emergency inn repair
Posted on: Wed, 10/08/2008 - 7:17am
Original Topic
OfflineOr Innkeeping 101
Guests left at 6:30 am after a 6 am breakfast, locked the guestroom door as they left, went off to catch the ferry. 6:40, i go to their room figuring i will freshen it now ... and the door knob is on the floor. i pick up the doorknob, cannot put it back on the pin thing that it turns on. Door is locked. what now?
what kind of tool can i stick in the hole to grab that pin and turn the pin to open the door?!
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Comments
Needle nose pliers? These are pliers with long skinny ends.
If you can't find those, maybe some tweezers?
Good luck!
=)
Kk.
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College House Bed and Breakfast, Ashland, OH
Ditto what KK said.
Yep, the needle nose pliers hopefully will do the trick. Then you need to find the set screw that held the door knob on in the first place!! Those little screws are always loosening up - I carry one of those tiny flat head screw drivers in my cleaning caddy to tighten those bad boys up all the time.
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a very thin flat head screwdriver.
If none of the above suggestions work, take a picture of the part of the mechanism you can see and upload it here and I can probably give you a better course of action.
For those with loosening set screws, the next time you are at the harware store, get a thing of Loctite Threadlocker Blue
(the blue is removeable, the red is permanent)
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I'm surprised that my Harry the Homeowner handyman husband doesn't know about that stuff. Jeez...we have bottles of all kinds of stuff around here. Thanks!
LOL Sometimes us handymen types know so much we tend to forget some of the things we know
I have found many times that years spent working with my Grandfather and my Dad that I sometimes have answers on how to do things that I don't specifically remember learning, until I actually start doing it.
For loose screws (other than the ones in my head - no help for those), this little handy woman uses clear nail polish. Just brush on the threads and screw it in. It stays put, but is not like using glue as it will loosen if need be, you just will need a little muscle - or an electric screwdriver.
flunked this test
what on earth do you do when you run a place alone and are INNept?
tried the various tools i could locate around and almost pushed the doorknob on the other side onto the floor. had put out an s.o.s. and my son (thank you!) arrived ... got the door open ... i fluffed the room quick ... he had a spare doorknob set in basement ... presto changeo ... new doorknob! he said , these old doorknobs have to be replaced .. i can see where the brass parts are worn and the screws and thingies are no longer tightening ...
i'm going to put that threadlocker on my list!!
If the screws aren't tightening, the threadlocker won't have much effect. Lots of times those screws have taken lots of abuse and either the threads in hole have stripped out or the threads on the screw have been stripped off. If either of those happen then threadlocker won't help.
Take note of where your son stashed the spare handle as you can usually use that to get yourself in if this ever happens again.
We have some places where door hardware screws have no wood to screw into. My dh has bought another tube of some kind of wood filler goop to try & give the tiny brass screws something to bite into. Yeesch....there is always something!
You didn't flunk...you just had old antique hardware that was not cooperating with you!
We use the wood filler too on old doors. Another thing that they sell to help in these situations is a mesh. You put it in the hole and it grabs the wood and the screw grabs that.
If the hole is too big and nothing else works, dh puts wood glue in the hole and taps in a wood golf tee. Then after it dries, he saws it off and the hole is then filled with new wood. We do that quite often on our old doors.
We use the wood filler too on old doors. Another thing that they sell to help in these situations is a mesh. You put it in the hole and it grabs the wood and the screw grabs that.
If the hole is too big and nothing else works, dh puts wood glue in the hole and taps in a wood golf tee. Then after it dries, he saws it off and the hole is then filled with new wood. We do that quite often on our old doors.
You can also use one or more matchsticks...
=)
Kk.
Haha! Now I know a use for those golf tees since my dh never plays golf anymore
he showed me in the basement there are old doorknobs, some with that rod thing that goes through the door, some without ... he brought up a couple that looked like they might fit and got one to 'grab' hold and open the door.
you're right, the old screws are 'stripped' i guess. and there is a problem with the doorjamb itself.
same door, different knob, we had guests lock themselves IN ... doorknob was just spinning ... they about went nuts! i told them help was coming and they could come out the window onto the front porch if they wanted to ... window is BIG and only a foot off the floor ... easy for me or them to pop the screen out. no, they didn't want to do that but kept yanking on the doorknob. panicking.
I am not too handy but am learning as I go along. Isn't that the best way to learn something? Trial by fire. That has been my innkeeping experience so far.
learning as you go is fine.
trouble is, when a guest is locked in (or out) of the room, i wish i already had learned how to take care of it. guests don't want to wait an hour or more for me to figure out a solution. just like when the toilet won't flush, or keeps flushing, when they break off the thing inside the toilet, when they break the shower knob off so that the shower can't be turned on or off, when an overhead light with one of those old fashioned pull cords gets broken, when their computer won't access the wifi, they want me to fix it right away and leave them to use the whatever.
learning as you go is fine.
trouble is, when a guest is locked in (or out) of the room, i wish i already had learned how to take care of it. guests don't want to wait an hour or more for me to figure out a solution. just like when the toilet won't flush, or keeps flushing, when they break off the thing inside the toilet, when they break the shower knob off so that the shower can't be turned on or off, when an overhead light with one of those old fashioned pull cords gets broken, when their computer won't access the wifi, they want me to fix it right away and leave them to use the whatever.
The worst guests we've had in re complaints about something not working are the ones needing the WiFi. They are the ones who start in immdiately saying we shouldn't advertise we have it if we don't. It does not matter how many other guests are happily emailing in the same room. If it doesn't work for them, then it is broken and should not be advertised.
We've had pipes break. Water not turn off. Breakers trip. All sorts of other problems and each of those has been met with, 'When you get a chance...'. Not so the WiFi. The WiFi HAS TO WORK NOW.
I just showed guests to a room with a gas fireplace. Could not make that thing turn on to save my life. Tried the clicker, nope. Tried the box on the floor, nope. Then it went on. I turned it off and couldn't get it back on again. Got it on and told the guest to just flip the switch to turn it off and if they were going out in the next few minutes I would change out the batteries. Nope. Going to bed. Thank you. You can fix it tomorrow, it's not important.
Three materials that every innkeeper ought to have for emergency repairs
For around $13 you are ready for a lot of unpredictable/emergency repairs.
Example: in this case the putty can be used to fill a stripped out hole in the framing and re-drilled after it hardens.
I can't count the number of times I've used some combination of these to fix something in an emergency until I can get to a store and get what I need to fix it properly.
Good advice, Swirt! We have all those things in our "small" tool bag except a different variation on the putty
Ah, the beauty of an old house.........