Most people work out of their busy schedules to hit the gym and take their car for a regular maintenance routine. This shows how crucial it is to maintain your body and car to keep them running efficiently and smoothly. Similarly, homeowners need regular preventative home maintenance services.
Admittedly, home maintenance can be overwhelming and tedious. But being proactive with a small investment of your money, effort, and time can help you benefit from home maintenance services. The last thing you want is costly home repairs that can be avoided with preventative maintenance services. Regardless of the season, here are the preventive home maintenance services you should look for.
Lighting
It would help if you had a lighting checklist to help minimize electricity bills, maximize energy saving, improve the lighting in your area, and improve reliability throughout your home. So, keep your lighting in good shape by implementing these tips.
- Replace burned-out lamps.
- Inspect lighting fixtures regularly.
- Replace gaskets for a watertight seal.
- Re-aim adjustable lighting as required.
- Dust lamps and clean lens surfaces to improve lighting.
- Check the exterior lights to ensure all hardware and screws are in place and working well.
- Safely store used bulbs until a certified vendor removes them. Remember, lighting elements may contain mercury or lead.
- Check any luminaries with transformers, accessories, or control gear regularly, such as glare baffles, spread lenses, and color filters.
Contacting reliable professionals for the best electrical lighting services for your home is also important. They provide services like installing new wiring, helping change switches and lights, or basic light maintenance.
Home’s Safety
We spend most of our lives at home, whether in a condo, a house, or an apartment. However, it’s easy to ignore all the home safety maintenance, which may put you and your family at risk. You can maintain a healthier and safer household by implementing practical home safety to-dos. Conduct safety inspections regularly to ensure your home’s and its occupants’ welfare. Make sure to replace faulty, old wiring and install smoke alarms accordingly.
Painting
Home interior painting is a major job, whether you DIY it or hire a local painting company. It helps to perform proper paint maintenance on your home. Your home looks great year after year, even when it’s a long since you painted it last. Failure to perform paint maintenance makes your home look dirty and shabby after a few years.
Moreover, when you perform proper paint maintenance, it’ll extend the lifespan of your house paint so that you may go longer between full repainting projects. This saves you more money and time!
HVAC Maintenance
You can avoid air conditioning repair if you keep it updated as required. This helps preserve your indoor air quality and energy efficiency. So, inspect the unit at least twice annually. It helps to look for screw or latch updates, gasket repairs, and missing screw replacements. In addition, make sure you also do the following.
- Clean and replace air filters regularly.
- Check for leaks and inspect couplings.
- Check motor starter contacts for efficient operation.
- Inspect the wiring and clean the starter and cabinet.
- Lubricate pumps yearly and inspect them for unusual noises.
- Inspect the settings for energy efficiency, particularly the refrigerant charge, compressor, and thermal expansion valves.
- Disassemble access panels and screens in cooling towers for inspections, including the spray nozzles, fill valve, gearbox, fan blades, motor bearings, drive coupling, and support structure.
Electrical Equipment
Look for damage signs like banging, popping, and rumbling noises on your electrical equipment like the water heater, microwave, dishwasher, and food blender. Get in touch with a water heater replacement company for water heater replacement if it’s more than ten years old.
You should ensure that your electrical equipment works properly by checking breaker boxes, batteries, outlets, switches, and other electrical components regularly. This ensures there is no corrosion or cracking.
Replace any battery that needs replacement, and keep grilles, circuit boxes, and electrical storage free of debris, dirt, and dust. Implementing these maintenance tips regularly can help extend the lifespan of your electrical equipment.
Plumbing
Plumbing plays an essential role in maintaining your home. Minor issues may worsen and become costly to fix. That’s why hiring an emergency plumber who can maintain your plumbing system, from repairs to early detection of malfunctions on the way, is essential. Efficient and easy-operating plumbing lets you have fresh and clean water and keep your home clean.
So, perform a thorough drain cleaning by checking for leaks around your home. This helps keep your plumbing system from running into expensive repairs. If left unfixed, a small leak may turn into a big issue. Check for leaks in the following places.
- Faucets
- Pipe fittings
- Toilet flappers
- Showerheads
Inspect these places regularly. For instance, turn on the faucets to ensure no water comes from the handles. Check your toilet flappers for a tight fit so water isn’t leaking. In addition, check the caulking around your tub, sinks, and shower in the bathroom. Water may get into your walls, and they’ll crack.
Remember, clogs in the drain can lead to a high cost in repairing plumbing issues. Failure to prevent a clog can lead to a complete blockage. Plus, clogs put pressure on your pipes, which reduces their lifespan. Here are ways to prevent clogs.
- Remove debris in your tub and snake the branch drains to unclog.
- Use a drain basket in the tub and shower to catch hair so it won’t drain.
- Don’t flush feminine products, paper towels, diapers, hair, etc. down the toilet.
- Use garbage disposal well. Leave the water for seconds after you turn the disposal off to clear and clean the drain.
Fire Safety
Regular preventative maintenance on your house’s fire safety system helps ensure it works when needed. Check the central control panel, pull stations, and sprinkler heads. You should also check your standpipes and calibrate pressure relief valves appropriately.
Bathrooms and Kitchens
Bathrooms and kitchens are your home’s germiest, gunkiest rooms. Unfortunately, cleaning your bathroom and kitchen isn’t most of the homeowners’ chore list. However, these are the must-do jobs for your safety and health—and most gratifying once everything is sparklingly clean. To clean your kitchen, start cleaning where you prep most of your meals. You may even work from the top, which helps prevent tracking germs and dirt back onto the floors and counters.
While at it, you can choose to be environmentally friendly by considering an alternative to commercial washing products. Use a vinegar solution mixed with hot water for walls, appliances, and cabinets to help neutralize odors, dissolve grease, and remove dirt. For the kitchen sink, gently wipe with a disinfectant at least once a week. Remember to clean around the sink frequently to prevent the spread of germs.
For your meal prep surfaces like sinks and counters, clean them with water and a mild detergent, then disinfect them. However, use the disinfecting agent your countertop installer recommends for specialty surfaces. In some situations, you can use a bleach-based solution like a teaspoon of household bleach per hot water may be used.</p.
Check the pantry, freezer, cupboards, and refrigerator for expired foods. Dispose of any that are beyond the use-by dates. Use baking soda to clean tough-to-clean areas like bathtubs. Avoid streaky shower doors by rubbing vinegar into the hard water stains. If you want other safer cleaning products for your family and environment, consider purchasing products with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Safer Choice sticker. They contain safer chemical solvents that are less harmful to the environment.
Finally, check your medicine drawers and cabinets for expired or old dietary prescriptions, supplements, and other medications. Don’t flush unused medicines down the toilet. Follow your local waste disposal provider for guidelines on properly disposing of old medicines. If your kitchen cabinets are broken, contact a kitchen cabinet company for repair or replacement.
Keep of Mold
Mold is mainly found in damp, wet places. No matter how keen you’re about removing black mold, it’ll come back if you don’t solve the underlying problem. Black mold removal is easy if you know typical hangouts in your home and eliminate the moisture source.
Ensure the gutters are directing water away from your house. Hiring an expert to plug cracks in foundation walls with an epoxy injection system would be best. Install a sump pump to clear water during heavy rain or flooding. You can also use a dehumidifier to remove moisture in the air.
Open windows to ventilate the room, especially after showering. You can also run the exhaust fan while showering, leave it on for about 15 minutes, and leave the door open. Check for leaks under the sink and spongy floor, which might indicate a leaky shower stall, toilet, or bathtub. Moreover, inspect for leaky roofs by checking for loose, missing, or broken shingles.
Make sure you seal all cracks around the window where rain might enter through. If condensation forms on the windows, especially double-pane ones, you may replace the glass panel to stop the dampness. But it helps to replace the entire unit.
Water damage may occur in your home at any time. This is mainly caused by storm bursts, flooding, seepage from underground, leaking pipes, and damaged gutters and roofs. Water damage in your home can create a perfect ground for mold and bacterial growth. Contact a water mitigation company to help fix water damage and perform the appropriate mitigation.
Pests Eradication
Pests can threaten your home’s serenity. You might hear rodents scurrying around the basements and walls or feel bed bugs crawling on your mattress or skin! As a result, you may experience flashbacks, nightmares, or general fear of being in a house where you saw bugs. Luckily, pest infestations can be easily avoided by implementing pest control measures. Keep reading for some of the DIY pest control measures.
- Trim shrubs and bushes touching your house’s exterior. This helps deter wood-destroying pests like carpenter ants and termites from crawling into your home.
- Keep bird feeders at a distance of about 25 ft from your house. Spilled seeds might attract rodents like rats.
- If you have spotted any sign of pest infestation, seek professional assistance from a reliable pest control company.
Tree Trimming
Your trees can develop weak or even diseased branches. These branches are vulnerable and can fall during heavy storms. Even during pleasant weather, neglected branches can break and fall easily.
Falling branches might cause damage to your powerlines and home and can even fall into the sidewalk or street. This is a safety hazard as well. Trim your trees to help avoid structural damage to your home.
Most importantly, well-trimmed trees give your yard a nice aesthetic appeal. Tree trimming provides a more symmetrical shape, particularly if older branches grow toward the ground. With proper tree care, your trees can keep your home beautiful and shaded for decades.
Boiler Maintenance
Having a practical boiler maintenance checklist can help boost the longevity of your home’s heating system. Ultimately, it helps minimize energy and operating costs and improve safety.
Make sure you inspect your boiler regularly. Besides, you don’t have to wait for your yearly inspection to start. You may use daily, monthly, or periodic boiler inspection and maintenance checklists to ensure it’s performing efficiently.
Most importantly, ensure a certified boiler installation and maintenance expert inspects your boiler at least once annually. Meanwhile, here is a simple boiler maintenance checklist.
- Inspect the combustion air openings.
- Inspect under and around your boiler equipment for any leaks.
- Listen closely for any unusual noises or vibrations from the equipment.
- Ensure the vent termination isn’t blocked or obstructed by snow, ice, or debris.
- If you notice any error codes, note them down and consult your service contractor.
- Ensure the area around your boiler is free of materials that might cause obstruction.
- Check the pressure and temperature readings to ensure they’re within the designed range.
Although there are other preventative home maintenance services that you can do to keep your house in good shape, this guide should help keep your home in pristine condition. These preventative home maintenance services will save you time in the long run and finances that could be used to solve an escalated issue. Although most are easy, meaning you can DIY, seeking expert help is wise.