Like a car, your home needs regular maintenance to stay in proper condition. Regular home maintenance involves inspecting and cleaning your home, as well as making repairs and renovations when needed. This also means replacing things at home even if they still “work.”
From carpets to appliances, here are several home essentials that need to be replaced to maintain the cleanliness, safety, and beauty of your home.
Worn Carpets
Worn and dirty carpets are not just unsightly, but are also health hazards. No matter how well you clean them, they will gather dust, dirt, and mold overtime, which can trigger allergies and cause illnesses. Changing your wall-to-wall carpet can be expensive, but it’s worth the benefits you get after. It can brighten up the whole room, improve the air quality of your house, and most importantly, keep you from getting sick more often.
You may also want to explore safer and greener flooring alternatives, such as bamboo, cork, and hardwood flooring. But if you can’t lie without fluffy and snug floors, make sure to take good care of your carpets. Avoid getting them wet or exposed to moisture to prevent mold and mildew from building up.
Ventilate the room during installation and keep it so regularly so dust and allergen don’t gather. Don’t spray or add any harmful chemicals on your carpet, like stain-resistant and anti-static treatments. Finally, clean and disinfect your carpet regularly to kill bacteria and viruses.
Old Toilet
If your toilet is so old that it deserves a spot in the national museum, then it’s time to get a replacement. It doesn’t matter if it’s still working perfectly. You’re not replacing it for aesthetic purposes although that could be one of the secondary reasons. You need to change to a new toilet because old ones consume a lot of water. And with the water crisis the world is experiencing now, every homeowner should do their part to help.
Old toilets can use up 3.5 to 7 gallons of water per flush. If you use the toilet an ten times a day, you’re already consuming 35 to 70 gallons; multiply that to the number for people in your household. The number is a lot for a single household, and there are about 126.22 in the United States alone.
New toilets only use about 1.6 to 1.8 gallons per flush. You can save more water if you choose a low-flow, dual-flush toilet, which only consumes about 1 to 1.3 gallons and even less depending on whether you’re flushing liquid or solid waste.
Many homeowners endure outdated toilets because they’re daunted by the amount of work to change one. However, with an upflush toilet, you don’t have to worry about breaking the ground and connecting a new drainage system underground. Saniflo upflush toilets are easy to install, and work best for basements or outdoor bathrooms.
HVAC Filters
Most homes have a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC) to make the place livable and comfortable through the seasons. An HVAC system usually includes air filters to prevent dust, hair, fur, and other particles from getting into the components of the furnace, air conditioner, and ventilator. The HVAC filters helps keeps these appliances working. It also maintains the air quality in your home.
How often do you need to replace your HVAC filters? Cheaper fiberglass filters need to be replaced every 30 days. On the other hand, higher-quality pleated filters only need to be replaced every 90 days.
However, there are factors that can affect the frequency of replacing your HVAC filters. You have to replace them more often or every six weeks if someone has asthma or allergies and if there are children, elderly, and pets living in your home. Other factors include how frequently the heating and cooling system is used, the size of the home, and the air quality inside.
Door Locks
While there isn’t any need to replace your door locks as often as you change your light bulbs, it is wiser to install new ones every so often. You should change your locks immediately if you lost your keys, experienced a break in, or went separate ways with a former housemate. Change your locks if they’re old and word, if you moved into a new home, if another family member loses their keys, or if you lent yours to someone else.
Locks keep out people from getting inside your home, but they don’t differentiate between the homeowner and intruders. If you were unlucky enough to leave or lose your keys, you may need to the authorities to get inside your own home. It helps to know how to use basic lock picking tools in case you get locked out. Make sure to tell the neighbors and not act suspicious so the cops don’t get called.
Inefficient Light Bulbs
You light fixtures may be one of the biggest culprits to your expensive electric bills. If you’re still stuck on traditional incandescent light bulbs, it’s time to switch to CFL (compact fluorescent lights) and LED (light emitting diode) bulbs with the Energy Start stamped on them.
A standard incandescent light bulb uses about 60 watts while a CFL bulb uses 18 watts and a LED bulb uses 10 watts to produce the same brightness. You can save 25 to 80 percent energy if you switch to CFL and LED lights.
Many people still use standard incandescent bulbs because they’re much cheaper (about 70 cents each) compared to CFL bulbs (starting at $2) and LED lights (starting at $5). However, one can only last for about 1,200 hours or roughly 1.6 months of use.
On the other hand, CFLs can last for 8,000 hours or almost a year of use while the usual LED light’s lifespan is 25,000 hours, which is equivalent to 2.8 years of use. You may have to pay more for CFL and LED lights, but you’ll get more savings in the long-term.
Non Energy-Saving Appliances
Like your light bulbs, you also need to upgrade your appliances even if they’re still working properly. Most old appliances are inefficient. For example, old washing machines can use as much as 40 gallons of water per load while high-efficiency washers nowadays only use about 14 to 25 gallons only. Some washing machines even need less. They don’t only conserve water, but also save energy. The same goes for high-efficiency dishwasher.
You don’t need to rush to change all your appliances in one. Just gradually replace them when you can afford it. In the meantime, you can lessen the frequency that you use inefficient home appliances. Don’t run your dishwasher unless it’s full, avoid using the dryer, and turn off the TV when no one is watching.
Final Word
A good home is built by constant and consistent maintenance. As a homeowner, you should not wait until something happens to deal with an issue at home. Whether it’s cleaning messes or replacing home essentials, they need to be done promptly so they don’t cause bigger problems in the future. In the end, a clean and orderly environment is needed to create a loving home.
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