Let's face it, plumbing repairs can never seem to wait until it's convenient. Sinks clog, faucets leak and toilets back up mostly when it's inconvenient or when hiring a professional plumber requires paying double time (like this holiday weekend).

So it pays for you, as an About.com Home Repair weekend warrior, to become familiar with the tools of the trade.

In the tutorial Top 10 Plumbing Tools, we'll review what specialized tools you need to have around the house and when to use them.

Labor Day is coming and its a good time to prepare for the final summertime treatment. This includes lawn nutrition and aeration.

In this tutorial Organic Lawn Care - Aerating and Mowing I'll cover why aeration is important for a healthy yard and learn how to organically care for your yard (no we don't use tofu!).

Think about your pets and children and the time they spend on your lawn. Fertilizers and weed killer chemicals enter into the pads of your pet's paws and your children's hands and mouth. Organic lawn care allows your yard to be safe for children and pets while still having it look great.

Few things are worse than a low-flow toilet that will not flush. Fortunately, the advancement in technology of the pressure assisted toilet has now enabled super low volume toilets that both work (a nice feature) and save even more water than early 1.6 gallon per flush toilets (required since 1992).

These new power assist toilets use as little as 1.1 gallons per flush and can save up to 8,000 gallons of water per year for a family of four over a 1.6 gallon per flush toilet.

And if you have an older style toilet that uses 3.5 to 5 gallons per flush, well the water savings with a power assisted toilet will, well, blow you away!

Sometimes you come upon a home repair project that you decide to tackle with a checkbook instead of a hammer. You may decide to hire a professional contractor for a major roofing project or exterior home painting or any number of possible projects.

Getting Contractor Bids and Evaluating an Estimate is something you need to know how to do to protect yourself and end up with a successful project. It's also not fair to a good contractor who does a detailed proposal and includes a full scope of work, to have their price compared to a fly-by-night company who throws a low-ball number out there just to get your business.

Most contractors are hard working and knowledgeable pros who want to do a good job and an informed consumer is often their best customer. So read Getting Contractor Bids and Evaluating an Estimate and learn how to scope a project, understand what to look for in the bids of different contractors like painters, roofers, plumbers, etc. You'll learn that what is "Excluded" in a bid is often as important as what is "Included" in the proposal. And don't forget to read about how to evaluate price, payment terms and what it means if your contractor is proposing "incentives" to you.

With a little preparation you'll be able to communicate much more successfully with your contractor, and you'll both enjoy the process.