If you are a homeowner, you should take care of your home and its appliances. American homeowners warranty protect your appliances from damages caused by everyday wear and tear. The warranty normally covers replacing and repairing costs of home appliances. However, most home warranty companies do not cover poorly maintained home appliances and systems. It is essential as a homeowner to take care of your home to avoid losses.
Here are tips to help you stay on top of your home maintenance:
- Maintain your air conditioning filters
As a homeowner, if you maintain your cooling and heating systems, you will avoid the costs of repairing and replacing. Ensure you keep changing your cooling and heating system filters. Your cooling and heating unit work hard to drive air in every part of your house. It would be best to change the filters often to help the system to function efficiently.
Your air conditioning unit needs a lot of energy to drive air in your house through the ventilators. Hence if you do not change the filters can make the HVAC fail to function correctly and strain to work. Ensure you note the kind of filters you use on your cooling and heating system. Some filters require to be changed each monthly while others can stay longer. You should buy quality filters for your system, which need to be changed less often.
- Inspect your water heater
Your home water heater can heat many thousand litres of water in a year and still function very well for a long time. You should check your water heater at least twice per year even if you have recently bought it. If you are using hard water, seals can fail, and the pipes block. You should contact a plumber or a water installation company if you notice any leakages on your pipes to repair them.
It is essential to repair your water heater when it has minor problems before failing and flood your room. Home inspector pays attention to your water heater to ensure there are no leakages or rusted pipes. You should maintain your home to avoid leaking fittings.
- Clean your refrigerator condenser coils
Most homeowners do not inspect their refrigerators. They think the fridges are self-containing units and do not require maintenance. However, if you do not clean the condenser coils on the back of your fridge, dust can accumulate on them and make them not function properly. You should pull your refrigerator out and clean the dust on it to help it work effectively. You can also clean under and behind the fridge.
Refrigerators can cost you a lot of money when replacing or repairing them. Hence if you properly maintain your fridge, you save on the repairing and replacement costs. When you clean the condenser coils, you will notice your fridge works better.
- Change batteries for smoke detector systems
It is vital to make sure your home smoke detector system is functioning well. It might seem like a small maintenance task to change your smoke detector’s battery, but it is a helpful task as you do not want to put your family at risk.
It can be devastating if your home is destroyed by fire while you could have prevented it. Installing fire smoke detectors’ alerts you in case of smoke that is a sign of a starting fire and you can put it off before it destroys your property and harms your family. You should always check if the smoke detectors are functioning and change their batteries to prevent fire hazards.
- Clean your furnace and service your boiler
The heating and cooling system might drive a lot of dust and the controlled air, and the dust might affect the units’ proper functioning. It is good to look for professionals to inspect your heating and cooling system once in a year. The service contractor can clean the dust and examine whether the system is working correctly. When you use oil to service your heating system, the maintenance requirements become stricter.
When you use oil for servicing, you should clean your heating and cooling units often because oil does not burn clean as gas does. If you maintain your cooling and heating system, it can last longer than its expected lifespan.
Bottom line
It is crucial to maintain your home along with its appliances and systems. Your home appliances will last longer with proper maintenance. Also, you will save on repairing and replacement costs. You can consider purchasing home warranty policies to cover your home systems’ and appliances’ repairing and replacement costs.