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My history repairing manufactured homes

I was licensed by the State of New Mexico as an MHD-3 for three years A MHD-3 in New Mexico is licensed to do any kind of repair to a mobile home including carpentry, plumbing, gas and electrical work. I specialized in buying older homes, replacing floors, rebuilding kitchens and baths, texturing the walls, repairing plumbing, putting in new carpet and returning them to good condition.

I have also worked in the service department of a major mobile home manufacturer where I learned how the homes are constructed and scheduled technicians responding to hundreds of requests for warranty work from new homeowners.

I am now working closely with Magic Mobile Home Supply, a family owned mobile home business in Albuquerque since 1969, to expand the range and depth of the mobile home repair information on this site. We are building a website for them at www.mhparts.com and will be linking between their parts pages and my advice pages. I am really pleased to finally have an answer to all the people who come to this site looking for parts. They have an 800 number and will be happy to talk to you about your mobile home parts needs in English or Spanish.

In my experience, most mobile home repair men (I never encountered a woman*) are opinionated, under capitalized, well meaning, and self taught with little formal education. They learn the trade by helping someone else. There are few books on the subject and the content of the available books tends to be out of date because of rapid advances in materials and methods. Many repair decisions are based on bad, wrong and miss-leading information.

I am updating and expanding this site. I can tell from the questions people ask me there is a need for a wider variety of mobile home information. The new pages will look like the home page. The old pages look like this one.

The success of Mobile Home Doctor and the growth of the web has convinced me that many others could benefit from a website. So, I have been building some example sites for people with the following interests.

For the antique car buff I have www.old-carburetors.com. This is the Carter Carburetor manual covering vehicles from 1938 to 1947. It includes such forgotten names as LeSalle, Fargo, Hupmobile, Reo, and Willys. Not the sort of thing that will make popular reading, but if you happen to be restoring one of these old vehicles, it will provide the detailed specifications you need to rebuild the carburetor.

I have also ventured into the area of repairs for bungalow style homes built during the arts and crafts era. This was during 1900-1925 and many of these old home are currently being restored and renovated. Reading about how they were made and trying to find period furnishings to make them look as they did is an interesting hobby.

As you can tell from the white hair in my picture I have reached the point where we want to start getting rid of some of the "Stuff" we have accumulated over the years. We inherited stuff from grandparents on both sides as well as parents. Where I grew up, in southern Minnesota, the solution would be to have a farm auction and everything would go. The auction tradition doesn't really exist here in New Mexico and I am not ready for such a drastic step in any case. However, Ebay has come along and provides the idea venue for selling stuff in a more gradual way.

My wife and I have been buyers on Ebay since 1999 and have also sold some things. We will be selling more in the next few years. I hated to see all the work of preparing auction photos and listings for Ebay go to waste so I have started an online auction website. As I prepare items for sale I add them to the online auction site and I also plan to add the sales information from Sellathon.

Ebay works hard to make the selling process as simple as they can, but there is a lot to learn. We have been the buyer or seller for more than 2,000 auctions so I know I can present the details of how to sell there in an informative and useful way. The site is not complete but already has over 100 pages and lots of useful information. If you are interested in learning more about online auctions, visit the site and see for yourself.

Thanks for visiting Mobile Home Doctor. I hope you enjoy your time here and tell your friends to visit here when they need answers to their mobile home repair questions.

Paul AKA Mobile Home Doctor

* After all these years I finally "Meet" a female mobile home repair person. She lives in Michigan and wrote me a nice note about finding this site and how she got into the business.