As I travel around the country giving seminars and training classes on Rehab 101, I often am asked if I have a favorite home repair technique. The first thing that comes to mind is Bondo®. Yes, the same Bondo® body filler that mechanics use to repair dents on wrecked cars.

Here's my favorite story:

A man approached me with a problem on his bay window. The window sill had a rotted area about 18 inches long, and it also went slightly under the sash. He had gotten estimates to replace his bay window unit for about $2,000. That included removing the old bay window, supplying and installing the new one, and painting it.

He asked me if I had any ideas to avoid this costly repair, and I told him that I could repair his window for about $10 if he would paint the window himself. He was amazed and immediately asked me to proceed. Here's how I did it:

I went to a place that sold auto parts and supplies and bought a quart of Bondo® body filler for just under $10. Then I took a screwdriver and dug out all the rotted wood in the area of the window sill. I allowed it to dry (I sped up the process with a blow dryer.) and then mixed the Bondo® and hardener as per its label directions.

Then I scooped up the bondo mixture and put it in a one-gallon plastic baggy. After squeezing the Bondo® into the corner of the baggy, I cut the corner of the baggy and used it like a cake decorator would. I slightly overfilled the cavity then took a paint stir stick (free from anywhere that sells paint) and used it to push the Bondo® into all areas needed.

After about ten minutes, the Bondo® dried solid. Then I used a palm sander with 200-grit sandpaper to sand the widow sill smooth. We took a piece of the scraped out window sill to the paint store and had the color computer matched. The man bought a quart of the matched paint and painted the window, and it looked as good as new, saving him literally almost $2,000.

There are hundreds of tips like these in my Rehab 101 system and classes. Here are a few more things that you can do with Bondo®:

• Fill in holes and cracks in plaster walls with Bondo®. It's permanent, and dry wall mud sometimes falls out of plaster wall repairs when disturbed or bumped.





• Make repairs in handrails, floorboards, steps, seats, and seat backs on decks With Bondo®. Then just sand smooth and paint.





• For holes in hollow core doors, just fill the hole with tin foil for a backing, spread Bondo generously over the hole and let it dry. Then sand it and paint the door for a permanent fix.





• Bondo® can also fill cracks in concrete as long as the concrete surface is to be painted afterwards. The color won't match the concrete, so you need to paint it. I sometimes add sand to the paint to match the texture of some surfaces.

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