03/01/2023
Vital home maintenance tips that could save your life
The most drastic outcome when you ignore home maintenance is that you put your life and your home’s structural integrity in danger.
In this section, I’m going to go through the vital tips you need to know and take action on.
Test your sump pump to avoid flooding
Sump pumps are often found in basements, and are the last line of defense against floods, condensation build-up and water from drains. Unless you’re happy to end up with a flooded basement or damaged foundation, you need to test the pump at least every 6 months.
Here’s how:
Remove debris from the outside pipe
Restart the pump so to test if it’s running (unplug and plug it back in)
Pour water into the sump crock and ensure the pump starts running and pumps the water away
For extra protection, consider getting an automatic leak detector.
Clean your window wells to avoid breakage from water pressure
Window wells are great for letting natural light into your basement and providing ventilation. They also keep soil away from your window fixtures, but they can put your basement at risk if they’re not looked after.
Leaves and other debris can clog the drainage pipe, and after extended rainfall, the water pressure against your basement window will be intense.
If you don’t clean the drainage, the water pressure can smash the glass and pour gallons of water inside. So, make sure you’re using a shorthanded shovel, a snake, or just your hands to pull out any blockages from the pipe.
Check for mice nests near wiring
It’s not fun to have mice living with you, regardless of where they are. However, when they nest in places like your A/C units, garden machinery, and near electrical wiring, it can be disastrous.
Make sure to check for mice in your home, or risk electrical faults and fires. Here’s how:
Clean your dryer vents and avoid a house fire
Every time you use your dryer, you’re adding a little bit of lint to the vent. This means the dryer is less efficient at cooling down, and will take longer to dry your clothes. But it also turns dryers into fire hazards.
Remove the vent at the back of the dryer, and vacuum the area. Alternatively, use a cleaning kit like this to make sure you’re maintaining this vital part of your home.
Protect yourself against termites
Termites pose a considerable risk to wooden homes, and without the proper precautions you could find yourself stepping out onto your porch and falling through it, or even finding out your entire home’s foundation has rotted away.
Termites can’t survive sunlight, so the most likely places you’ll find them is in your basement. Go down there and use a spray can of foam to plug any gaps where they could get in, then take a flashlight and screwdriver to inspect the wood for signs of damage. Poke the wood with a screwdriver and check for weaknesses. If the wood is flaky or rotting, you might already have a problem that needs professional attention or a DIY solution.
Replace the batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
Twice a year, change the batteries in each detector. To be safe, you should have at least one of each type of detector on each level of your home. If you’re prone to forget this task, change the batteries when you change your clocks for daylight savings time.
Don’t rely on the automatic beeping to tell you when to change the batteries. After replacement, be sure to hold the test button down for 15-20 seconds after changing, so you can hear whether or not the battery is faulty.
Make sure your fire extinguisher is working
I’m not saying to set it off, but you do need to inspect it with a few things in mind. According to Allstate, you should make sure:
The fire extinguisher is accessible
The safety seals are intact
The pressure gauge is within normal parameters
There’s no damage to the extinguisher (e.g. corrosion, dents, leakage)
You’re documenting your inspections
…Because the last thing you want is your dryer to start a fire, your smoke alarm not to detect it, then your fire extinguisher to fail.
Clean your chimneys yearly
You’re lucky to have a home with a wood-burning fireplace — don’t let it become a danger. A buildup of dirt, birds nests or objects ending up in your chimney can easily catch fire and burn your house down. Not to mention, a chimney that doesn’t efficiently air the house out can cause a build-up of smoke or deadly carbon monoxide.
Don’t try and do this yourself. Instead, hire a chimney sweep. They can inspect your chimney and tell you if it even needs to be cleaned. Better safe than sorry.
Simple home maintenance tips that save you money
When you’ve got the life-threatening issues out of the way, it’s time to make your home into the most efficient living space it can be! Here you’re going to check that your appliances and fixtures aren’t wasting heat and energy.
Regularly clean refrigerator coils
Over time, all kinds of dust, grease, and dirt get stuck to the coils behind your refrigerator. It makes your appliance inefficient at best, dangerous at worst.
The coils are what your fridge uses to cool down, so if they are insulated, the fridge will have to work harder to get colder, or overheat.
The best way to clean the coils is with a vacuum cleaner. Unplug the fridge, pull it away from the wall and find the coils. They should be either behind a metal plate at the back, or behind the fridge under a grill lower down. They look like this:
Use the brush attachment of your vacuum, and work the grime away without forcing it. Use a cloth to gently wipe them down to catch anything the vacuum missed.
There you go! Enjoy lower running costs and the reduced risk of a house fire.
Bleed your radiators every year
Don’t trust your radiators to maintain themselves! It’s likely they will need bleeding each winter to ensure they’re running at full efficiency. Bleeding a radiator gets the excess air out, and means the radiator can get warmer with less power consumption.
To bleed a radiator, release the valve and hold a rag underneath it to catch drips. You should hear air seeping out. When the sound stops, tighten the valve up.
Keep your gutters in top condition
Cleaning the gutters out is something no one really wants to do, but it can save you money on replacement gutters, and even on repairing roof damage.
Clogged gutters can overflow and break, and put strain on the roof itself. In the winter, they can fill with ice that causes thawing damage or strains the material.
You can get special gutter cleaning tools, or do it the old fashioned way:
Put on a long-sleeved top and rubber gloves
Steady the ladder against the side of the house
Scoop the dirt out with a small shovel
Dump it onto a tarp, not your lawn
Flush the gutters out with a hose
Note: don’t bother with gutter guards. They can make your gutters impossible to clean. It’s not worth it!
Seal leaky doors and windows
Outwards facing windows and doors are prone to damage from the elements, which could cause the seals around the frames to rot away. When this happens, you’ll have a much tougher time heating your home because the heat will slowly seep away. If you’re waking up every morning to a freezing house, you’ll want to make this your number one priority. Even if you’re not, it’s well worth checking.
Have you found that the plastic seals around your windows and doors have withered? Your best bet is to replace it. It can be done quickly and cheaply:
Clean your range’s hood filter
Depending on how much frying you do, hood filters can get clogged with thick grease quickly. In order to stop the grease getting inside the range itself, filters are designed to trap grease. If yours is doing it’s job correctly, expect to see something pretty awful…
This isn’t the kind of cleaning you can do with a wet cloth, either. You’re going to need an agent to break down the grease. Here’s how you clean it:
Pop the filter out
Fill a bucket with boiling water
Sq**rt in dish soap, and pour a 1/4 cup of baking soda
Stir the bucket, then submerge the filter for 10 minutes
Remove, scrub clean, and leave to dry
With a fresh hood filter, your range will extract steam and grease more efficiently, saving you money and possible replacement costs for the range.
Run water through your fixtures
When toilets and sinks aren’t used regularly, grime can build up in the pipes and faucets. If you have a bathroom you don’t use very often, make sure to run water through the systems at least once a quarter to keep the flow coming smoothly and reduce future clogging.
Check air filters at least once a month
Changing your HVAC air filters regularly can cut energy bills by 5-15%! Plus, if you live in an area with lousy air quality or pollution, you need to keep the filters fresh to stay safe.
Swapping out filters is easy. There’s no cleaning to be done, so just take the old one out, dispose of it, then slot the new one in its place.
Give your HVAC a complete tune-up
Make sure you AC is functioning at peak capacity by getting an HVAC tune-up at least once a year.
You might not know exactly if and when you need this, so it’s safest to schedule it annually in advance or risk your unit breaking down on the hottest day of the year.
Inspect your boiler for damage and proper pressure
When materials heat up and cool down as often as boilers, they’re prone to wear. Make sure to check your boiler annually in the following ways:
Make sure there are no holes or cracks in your boiler’s vent connection pipe and chimney
Check for water leakage
Ensure the pressure is within normal parameters (this information comes with the boiler)
Another tip is to run your boiler at least once a month, even in summer. This way, you keep it efficient.
Keep your garbage disposal running smoothly
Since you throw all kinds of junk into your garbage disposal, it’s only logical it’ll need a little care and attention on a regular basis.
After use, make sure to always run the machine with cold water for a minute with dish soap inside. Cold water will help solidify any grease so it can be chopped up before hitting the trap.
As well as this minor periodic maintenance, you’ll need to make an effort to properly upkeep the unit. An easy way to do this is to toss a lemon or an orange into the disposal once or twice a month. The citric acid from the fruit helps break up any buildups of grease, and, as an added bonus, it smells great.
If the garbage disposal is giving off a particularly nasty smell, just pour 4 tablespoons of Borax down the drain and leave it to sit for an hour or so before rinsing with hot water.
Top up your water softener
Unlike many appliances, water softeners are low maintenance. All you need to do is to keep them topped up with high-quality salt (e.g. not course rock salt).
During hot weather or when it’s warm inside, water softeners tend to form what are called salt bridges. This is when a layer of salt hardens inside the machine. Using quality salt should avoid this issue in the future, but if you’re experiencing it now, simply break up the layer of salt with something you can poke into the tank.
Check your toilet cistern for leaks
Leaks account for 12% of all water use in America, and it’s often the toilet that’s at fault. If you want to save on your water bill try this:
Remove the lid on the tank
Drip 10 drops of food coloring into the tank
Replace the lid
After 15 minutes, look in the bowl
Is the water in the bowl food-colored? If so, you’ve got a leak and need to replace the flapper.
Here’s how to fix it:
Turn off the water supply by turning the valve located behind the toilet
Remove the lid and flush
Mop out excess water with a sponge
Remove the chain from the lever
Slide the faulty flapper up and off the overflow tube.
Replace the flapper, re-hook the chain, turn on the water and test again
