Online videos can walk even the most fumble-fingered among us through routine tasks, from fixing a leak to mending a garment. With a hint of bravery and your smartphone at your side, there's plenty of do-it-yourself repair and maintenance that you really can take on and save the hundreds of dollars you'd otherwise pay out to professionals.

However, finding those DIY videos remains a haphazard process. Some online videos are full of production goofs, nausea-inducing camera shake and barely audible audio. Others are slick, glossy and aimed squarely at selling you something rather than solving your problem. Many are just, well, bad. To help you out, we spent countless hours on YouTube and elsewhere watching a lot of videos to identify the best how-to tutorials to help you confidently tackle these 10 common DIY scenarios. Here's how to get started.

Fixing a Toilet

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For such a critical device, the toilet gets very little respect. But once you get past the ick factor (with an extra flush and a wipedown) they're generally cheap and easy to set straight when they misbehave, say, letting water run on and on and on.