Home Maintenance

Money
1

As a homeowner and cheapskate I like to keep my home in good operating order, a few things I do at least once a year is open and close the shut off valves for sinks, toilets, washing machine, etc to “work” them. I also clean the dryer vent, vacuum the coil on the refrigerators and check the sump and ejector pumps in the basement. Monthly I’ll check/change the furnace filter, check the gutters and down spouts when it’s raining and walk around the house and look at the roof to look for anything not normal. Anyone can do these simple things that can help avoid a costly repair.

Do you have any other tips?

2

Check to see if you have a washer filter. New ones have them

I also drain my hot water take once a year to flush it

3

Yep, I forgot to add that one. I have a short piece of garden hose I run to the drain, I’ll just drain a few gallons to get the sediment out.

4

I let it run for about 15 minutes to try to get everything flushed. I need to replace it but haven’t got around to it

One baffling thing I can’t figure out is why I keep losing water pressure.

5

We just had our heaters replaced and I have vowed to do this. When the plumber drained the old heaters, one was fast and clear. The other was so gunked up that he had to use a screwdriver to open a channel and the draining took a while.

6

I use a water softener now. Best money I’ve ever spent.

Mine is 10 years old and the previous owner didn’t soften the water.

I think I need a new pressure regulator as well

7

I am diy guy. Pretty much nothing is off limits. After work, I just unhooked my ac unit and moved it about 6 feet due to addition on the house. Got all my ac tools out and had to use my oxygen propane torch to braze the copper lines and rewire the power and signal wires. All that is the easy stuff. The hard part was moving the concrete foundation for the ac unit. I poured a extra tall one for water and general protection from things like mower and weedeater. That foundation was poured with 800# of concrete. Good thing I have a forklift on my tractor. Now all that is done, I need to take the case off and clean the coil. The local ac company wanted $700 to move the ac and that did not include moving the concrete base.

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