Weekly Maintenance for your Home

April – Week 17

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.

Siding

April showers may bring May flowers, but you want those showers to stay outside of your house. If you haven't done it yet, it is time to take a quick look around all the window and door frames, as well as anything else that passes through the house siding. Caulking takes a beating over the winter, and you want to be sure that it is still water tight. Painting can wait for nicer weather, but the caulking needs to be done now. In addition to the caulking, this is the week to inspect the siding itself. Has any of it come loose or are there new cracks in masonry? Evaluate if you have minor repairs that you can handle yourself, of if you need professional help. For more information on siding, check out "Siding" in the SEARCH tab above.

Storms & Screens:

Whether you want to install your screens this week or not, it is definitely time to take them out of storage and repair them. Many hardware stores offer screen repair services, as do most glass stores if you don't want to do it yourself. Clean screens with soap and rinse thoroughly. Stand them on one corner to let them drip dry, the water will flow across the screens as well as through the frames better when they are up on one corner. With the West Nile disease spreading, window screens have become more important than ever. For more working details, check out "Screens" in the SEARCH tab above.

Do be careful with ladders this time of year as the ground can be exceptionally soft around the house. You may need to put boards on the ground to keep the legs of the ladder from sinking into the ground.