Proper Home Maintenance and Prevention
Just like a car or any type of machinery, it’s important to execute a regular maintenance program for your home. What this means is that you do necessary work for various areas of the house and the appliances to help prevent issues that happening or happening as often.
Almost everyone is familiar with the phrase of spring cleaning. It’s that time of year, where you will get down to all of these activities that we don’t really look forward to, but they got to happen after a long winter and things getting really dirty or grimy. For example, a garage is an area of the home that will get extremely dirty through a winter. So, when springtime comes around, you definitely want to make sure that you get this area cleaned up for Spring and the Summer ahead.
Depending on the climate in which you live, this dirty garage is full of old dirt, mud, and salt from the wintry icy and snowy roadways. If you’re not in colder climates, then perhaps you have quite a few dried up worms that have migrated into the garage after the rainy weather. All of this and our old friends the spiders, their cobwebs, and all of the usual assortment of bugs also make the garage a prime candidate for cleanup at springtime!
Inside the house might be the same thing for certain folks, especially if they have mud rooms and other areas that also took a beating during the winter months. Spending some good time cleaning and arranging things that no longer need to be out in the new season is a good idea. But, more than anything else, it’s time to look at all of those items that will help the home age better and not have as many issues. Starting outside, what about the rain gutters, are they clogged up with tree branches or leaves still from Fall and Winter?
The next big place to think about are all of those home appliances that we can’t live without in the modern life we live today. Back in the garage, it would be a good idea to look at the garage door openers and make sure the chains are taught, have sufficient grease, and the door and rollers are in good condition.
The laundry room should be thought about, in terms of both the appliances like the dryers and washers, as well as the dryer vent to make sure it’s free of lint and any other obstructions. These will make the dryer work harder than it needs to and age it, unnecessarily.
Well, this post is getting long and we should probably end it here. But, there’s so much more to talk about that we’ll continue in a future post. Let’s end by also talking about the things discuss next time. For example, improper maintenance of things like water heaters in your house can lead to an unexpected plumbing mishap. This happened to one of my friends in Colorado last month and I referred them to an emergency plumber in Denver, CO. These folks come in like a knight in shining armor and do great work. But, it can be far cheaper and less hassle to not get to this kind of situation. So, take care of your home with preventative maintenance and we’ll talk more next time.