Weekly Maintenance for your Home

June – Week 25

Just like preventative maintenance on your car, if you take care of a few small items around the house every week, you can avoid many emergency breakdowns and expensive repairs.

Driveways

The snow has been gone for a while, the grass is growing green and the flowers are out. That crummy driveway may not fit with the rest. If the only problem is oil stains, check out a rather impressive product called Oil Lift that will not only clean up all driveway surfaces, but transform the oil into something bio-degradable.

If an asphalt driveway has pulled away from the house allowing water to flow from the driveway down around the foundation, you need to caulk this crack if it is small, or dig it out and put in cold patch asphalt if it is large. Leaving that crack actually deposits large quantities of water right alongside the foundation and could cause problems in the basement below. Check out "Filling cracks in driveways".

If you want to put a sealer on an asphalt driveway, be sure to use an acrylic product. All the asphalt based products will track black stuff into the house on the bottom of shoes on a very hot day. If there are deep grooves worn where the car sits, it means that the foundation under the driveway is not adequate and rather than just re-topping, you really should remove the driveway, dig deeper and install a proper foundation. Look in the SEARCH tab above for more information on "Driveways".

Filters

It is time to check filters again, as it is every month. Although this time of the year you may not be checking a furnace filter, don't forget that all air conditioners have filters as do all ventilation systems. You may even have water filters that need checking. One of the keys to good filter maintenance is to put a label on a filter indicating the replacement date right when you install it, much like the 'good before xxxx' labels on perishable foods. For more information, look up "Filters".