Tag: Home Maintenance
Home Tips for Spring
How Secure Is Your Garage Door?
When you close your overhead garage door, do you assume that your home is secure? For the most part it probably is, but there are a few ways crooks can still get through. Consider these measures to make sure your home is locked tight:
Look at the service door. The service door, or side door on your garage, is often one of the easiest points of entry for a burglar. Make sure the door has a deadbolt and a heavy-duty strike plate, as should all exterior doors in your home.
Install a garage door sensor. Sometimes your garage door security is compromised simply because someone forgot to close the door. This is where a sensor and monitor come in. Attach the sensor to the garage door and then place the monitor somewhere inside your house. If the garage door is open, the monitor will let you know.
Remove clickers from your vehicle. If you park a vehicle in the driveway, make sure you do not leave your garage door remotes in your vehicles (e.g., on the visor or center console). A thief can break into your car for entry into your house. Opt for a key-ring remote, which you can find online by typing in your garage door brand followed by “remote.”
Use an old-fashioned lock. If you are going to be away from your home for an extended period of time, you may want to lock your garage door track. Simply drill a hole in your garage door track just above one of the rollers and fasten a padlock through the hole. Even if a robber can fish the garage door lock open from the outside, he will not be able to actually roll up the door.
Install a smart home door opener. These high-tech garage door openers come with built-in security features such as monitors and lighting controls – all connected to your smartphone. This means that from anywhere, you can make sure your garage door is closed and your home is secure.
Source: The Family Handyman, Garage Security Tips
Fall Home Maintenance #3
Turning off your outdoor faucets sounds simple enough, but each fall many homeowners forget or neglect to winterize the faucets on the outside of their homes. This can be a costly mistake, potentially costing hundreds of dollars in repairs. Water can stay trapped in the pipe behind the faucet and freeze in the cold weather, causing pipes to crack or burst.
The first step to prevent this from happening is to locate each outdoor faucet on your home. Next, you will want to determine the style of your faucet(s). Newer models are generally frost proof. If this is the style of faucet on your home, winterizing is as easy as disconnecting any hoses and turning the water off. In these frost proof models, the valve is located well behind the faucet itself so the flow of water is stopped on the inside of your home. (See picture below)
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f you determine that your faucet is not a frost proof model, you will need to locate shut-off valves that should be installed in your basement leading to your outdoor faucets. You will need to turn these valves off to cut off the water supply to the faucet. Next, you should open the faucet outside and allow the water between the shut-off valve and the faucet to drain out. It is important to note that although all the water may not drain out, as long as the pipe is not full, the remaining water should have enough room to expand without breaking the pipe.
Fall Home Maintenance #2
Sitting in front of your fireplace is most likely one of your favorite places to be as the cold weather sets in. Now is a great time to be thinking about the maintenance of your fireplace and chimney so it is giving off that heat and creating the warmth you need this winter.
Here is a recommended maintenance list for your wood burning fireplace:
1. Clean out any old ashes and soot left from previous burning. Go green and use the ashes in your compost. They are a welcome addition to any compost pile.
2. Clean stains off the glass doors of your fireplace. Only clean the glass when it is cool. One option is to use a cup of vinegar in a gallon of water, apply the solution with a sponge, and wipe clean with newspaper.
3. Be sure to do a chimney sweep and cleaning as necessary. Hire a certified chimney sweep. It is recommended to have this done annually to catch problems before they create a need for expensive repairs.
4. While thinking of fireplaces, it’s a great time of year to make sure your smoke detectors are in working order. Make it a habit to change the batteries on your smoke detectors as you turn back the clocks for daylight savings time every year. (This Saturday, November 5, don’t forget!) Also remember to clean around your smoke detectors as excess dust can cause the alarm to go off. Using a soft brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner should do the trick.
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