By Paula O’Kray

Some people plan really cool, fun things for the weekend, but not me. I decided to fix my vacuum.

It’s a Shark Rotator, specially made to deal with pet hair, since my dog, Ms. K is quite a shedder when she decides to blow her coat, and I thought it would be an excellent investment. And it has been, but a week or so ago the brush roller stopped working, and it made the machine practically useless.

I had a friend take a look at it and he told me that it was something with the wiring, which made it costly to fix.

I put the vacuum aside so I could think about what I wanted to do. Besides, I had a lot of other naggy little domestic fixes to address first.

Forgetting it was broken, I went to use it a few times and thought, “I really should get to that darn project.” So when it happened one evening that I was bored with nothing else I wanted to do, I thought, “Okay, let’s take the vacuum apart!”

I had done a bit of research on it, looking on Youtube for a solution. I was pleased to find that some lady had solved the problem I had, and put it all on video for me to follow.

I set my phone up with the video, got my tool bag out, and went to work in the middle of my kitchen floor. I removed all the screws I could see, but that didn’t do it. I played the video to discover that there were several hidden screws to remove, and went after those. I think there were ten in all.

The panel popped off easily, just like the lady said it would. At this point though, my back was not happy about me sitting on the kitchen floor. It had been talking to me for a few days, and I realized that it’d been a while since I’d seen my chiropractor.

I got up, walked around, had a glass of juice, then got back at it. I flipped the vacuum over and looked at the switch that was giving me the problem. I unplugged the little connector so I could completely remove the panel and access the switch properly. I was starting to feel pretty handy at this point!

It took a bit of work to get the wires out of the way, but I pulled the switch out, and cut it free from the wires holding it in. The lady on the video said I needed to strip the wires, splice them together, and the problem would be fixed.

That sounded simple, but then I realized I didn’t own a wire stripper tool. I discovered though, that with some gentle work with an Exacto blade, you can accomplish the same thing. I stripped the wires, twisted them together, and sealed it all up with electrical tape.

I carefully placed the wires back into the compartment, making sure everything was where it should be before plugging the connector back in and screwing the outside panel back on. When the moment of truth arrived, the vacuum fired up and the brush roller work perfectly.

I felt like I had just performed brain surgery! My reward? A bowl of dark chocolate ice cream covered with almonds.

Now what to do with that teeny, tiny nut I found on the floor after I’d put everything back together…