Tag Archives: home maintenance

DIY, Family Home, Homeowners

Air Conditioning 101: Tips, Tricks, and Hacks You Should Know

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Woman enjoying the AC in her living room.
Keeping your AC running efficiently will help you stay cool all summer.

During the scorching summer months, it’s hard to imagine life without your trusted air conditioning unit. However, as the degrees drop inside your home, your electric bill can also head in the opposite direction. When faced with skyrocketing bills, it is tempting to give up your AC or live much more warmly from day-to-day.

Fortunately, there are ways you can stay cool during summer without spending a fortune. Beat the summer heat, save money, and keep your air conditioning unit in peak shape by keeping the following AC tricks, tips, and hacks in mind:

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Family Home, Home Buyers, Homeowners

Common Major Repairs Every Homeowner Should Prepare For

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Multiple tools shaped as a home to symbolize home repairs
As a homeowner, preparing for home repairs is a must.

It is a part of homeownership: unexpected home repairs. Some of them are simple and inexpensive fixes, like repairing a broken drawer handle or replacing a doorknob. However, some of them, such as replacing the roof or removing mold, are laborious tasks that require the services of a professional and can cause financial strain if you are unprepared.

For this reason, it is important to plan for major home repairs. Even though you do not know when to expect such repairs, you can be prepared for when they happen! Read on for some insight into common home fixes that homeowners may encounter.

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Family Home, Home Design, Homeowners

Quietest Garage Door Openers

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By: Good Guys Garage Door Solutions

man with green shirt installing a quiet garage door opener

Manufacturers create garage door openers to operate with the highest quality of safety, security, and convenience. Beyond even these advancements, garage door openers can now function almost silently. This can be an especially important advantage if you have a room located above or beside the garage door. That is why we collected a list of the five quietest garage door openers from three top brands: LiftMaster, Genie, and Sommer.

Before we jump into the specific openers, you should know what makes an opener operate more quietly. When shopping for a new opener, look for side-mount or belt drive options. Because both have fewer moving parts or metal hardware, they produce fewer vibrations and thus less noise. Also, look for descriptions that mention soft start and close. This also assists in reducing vibration, cutting back on noise levels.

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Home Buyers, Home Design, Home Sellers, Homeowners

Have garage doors replaced the front door?

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By Garage Door Enterprises

gray decorative garage door

In the last several decades, it has become a common trend for most Americans to use the garage door as the primary entrance to their home instead of the front door. In fact, surveys over the last fifteen years have found that up to 70% of homeowners enter their home exclusively through the garage door. This information has several important impacts for those who are either selling their home or looking to buy a new one. It means that you should now be considering visual appeal, safety, and convenience for a garage door system.

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Homeowners

Boost Your Home’s Energy Efficiency This Spring and Summer

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Energy saving strategies can change with the seasons, so it’s important to re-evaluate your home’s energy efficiency throughout the year. Check out this simple guide for tips to boost your home’s energy efficiency during the warmer months.

Maintain Your Cooling System

Keeping up with routine maintenance and cleanings of your air cooling system will help it to work more efficiently. According to the United States Department of Energy, you can lower a cooling system’s energy consumption by a whopping 15% simply by performing routine maintenance and changing air filters consistently. The Government of Canada also recommends proper maintenance of air conditioners to make sure they run as effectively as possible.

Plan to replace or clean air filters on a semi-regular basis, usually every few months. If you have pets, more frequent changes can benefit your system. Besides keeping tabs on air filters, checking to make sure the evaporator coil is working properly before the hottest months is a proactive step you can take. If you don’t have experience with air conditioner maintenance or cleaning, it’s a good idea to hire a professional.

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Homeowners

Common house problems and how to solve them (Infographic)

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Common house problems and solutions

For first-time homebuyers, there can be nothing as scary as the prospect of home repairs. Whether it’s a leaky faucet, a drafty door or a crack in the basement wall, any sign that a house needs repairs can cause new homeowners’ hearts to sink. Although there are many home repairs that are easily within the DIY capabilities of even the most inexperienced homeowner, there are many others that should be handled by a professional.

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Homeowners

Getting your AC ready for summer

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Summer is starting to heat up, and that means your energy bills may soon pay the price. About six percent of a household’s annual expenses come from cooling costs, resulting in a net $29 billion in utility spending each year across the country. That’s a lot of green!

But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender helplessly to rising cooling costs. Continue reading →

Homeowners

How long will your home and everything in it last? (Infographic)

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anatomy of a house

A well-constructed home can last for hundreds of years. But maintenance, climate and home innovation can all impact how long the components of that home stay useful. However, eventually things wear out, so with help from the National Association of Home Builders we’re going room-by-room to tell you how much time you have before you’ll have to replace different parts of your home.

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