12 Steps to a Secure, Cozy House for a New Year

12 Steps to a Secure, Cozy House for a New Year

Each year brings different challenges to your home’s maintenance. Winter is generally the most stressful, so it is ideal to be ready. Following these professional advice will help keep you protected from fire, water and carbon monoxide — and help you to save power and increase the comfort of your house.

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1. Have your chimney cleaned. Hire a professional chimney smith to clean and inspect your chimney. Brad Smith that the Chimney Smith, shown here, performs a multi-point review with each cleaning. This will help prevent home fires and carbon monoxide leaks.

Get Your Fireplace Cold Weather Ready

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2. Install carbon monoxide detectors. Set them near regions that use natural gas, such as the garage, furnace, chimney, gas fireplace, gas range and water heater. Most security system businesses offer carbon monoxide detectors. They can also be hard wired into your house, meaning they link to a constant power supply. You might also put in a battery-operated sensor, such as the one displayed here. I make certain to put a sensor on each level of a house.

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3. Change the batteries in your smoke detectors. I recommend changing the batteries after a year, regardless of what condition they are in. The building code in Atlanta needs all smoke detectors to be hard wired. It also says that all smoke detectors in a home has to be tied together, so that if a person goes off they all will sound the alert. I advocate having these tied into your security system as well.

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4. Install a loft door blanket. Attic stair openings are a main source of heat loss in the winter. There are lots of variations of this item, but I enjoy this one since it has a radiant heat shield that deters heat from entering the house during the summer and prevents heat from escaping during the winter. It has an easy-to-use zipper.

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5. Fix your water heater temperature. Here’s a really simple way to conserve energy: Correct the knob onto the face of the water heater to a lower setting. Of course, if your water temperature is not quite as sexy as you’d like that, simply turn it up a few notches.

Warning: The gauge allows you to create your water scalding hot. If you have young children or older folks living together with youpersonally, please keep it on a lower setting.

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6. Replace your furnace filter. Change your filter out every two months. This will give you greater air quality. A dirty filter will make your furnace to work harder and shorten its lifespan. A furnace will actually shut down if the filter is too dirty.

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Tip: Write the filter dimensions on the front of your furnace. This will give all of you procrastinators one more excuse to purchase new filters. Yes, I know this from experience.

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Tip: Keep battling the procrastinator within by buying filters in bulk and leaving them next to a furnace.

Warning
: Maintain these filters a safe distance from anything combustible.

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7. Install a pan beneath your washing machine. A leaking washing machine can be devastating to your residence. Pans for under the machine are available at home repair shops or online. They’ve a place in the trunk where a drain pipe could be connected. Run this drain to the exterior of your home.

Warning
: Don’t attach the drain into your home’s plumbing. Installing it improperly can cause sewer gas to put in your home.

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8. Install metal braided hoses into your washing machine. These hoses are not as apt to burst or leak compared to traditional rubber hoses.

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9. Clean your gutters. Clogged gutters can cause myriad problems, including rotten exterior timber and flows to the interior. Clogged gutters also cause water to spill over the top, resulting in erosion and flooding. You can eliminate the need for gutter cleaning entirely by using a gutter covering.

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10. Change your spotlights. While you’re up there cleaning gutters, then take the opportunity to change the bulbs on exterior lights.

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11. Shut off the water source to exterior faucets. This will be necessary if you stay in a climate that has freezing temperatures. Should you leave standing water in the pipe, then there is a chance that it will freeze, which can cause the pipe to burst, possibly flooding your residence.

Find the water shut-off valves to your taps, and turn them off. The shut-offs are generally a brief distance from the exterior faucets, most often in a basement. Remember: “righty tighty” to shut them “lefty loosey” to open them. After shutting off them, go out and turn on the exterior faucet to remove any excess water.

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12. Install a faucet cover. Once the weather starts to heat up again, it is possible to install an insulated faucet cover. In this manner, you won’t have to shut off the water to the faucet altogether, but you will be safe if the temperature drops.

Notice:
These covers won’t work well if your region is constantly near or below freezing.

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Faucet cover setup: Simply slip the ring over the spout, put the cover against the home, and pull on the cord. It takes less than 10 seconds and costs about $2.50.

Inform us : What do you do to prepare your house for the winter?

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