Tips To Save Money On Your Home Maintenance

All opinions are mine and mine alone.

Maintenance is an important part of owning a home. Some people, however, think that maintenance costs too much money. Use these four tips to save money on your home maintenance.

Schedule Regular Maintenance for Your Appliances

Some homeowners try to avoid annual appliance maintenance because they don’t want to spend money on the services. That’s a costly mistake. In reality, having a professional inspect your appliances regularly lowers the amount of money that you spend because it improves the functionality of appliances and catches small problems that could lead to expensive repairs. Ideally, you should have your HVAC system looked at once during fall and once during spring.

Clean Your Refrigerator Coils

Refrigerator coils make it possible for your appliance to keep foods and beverages cool. Dirty coils can’t do their jobs nearly as well. If you don’t clean them, then the refrigerator has to work harder to meet your demands. This extra work will knock a few years off of your refrigerator’s life.

How you clean coils depends on the type of refrigerator that you own. For the most part, though, you can clean coils by following these directions:

· Unplug the appliance.

· Find the condenser coil.

· Vacuum the coil to remove dirt and dust.

· Vacuum the fan.

· Use a small paint brush to remove stubborn dirt and dust.

Clean Your Gutters at Least Once Per Year

Rain gutters can accumulate a lot of dead leaves and grit from roof tiles. It doesn’t take long before the gutters become so clogged that water cannot flow through them. Instead, the water will pool in some areas and splash over the gutter’s side in other areas.

The biggest problem with clogged gutters is that you increase your home’s risk of flooding. Clean gutters push water away from your home’s foundation. When the gutters can’t do the job well, water can rush at the foundation to find small cracks. Eventually, the water will find a way to enter your basement. Cleaning gutters doesn’t take much skill as long as you have the right supplies and you follow some safety rules. If you don’t want to do the job, you can usually hire someone to clean gutters for $50 to $250.

Replace Air Filters When They Get Dirty

The air filter in your home’s HVAC system does a lot of work, especially during the summer and winter months. You should check the air filter at least once per month to see whether it needs a replacement. If the air filter is starting to look dark gray, then you should replace it with a new one.

Replacing your air filter will make sure that your home’s indoor air stays healthy. It will also reduce the strain that your HVAC system experiences while cooling and heating your home. Without frequent replacements, you will shorten the life of your system.

Home maintenance doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. As long as you follow these four tips, you should learn how to keep your home maintenance services affordable.