Home Maintenance
Tips
Maintain Your Home and Protect Your Investment; Our Inspection
DVD Customizes Tips for Your Home
A few important tips you can use to lower utility bills and future repair costs, as well as make your home more comfortable and safer to live in:
A few important tips you can use to lower utility bills and future repair costs, as well as make your home more comfortable and safer to live in:
- Homes lose most of their heat through air infiltration. Consider adding cellulose insulation to your attic. It can be added over existing insulation; it’s a relatively inexpensive and easy way to lower heating/cooling bills. The cellulose compacts and seals around plumbing and electrical outlets to form an airtight fit and can reduce drafts. In addition, it has the following benefits: it is insect and rodent resistant, flame retardant, non-toxic and environmentally friendly.
- Extend downspouts at least five feet away from your foundation; make sure downspouts and gutters are securely fastened to the house. Do not have downspouts discharge onto the roof. Houses should be built to shed water; they are not “waterproof”.
- Make sure dirt and mulch are at least 2” below the top of your foundation and that they slope away from your foundation, otherwise water will go over the top of the foundation and into your home.
- Get your central air conditioner ready to use by first turning off the breaker to your air conditioner at the panel. Take a garden hose with a sprayer attachment and spray off the outer coils of the air conditioner to remove debris. Turn on the breaker 24 hours before attempting to turn on the air conditioner. If you have a humidifier with a damper, make sure the damper is closed because the air conditioner will be less efficient if it’s open. Turn off your humidifier. Now change your furnace filter. When it has been at least 24 hours since you turned the breaker on, you can turn on your air conditioner. Call your HVAC contractor if it isn’t working properly. Some people have their air conditioners serviced yearly to make sure its working properly.
- Clean your gutters of debris make sure splash blocks are in good condition and that they direct water at least 5 feet away from the foundation (to get beyond the fill dirt of the foundation).
- Trim bushes at least 1 foot away from the air conditioner.
- Defrost your freezer and clean the coils on your refrigerator and freezer. Your refrigerator and freezer work harder in the summer.
- Change the batteries in your smoke detectors twice a year.
- Flush your water heater tank twice a year.