home owners - please share your must-do-chores

[boolady]

And if you have steam heat, you don't have a gas furnace, so don't worry about filters.

I think she would still have to, though, for when her high velocity blower is used for the air conditioning. She has a.c. vents in every room.

[lmh2402]

i'm sorry, i'm honestly not trying to be dense so please bear with me

there is a lot of talk of filters

filters for heat are different than filters for AC, yes?... in my case anyway, b/c i have steam heat

am i getting this right?

so, b/c i have steam heat, i don't need to do anything about heat filters

but i do have to do something about AC filters

but that would be just during the cooling season, yes? so as long as i get my AC guy to come here in the spring and show us what to do, that should cover the AC filters...right?

so back to the heat, if i have steam heat, is there anything i am supposed to be doing to any of the devices in the basement

can anyone actually tell me what all the stuff is in the basement? is that just too dumb and broad a question?

i don't know who else to ask... dh doesn't know anymore than me

thanks

[crl]

If you have any exterior drains (like at the bottom of stairs into a basement or at the bottom of a sloped driveway), check them regularly to make sure they are not clogged with leaves or other debris. If they get clogged and it rains, you will have a flood.

Catherine

[indigo99]

Depending on what sort of house you have, you may need to have the outside cleaned once in a while. Our house is brick, but we do have some parts with vinyl siding that is in need of cleaning this spring. Be careful about who you hire to do things like that though. You don't want someone to stand on the ground and use a pressure washer if they don't know what they're doing because they can force water under the siding and ruin the insulation - causing mold and all sort of nasty, expensive problems.

You may also need to weatherize around doors and windows. Our windows are currently needing some more caulk as the old caulk has compacted and isn't filling the gaps like it should.

Depending on what sort of tubs/showers you have, you might also need to replace caulk there at some point. Hopefully you have the newer kind that's just all one piece. If not, watch for signs that it might be letting water through.

ETA: Our heat/air is one unit so it has one place for filters. If you used your air before this winter then it probably needs a new filter. As long as you have someone come and service it before using it this spring then you should be OK. Definitely have them show you where the filter goes though. That isn't something you want to call someone else to do for you.

[crl]

Did you have a home inspector when you bought? Did he or she leave you any information about maintaining the house? Ours have given us preprinted books with the parts that were relevant to our house checked off. You may be able to hire an inspector to come and give you all a lesson on your house.

Catherine

[lmh2402]

we did have an inspection (it was super expensive, as i recall)

and we didn't get anything other than a report on issues

no maintenance guides or anything

maybe there is someone we could hire to give us a tutorial... i'll have to think on that

i'm currently fighting with the manage my life site...i can't seem to figure out where i would go to get on a list of monthly homeowner maintenance tips...

[MSWR0319]

Do you have a water softener? If so, you'll need to make sure you put new salt in periodically. Depends on the size of your softener how often. Ours is extra large and i think DH does it every couple months.

[indigo99]

How many things are in your basement? We just have our heat pump. The hot water heater is in the garage. Apparently you have a boiler and an a/c unit, but I don't know what else there'd be.

[larig]

Did you have a home inspector when you bought? Did he or she leave you any information about maintaining the house? Ours have given us preprinted books with the parts that were relevant to our house checked off. You may be able to hire an inspector to come and give you all a lesson on your house.

Catherine

this is a great suggestion. The inspector we had for our house was really helpful in this regard. He told us what everything was, how to maintain it, how soon we could expect it to go bad, etc.

ETA: maybe you could post a picture of the stuff in the basement?

[MSWR0319]

We usually do a spring clean up outside ( pick up sticks, stones out of the yard, clean out flower beds, wash windows,etc) and then another one right before fall hits just to keep things looking nice.