unmechanical upbringing.