One of the most difficult appliance breakdowns to deal with is when your refrigerator goes out. My family’s diet completely changed for the whole week when ours was undergoing maintenance. There are some precautionary steps you can take to avoid a breakdown, however. Focus on these six steps, and you can kiss spoiled food and repair costs goodbye.
1) Clean the condenser coils (5 minutes) 2) Clean the condenser fan (5 minutes) 3) Wipe down the door gasket (2 minutes) 4) Clear the freezer vents (5 minutes) 5) Set the temperature controls to the middle settings (1 minute) 6) Clear and clean the drip openings (2 minutes).
If you want to tackle this home improvement job, visit The Family Handyman for more details, instructions and visual aids.
If you’re feeling lucky today, listen up. Dupont Tyvek, which provides “building envelope protection,” is launching a huge new promotion. If you are a building professional, you can register to win the ultimate sports fan prize contest. Five people will win an ultimate road trip to their choice of a top sporting event. Some of the choices include the Super Bowl, the Stanley Cup, the World Series, NASCAR, and the NBA or NCAA Finals. You can also spin to win one of 2,000 instant prizes after registering. Hurry! The sweepstakes ends October 31, 2008.
The housing market is slumping worse than Alex Rodriguez during the playoffs. It has even begun to drag some of the most historic homes in America down with it. The Mark Twain House and Museum is in jeopardy of being unable to repay bank loans and meet their nearly $3 million budget. Many other historic homes are a step away from being foreclosed. The money needed to maintain these very old, very historic homes is quite a lot. Without the money, it will not take long for them to literally fall apart. Donations are a great way to help some of these homes, but you can help and receive something in return by taking a quick tour. I have been to the Twain Home and many others like it. Not only are these homes incredibly fascinating, but they are also well worth saving.
The Pink Palace in Atlanta’s Buckhead area is a shining example of how beneficial it can be to remodel your home for energy efficiency. This famous 82-year-old home is a six-bedroom, stucco mansion that is definitely Old South. Recently, it has been under several renovations, including removing 18 layers of paint. The most notable improvement, though, is that it has now been fitted to use geothermal energy. According to Luxist, this transfer turned a $6,500-per-month energy bill into an affordable $150 a month bill. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is efficiency.
If you are looking for a new home, you know that one big turnoff can be the smell of a place. Moving into a smoker’s home as a non-smoker can be especially challenging for some people. If you still want the home but not the smell, here are some steps you can take to improve the indoor air quality.
1) Scrub down everything you can over the sink or outside. 2) Remove carpet and padding and replace if possible. 3) Use a heavy-duty primer to seal in smoke on the walls. 4) If necessary, clean ductworks and chimneys. 5) Wash baseboards with a lemon juice and water mixture.
There is a new trend in home remodeling. Instead of blueprints for a new home or a large addition, designers are beginning to see plans for transforming little-used space. This cost and time-efficient method is one of the best ways to improve your home. For example, you can sacrifice part of an adjacent dining room that is rarely used in order to remodel your kitchen. Also, space under stairs can be turned into office space, a laundry room, etc. Storage shelves high in children’s rooms are a good idea, too. The most popular examples of transforming space are when basements or attics are turned into living spaces. Utilizing the space you already own is definitely a great way to remodel.
Have you ever wished the yard would cut itself? Now it can with an auto-mower from Husqvarna. This simple but expensive mower has several amenities that take the work and worry out of cutting your lawn. The only step you have to take is to plant a wire around the perimeter of the yard. From there, the auto-mower stays inside the wire, cutting at a pace of 1,000 square feet per hour. It has bump detection in case it runs into anything, and it will even return to its docking station and re-charge itself when the batteries are low. It’s so easy that your neighbors will be tempted to “borrow” it as much as possible. That’s not a problem, though, since you have to type in your own personal PIN number to activate it.
