I learned about Furnace Filters on the inspection report when I sold my first condo.

Most of the people don't check the pressure gage on the Argon reservoir on their double/triple pane windows. Then they wonder why their windows are no longer efficient.





Just Kidding. There is no such thing. I just wanted to see how long before someone calls me out on my Bullshit.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Keep the drain pan under the a/c unit clean and draining. Add a little bleach to it periodically.

You're supposed to periodically put bleach in the main A/C drain to prevent clogs (in Florida at least).

Basic stuff like filters are routinely ignored.

Annual service on your AC and furnace should help their longevity. Even just vacuuming out the burners/heat exchanger yourself would help.

Caulking around windows and doors.

Dryer exhaust.

I know it needs drained but have no idea how to do so. That's why I'm a member of the Happy Hiller Club and they come quarterly to do crap like this. The dude was impressed at my clean air filters though (change them every other month).

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Clean the membrane in the air exchanger. Drain the outside faucets last foot or so prior to winter so they don't freeze. Clean the window wells so they don't overflow into house.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

That may be as much to prevent Legionnaires Disease as anything else.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Dryer exhaust
Purging irrigation to winterize
Refrigerator filter/coils

Seems like there's a lot more since we've been homeowners for almost 20 years now, and while I'm still not exactly Mr Handy around the house I feel like I've learned a lot, only drawing blanks now trying to itemize a list...

Clean out the Shower Ferret?

We have really hard water, so we periodically pour vinegar down the shower drain. unclog and soak faucets and shower heads.

Ah yes, we've snaked out a litter of those, at least (or whatever else it is you call a family of ferrets). That's a nice one!

Which reminds me... similar deal on the outside storm drains, only w/ tree roots

You are changing your filters way too often.

Once a year clear your dryer vent of lint - the tube that goes outside. It’s a fire hazard.

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Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

How do you do that? They wanted $1,000 to do it.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Pay my round trip flight, and I'll do it for $50.

If your venting is a really long run you might not be able to do it yourself. If it's short/direct a shop vac or air compressor will do the trick. Literally just vacuum/blow it out.

$1000 seems insane for that service. I've had all the ducts cleaned out on houses for a few hundred bucks.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

I got one of these guys and it seems to do the job.

$1000 seems way steep.

When we bought our house, half the basement wasn't finished showing a good distance of the exhaust run for the dryer. From the front of the house to the back, someone installed the vinyl type of exhaust hoses, multiples of them, from the dryer to the outside. The first thing I did was install a 4" pipes from the dryer to the back and added an exhaust fan on the line.

Needless to say our house had a mouse problem at some point in time before we bought it. I found dryer lint underneath the bathroom showers on the adjacent wall to the dryer when replacing the shower last year. I found the mother load of bedding and shit. I thought the basement ceiling tiles that I replaced before moving in were bad.


- I hate cleaning our AC unit and the cottonwood seeds.
- Checking sump pumps for full function including if the back up is working is cheap insurance. Also make sure the check valve is working. Note that I have a completely finished basement now except for the god awful ceiling tiles in half of it.

Yearly check of the small intake line filters to washing machine -- we have city wells and sandy soil and end up with clogging water intake filters about every other year. Really slows down the washer cycle.
Also, pull the dish washer once every couple, check the water supply lines (and surround area) for rodent-y stuff. Found out that they like the plastic lines. Replace with metal mesh coated lines, Flooded house experience is not fun.

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RayGovett
Hughson CA
Be Prepared-- Strike Swiftly -- Who Dares Wins- Without warning-"it will be hard. I can do it"

I inspect for roof and drain leaks routine. Spray out outdoors ac HX and vacuum the inside one.

I went nuts with tape and dope on air leaks in ducts. Routine filters, dryer vent.

Fwiw, our dryer vent was crushed when we moved in. New dryer has a flow sensor. I installed all new hard piped duct all way and it cut probably a couple dollars a month off electricity bill.

-Water softener salt. I grew up in NY where we didn't have hard water, in the Midwest its normal to add in salt, that was a new one to me.

- Half pink. Change the oil in the small engines. I've done it once in the 10 years I've owned my lawn mower, still runs like a champ. Once in my snowblower owned it for 7 years, still runs like a champ.

- Replace smoke detectors after 7-10 years or so

- flip mattress once a year or something like that

When my kids were little we got a 'Bouncy Castle' at WalMart for $100. It came with a big 'ol air blower. Every once in a while I attach that blower to the dryer line and blow that line clean. I always looks like its snowing in July when the fluff shoots out the side of the house. Then I go and bounce a little in the backyard.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

We had a tenant that apparently had removed the lint trap in their dryer. The next tenant came in and complained their dryer wasn't working. The dryer vent went up through the roof. I got in the attic and the hose was packed full for about 3 feet with lint. I would have thought it was sabotage but I don't think she would have been able to get herself into the attic.

In the house we live in now it is a short enough run through the wall that I can reach clear through.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Bingo! If you're detectors are in that date range don't wait, just replace them all. We bought a 10 year old house, within a year or so we replaced every smoke detector. Of course they never go bad during the day, just in the middle of the night.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

And you spend at least 20 minutes finding out which one is beeping at you. Also with replacing batteries, whenever they go off, you never have any 9V batteries in the house.

Coming from a home with municipal sewage to one with a septic guy, 5 years is a bit too long to wait to have your tank emptied. You should do it every 3 years or so.

Oh, if the septic guy opens your tank and says, "Hey, you gotta look at this," you really don't gotta look at this. Just take his word, pay the money, and get on with the rest of your day.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I replaced all my spoke detectors a couple of years ago with wireless units from Kidde. Pretty easy to set up the connections between them. The kicker is, drumroll please, they are AA batteries! Besides the wireless feature to connect them. The AA batteries sold me on them.

OneLink now sells some Alexa compatible units, but at $200 they are pretty expensive for a smoke alarm.

If you have a humidifier tied to your HVAC, make sure you clean it annually. If it is the old type (basically a tub of water & a paddle-wheel thingy) make sure you sanitize it with bleach regularly. If it is the newer type (metal radiator type) make sure you either replace it annually or soak it in vinegar every 6 months to stop the scale from building/clogging it).

Spring clean your AC system....amazing how many leaves & critters like those things.

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____________
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

Seriously what the fuck is it with them doing that. Also CO alarms

I about jumped through the ceiling when the CO alarm went off at 3 am.

Oh I forgot about that one. If you have a septic tank there is a good chance that there is a little filter thingy to keep the solids out of the sand pit.

They tell you that you should clean it twice a year. They are right. Otherwise you will need to reach shoulder deep into dark cold septic tank water while you feel around for the top of the filter when it plugs up.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

That’s flipping brilliant.

Yeah I'd pay someone to do that for me. Thankfully I have sewers

What???

What am I supposed to do with these 9V batteries now?

I never knew this growing up.
My dad and his dad put in a new septic system in the early 70s (my parents bought the house from my grandparents in the mid 70s). They sold the house in 99. They never touched the septic system, AND never had a problem with it...

Wireless ones? interesting, mine are all on the same electrical circuit as its city code. I guess you must live in an older home? My city also has a code that they all need to be the same brand, but I don't think the inspectors really care because I passed an inspection with two different brands.

Rebel scum.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

And if you're on municipal sewage, get your line cleaned once a year...or make sure you really don't care about the room with the lowest drain in the house. That's a mistake you only make once.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Sewers? Socialist.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Since I moved to Florida I've come across a few new house related chores:
1) Stucco exteriors require inspection at least once a year. If there are cracks of any size they need to be fixed immediately to prevent water intrusion. Fixing can require touch up painting, caulking, or in the case of the house I moved into $8K worth of professional stucco repair.
2) In my previous houses I had to change a single furnace filter every few months. In my Florida house there is a damn filter in every room so I have to replace like 15 filters each time. It gets freaking expensive.
3) The climate in Florida is umm swampy so everything outside gets covered in green or black mildew (and pollen) all the time. This means you have to invest in a power washer or hire someone frequently. We have to power wash just about everything on the outside of the house a few times year to clear all the yuck off. Also our HOA requires us to keep our sidewalk and driveway (and freaking roof) clear of mildew or we face fines. So yeah lots of power washing.
4) More HOA goodies - Gotta keep those palm trees trimmed or you get a fine. Want to skip hiring someone and trim it yourself? No problem, just try not to fall off the 25 ft ladder that is swaying with the palm tree.
5) Gotta keep inspecting the lawn for fire ants. They are everywhere and you don't want to be mowing the lawn or walking the dogs and accidentally find out you have a new colony.
6) We have city water where I live (Tampa) but for some reason it is still mineral rich so it means continual preventative maintenance of the dishwasher, faucets, shower heads, toilets, sprinkler heads etc. I really need to bite the bullet and get a water softener.

Code now requires wired ones. 4 wire 14 gauge is typically used with the non hot wire being used to control the alarms so all alarms sound in the house if one goes off. The wireless ones I purchased effectively do the same thing. Pretty sure this would not pass as code if building a new home or doing a remodel that would cause the install of wired units.

Playing basketball. :)

learned in grad school: must clean lint trap in dryer

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Use this properly on a regular basis:



Hint: Ignore whatever Duffy says to do with it.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Not long after buying our condo in 2006, my husband went into the attic space to “look around”. The dryer vent hose was disconnected and he brought 3 - 13 gallon trash bags of lint down to throw away. It had possibly never been connected to the outside and had been a rental for 10 years before we bought it. If I remember right, we bought a new hose and started with a clean vent hose after that.

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Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

That sounds like a great way to get some free blown-in insulation!

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Maybe if it had been dispersed... it was all clumped up in one spot - around the hose!

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Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

Shovel your roof of snow. We got 50 something inches of snow and we have steep roof sides but some ice dams still formed and back ice up back up under our metal roof on a little stick out part. I had to use an axe to break the foot tall ice dam so it could melt. Got one of those 15 ft pole shovels for the rest of the roof. Third year here and never thought we would need it. Lived in snowy places before but this year it was just too much. For a while I thought people were doing it for the weight until last year a friend told me about the ice dams.

this is a great thread

1) dog hair - had never owned a dog before and now own a dog and a house (GSD). it sheds twice a year...for 6 months each time. cleaning up dog hair is basically just part of the routine now

2) pool - the house has a pool. when we were first moving in (march/april), i went to go turn off the pool pump to save some electricity. the pool turned green two weeks later. oops. tried to remedy myself, never made it. hired a pool company at that point, haha.

3) house has a swamp cooler - have learned a lot about that in the past months. first, how to drain the water line during the winter so as to prevent freezing, what all the components inside the cooler are and what they do, that you have to clean the water tray and replace the "media" every once in a while, etc.

things i haven't done yet but are mentioned frequently in this thread: blow out the dryer vent. ours is a very short run (<6ft) but whoever originally "set up" the laundry room made the vent a flexible one vs. solid and gave it a very snaky route. so i check the outlet every once in a while to make sure that air is moving through it easily. need to blow out the whole thing or replace with a solid vent at some point.

I didn't see anyone mention this. You should know where your main water shut off is and be able to turn it off. You may just have a lever or you may need a "street key" you can buy from Home Depot for $10. Invaluable if you ever have a pipe burst or want to shut the water off while on vacation.

It's also handy to know where to shut off your gas line if you have natural gas lines.