by Carey, James
How This Book Is Organized
The chapters of this book are divided into the following parts so that you can easily find just the information that you’re looking for.
Part I: Home Maintenance and You
This part introduces you to the benefits of home maintenance and to the major systems and components in your home. You can also find a series of lists to help you keep your home-maintenance tasks organized. Follow this schedule, and your home will love you for it.
Even though you don’t have to read this book from cover to cover, we strongly recommend that you check out the three chapters in this part so that you have a clear understanding of what parts of your home require maintenance and why you should pay attention to them.
Part II: The Energy Envelope
Your home’s envelope consists of all its exterior surfaces and associated components like windows and doors. And don’t forget the attic, roof, basement, and foundation. To be comfortable inside your home, its exterior must be in secure and sound condition. Turn to this part to discover how easily you can maintain your home’s exterior.
Part III: Key Systems: Plumbing and HVAC
Nothing is scarier than hearing a noise that wasn’t there before emanating from mechanical equipment: a popping sound in the water heater, a faucet that suddenly sounds like it’s running on a flat tire, or a screeching racket inside the deepest, darkest part of your furnace. If you want to prevent or repair these elements of your home, check out this part.
Part IV: Inside Home Sweet Home
This part contains information on the stuff that you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis within your home, such as the walls, ceilings, floors, interior doors, cabinets, countertops, and appliances, to name a few. If you never venture into another part of this book, and you accomplish a majority of the tasks contained in this part, you’ll be light-years ahead of the home-maintenance curve. Part IV helps you patch walls, quiet floors, unstick doors, cure cabinet woes, and fix fireplaces. And, as an added bonus, we tell you how to keep your home and yourself safe and secure. If this book could be compared to a meal, this part would definitely be the main course.
Part V: Out in the Great Wide Open
If Part IV contains all the stuff that you see everyday in your home, Part V is all about what you (and others) can see outside your home, such as walkways, paths, patios, decks, and driveways. Think that the interior of your home takes a beating? Consider the abuse that your wood deck, concrete patio, or metal porch railing is subject to from constant exposure to sunlight, rain, wind, and snow. Wood oxidizes, cups, and cracks; concrete expands, contracts, chips, and cracks; and metal can become a full-blown science experiment when covered with rust. Fortunately, Part V is chock-full of money-saving and time-tested tips and recipes that will tame even the most ferocious home-maintenance predator in your great wide open.
Part VI: The Part of Tens
In this part, you find ten cleaning solutions you can make yourself. Not only will these recipes save you all kinds of money, but you’ll actually know what’s in the products you’re using. We also tell you the ten home-maintenance skills you need to keep your home in tip-top shape.
Icons Used in This Book
Some information in this book is so important that we want to emphasize it by placing little pictures (called icons) next to certain points. Here’s what the icons mean:
When we feel like telling you a little story, you’ll see this icon.
We use this icon to highlight products that we’ve come to know and trust over the years.
This icon flags text that’s important and not to be forgotten.
When we go out on a limb to suggest something you should do, we use this icon. It represents your basic good idea.
We use this icon to steer you clear of things that we don’t want you to do. It points out dangers and health hazards you should be aware of.
Where to Go from Here
This book is organized so that you can go wherever you want to find complete information. Got a problem with your siding? Head to Chapter 5. Need to replace a toilet? Chapter 8 is for you. If you’re not sure where you want to go, you may want to start with Part I — it gives you all the basic info you need, including vital safety guidelines and a home-maintenance plan to follow; plus, it points you to places where you can find more detailed information. You can also use the index to look up specific topics or the table of contents for broader categories. Or simply let your fingers do the walking until you find a topic that inspires you and let the games begin! This book makes for great armor — just don’t get it wet!
Part I
Home Maintenance and You
In this part . . .
Everyone knows that a bit of caulking or a coat of paint can make a home look better. What many folks don’t know is that beauty isn’t only skin deep. Both of these maintenance tasks, like most maintenance tasks, do much more than meets the eye.
In this part, we help you see beyond the obvious and show you what to look for when it comes to keeping your home fit. We also provide a home-maintenance schedule that suggests what you should do and when you should do it. Consider this a gentle reminder or two, or three. . . .
Chapter 1
Home Maintenance: What It Is and Why It Matters
In This Chapter
Making your home a safer and more comfortable place to live
Enhancing your home’s value
Saving money on repairs and energy
We grew up in house that was built by our grandfather shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Our family (all six of us) continually did maintenance on that house — painting, plastering, plumbing, repairing window screens, and a billion other tasks. Or so it seemed.
However, maintenance is not reserved for older homes. Home maintenance should begin the day the house is completed, and continue for as long as the structure exists. But please don’t think that you’ve signed up for years of drudgery. In this chapter, we show you how home maintenance can be fast, easy, and even fun — and how it can save you money in the long run.
Keeping Up with Upkeep
Some homeowners think of maintenance as a challenge, something to take on, overcome, and, with luck, complete. Some see it as a learning experience, looking to master new skills, and, in the process, improve their home. Some get into the Zen of it, finding enlightenment in knowing — and truly understanding — the inner workings of their dwellings. And some focus on the bottom line, seeing maintenance as the preservation and enhancement of their huge home investment. Most just want their homes to look nice and work well.
However you approach maintenance (and regardless of whether you achieve insight into the meaning of your existence), you have to stay on top of your to-do list, because you need to keep little problems from becoming big trouble, because it’s smart to keep everything looking good, and because keeping your home’s systems working efficiently makes financial sense.
From little to big
Maintenance is not about big, time-consuming, and expensive projects. In fact, one of the most effective and worthwhile tasks — painting a room — requires only a couple of gallons of paint, a $10 brush, and a $3 roller cover. Changing the furnace filter takes two minutes. Caulking a drafty window frame is a five-minute, $5 job. Doing these little things, and doing them continuously or as needed, makes a huge difference in the appearance, comfort, and efficiency of your home.
Over time, there will be more little projects than big ones. Our advice: Do the little ones yourself. Most of them are easy to do. You’ll save money, your home will look and work better, and you’ll feel as though you’ve accomplished something.
Medium-size projects — like cleaning and adjusting your furnace, adjusting a sticking exterior door, or replacing a toilet — need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. To decide whether to do them yourself or hire a pro, ask yourself these questions:
Do I have the right skills and knowledge?
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sp; Do I have the necessary tools?
Do I have the time?
If you have to say no to any one of these questions, you need to think hard before taking on the job. You may be better off hiring a pro.
Which brings us to the big projects, things like replacing the roof, re-siding, and pouring a new driveway. Unless you have some really awesome skills, solid experience, and know-how, as well as a workshop full of tools, hiring a pro is best. As a friend of ours says, “I know how to build a deck. But I’ve never done it before. There are people who build decks every day, people who know how to do the job right. It’s worth the cost of hiring a contractor to be satisfied with the end product.”
Many of our radio-show callers are homeowners who’ve taken on projects that are way beyond their expertise, require the purchase of expensive tools, and are taking much longer than expected. And they’re not calling to share how wonderful the projects have gone. They need help putting things back together or advice on how to find someone who can get the monkeys off their backs, so to speak. Don’t get caught in this trap. Be smart. Know your limitations.
All the chapters in Parts II through V contain many of the most common small and medium-size maintenance tasks that you can tackle yourself (with our help, of course). And when a task really should be left to a pro, we tell you that, too.
From inside to outside
Homes are complicated. They have many components and systems that need to be monitored and maintained (see Chapter 2). Inside, the systems include plumbing, electrical, and heating/air conditioning. Plus, you’ve got the foundation, structural framing, walls, floors, appliances, countertops, cabinets, sinks, bathtubs, fireplaces, and more to care for. It sounds like a lot (and it is), but you can find all the details you need in Parts II, III, and IV.
Outside, the components that require attention include windows and doors, roof, chimney, garage door, concrete, masonry, and siding. The key thing to know about problems on the outside of your home is that, if you don’t attend to them, they can become problems on the inside, too. That’s why we devote an entire part (Part V) to helping you prevent and address problems outside.
Benefiting from a Little TLC
There are five major benefits to maintaining your home well:
Improved safety
Increased comfort
Enhanced home value
Money savings
Energy efficiency
Here’s what this list tells you: that home maintenance literally pays off. To put it another way, these five big benefits prove that an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. And, as you’ll soon discover, those are words to live by when it comes to your home.
To your health (and safety)
A poorly cared-for home is not just an aesthetic problem — it can hurt you:
A rotted subfloor can result in an unexpected visit to the floor below — complete with bumps, cuts, bruises, and maybe a trip to the hospital.
A poorly maintained furnace can leak deadly carbon monoxide gas, which is the leading cause of poisoning deaths in the United States.
An air-conditioning system that fails in the heat of summer, or a furnace that takes a hiatus in the worst of winter, can lead to extreme indoor temperatures, which can be dangerous, or even fatal for the elderly and very young.
A smoke detector with a dead battery doesn’t work — it’s literally playing with fire.
Simple home maintenance can prevent these disasters and make your house a safer place to live for you and your family. For example, the one 9-volt battery, vacuuming, and three minutes that it takes to maintain your smoke detector could prevent you from losing your home, a pet, or a loved one.
So how do you spell safety when it comes to your home? M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E!
Comfort: You’ll miss it if it’s gone
Your house contains a number of systems that make it a comfortable place to live (see Chapter 2). Most people take the comfort systems in their house for granted. They don’t think about them until one of the systems breaks down. And then the result is a distinct lack of comfort.
You get what you pay for
Here’s the first rule of home-maintenance materials: Buy the best that you can afford. Doing so gives your home the maximum benefit and protection. If you buy inferior materials, you’ll likely be doing the job over again soon. Worse yet, you may end up spending a hefty sum to make repairs that otherwise wouldn’t be needed had you spent a little more upfront. Not a bad proposition if you enjoy spending all your free time and spare change fixing up your home.
For example, your home’s electrical system powers lights, your refrigerator, your water heater, and your washer and dryer, among other things. You may not think about your electrical system when you turn on lights; grab a cold can of soda from the fridge; take a hot, relaxing shower; or fold your freshly laundered clothes. But if that electrical system breaks down, you’ll quickly realize how much of your day-to-day comfort depends on it.
Because many of these systems have motors and moving parts, they’re especially vulnerable to wear and tear that, without preventive maintenance, could result in major inconvenience — and, at least at our houses, lots of swearing.
Money in the bank
Preventing a problem is almost always cheaper than making repairs after a problem occurs. And it’s always less expensive to fix a little problem before it becomes big trouble. Use this as your home-maintenance mantra: “Ommmmm, smart homeowners are proactive, ommmmmm.”
Avoiding more expensive repairs
Here’s how the ounce-of-prevention thing works: The metal flashing that surrounds a chimney can be the source of a nasty roof leak if it’s not maintained. The $20 it costs to caulk and paint the flashing is a fraction of the hundreds or thousands of dollars you would spend to repair water damage to ceilings, walls, and flooring. We bet you can’t find a blue-chip stock that pays those kinds of dividends! Ka-ching!
Gaps in siding and trim around windows and doors allow cold drafts and moisture to make their way into the wood skeleton of your home. Aside from driving up utility bills, the moisture produces rot that, in turn, weakens the structural elements in your home, and provides a veritable smorgasbord for structural pests like termites and other wood ravagers, as well as creating a breeding ground for dangerous mold. These small gaps can result in thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs and, if left unrepaired long enough, can actually lead to the demise of your home. The flip side: Spend five minutes and $5 to caulk the trim around a window. Your home will love you for it, and you’ll love yourself for saving so much of your hard-earned cash.
Increasing efficiency
Most people know that the more efficiently a mechanical device works, the less it costs to operate. A well-tuned automobile engine, for example, delivers far better fuel efficiency than a clunker. The same holds true with many of the machines that you have around your home. Your furnace is a great example. A clean furnace filter, coupled with other preventive maintenance tasks, makes the furnace operate more efficiently, consuming less energy and making it less susceptible to breakdowns.
Energy savings equal money savings. Keeping the appliances in your home running efficiently also helps the environment — a major benefit for yourself and the planet.
Many times, improving efficiency requires the replacement of the system or appliance in question. A brand-new refrigerator is twice as efficient as one just 7 years old. A new water heater is significantly cheaper to operate than the one in your basement. (A tankless water heater is more efficient still.) Your 10-year-old air-conditioning system? Terribly wasteful! New ones must meet significantly tougher efficiency standards. The repair-versus-replace decision is complicated when it comes to appliances and energy-consuming systems. You need to consider whether it’s worth repairing an old, inefficient unit and whether (and how long it will take) for the new one to pay for itself.
Roots: A good place to begin
Before there were the Carey br
others (or Carey sisters — there are two), there were the Carey parents: Morris and Alvera. We can attribute our interest in building, remodeling, and repair to our parents — a couple of dyed-in-the-wool do-it-yourselfers. Both gone now, they made one heck of a home-improvement and -repair team. They were hard working, creative, and industrious. If ever a sow’s ear could be turned into a silk purse, Mom and Dad could do it.