November Home Maintenance
The holidays are approaching fast, and what better way to prepare your home for house guests then by taking a few minutes this weekend to check a few items off of our November home maintenance list!
To-Do #1: Clean your garabage disposal. Before hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, take a few minutes to clean and freshen up your disposal. Here’s how…….
- Pour 1/2 cup baking soda into the disposal.
- Follow that with a cup of white vinegar (this will cause bubbles).
- Once the bubbles subside, pour a pot of boiling water down the disposal and let it sit for about 5 minutes.
- Turn the water on and the disposal, let it run until rinsed out. **Tip: to keep your disposal smelling fresh, put leftover chunks of lemon in an ice tray, cover with water and freeze. The ice cubes will sharpen the blades and scrape away debris!
To-Do #2: Clean your washing machine. Cleaning a machine that is designed to clean other things, might sound odd, but for your washing machine to work at tip top shape, then cleaning it regularly is important. Here’s how………
- After each wash in a front-loader, wipe down the door and rubber gasket that surrounds it. It is always a good idea to leave the washer door open after use to allow it to dry out.
- If your machine has an automatic soap dispenser, periodically clean it out to prevent soap build-up.
- Every few months, sanitize the inside of the machine Add 1 cup of bleach, then run a hot wash cycle with out laundry.
To-Do #3: Lubricate your door locks. The last thing that you want is for your door lock to stick leaving you locked out of the house with all of the groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. Cleaning out your door locks is quick and easy, all you need is a bottle of graphite that can be found at any hardware store. Graphite is a dry powder which makes it the perfect lubricant for door locks. Squirt a small amount of the powder into the keyhole, insert the key turning it a few times, and that’s it! Beware this can be messy!
To-Do #4: The last thing that you want on Christmas Eve is for Santa to get caught because of a squeaky door. You can use the same powdered graphite from your door locks for your hinges as well. For less of a mess, you can try white lithium grease or machine oil.
To-Do #5: Test smoke and CO alarms. The cold weather has yet to arrive for many of us, but when it does that will mean an increase in furnace and fireplace use. With that being said, now is a good time to test your smoke and Carbon Monoxide (CO) detectors to make sure they are functioning properly. All you need to do is press and hold the “test” button to make sure the alarm goes off. If it doesn’t, then replace the batteries!