Weekly Maintenance for your Home

August – Week 31

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.

Power Lines

Preventative maintenance means fixing things before they become problems. This is probably the time of year when we have the fewest problems with power lines, yet is a great time to spot things that need fixing.

Modern suburbs have buried power lines. There is not much to check, except to keep your eyes out for any wires that pop up through the grass. Surprisingly, many utility lines are buried less than 6 inches under the grass and sometimes actually show up on the surface. Spaced out through the neighbourhood you will see the connection towers, those 3 feet high housings on someone's front lawn. Keep your eye out for damage to these housings, and have it repaired quickly to protect everyone's supply of electricity.

For those of you with overhead power lines, start by looking very carefully at the electrical mast, that pipe that goes up the side of the house and receives the wires from the hydro pole. The mast itself should be solidly attached to the house. There should be no open or broken joints in the pipe. The wires will enter the top of the mast, but must be mechanically attached to the house itself. The mast is not designed to be pulled by these wires. If that support cable is loose, get it fixed immediately. Anything loose with either of these items could cause an electrical failure with the weight of a little freezing rain, or high winds.

Check where the electrical conduit enters the house and make sure that it is sealed with caulking all around it. An unsealed opening around this conduit is an easy entry for rain water. For more details check out "Electrical Safety" in the SEARCH tab above.