Growing up on the farm, my Grandpa was a stickler for doing maintenance on all the machinery before we headed out to the field. He was always greasing some wheel bearings or checking the oil levels. He was a big believer that regular maintenance would save you a lot more money over the long term as opposed to paying for major overhauls or replacing a worn out piece of equipment.
Watching him had a huge impact on the way that I view maintenance and general upkeep. As annoying as it was to wait for him to complete his regular maintenance, I realize now just how wise he was.
Fast forward now to my suburban lifestyle and I see how my lifestyle still requires general maintenance. It isn't far off from the farm maintenance, and I now have the same opportunity to annoy my impatient kids.
Here are a few of household items that require regular maintenance.
Fire Alarm Batteries
Arguably your house is your most valuable asset. Why wouldn't you protect it and your family with $3.00 batteries? Make a schedule to regularly change out your fire alarm batteries at least once a year.
Furnace Filters
To keep your furnace running efficiently as possible, it is important to make sure that you regularly change out your filters every one to three months. As a friendly reminder, write the date you changed it out on the actual filter (facing outward) when you put it in. Then add a calendar reminder three months out to remind yourself.
Changing My Vent Directions
Have you implemented my vent money saving technique? If you open your downstairs vents in the winter (and close your upstairs vents) and then do the opposite in the summer? Check out the YouTube video I produced (check out tip #3).
Car Oil Changes
Changing your car oil every 3,000 – 6,000 miles (for regular oil), and every 10,000 for full synthetic. If you go beyond these recommendations, then you are at risk of causing long-term damage to your vehicles and costing you even more!
Regular Carpet Cleaning
As part my monthly goals in 2017 I have had this as one of my goals. However, every month I've delayed it and said I'll get to it next month. The point is that it is important to keep up with this regular cleaning, and make it a priority, because that is definitely cheaper than replacing all of your carpet.
Clean Out My Keurig
I typically need to clean out my Keurig once a year, because slowly over time it begins to become slower in producing my coffee and starts to taste funny.
Clean Out Dishwasher
I'm really bad at this, and most people think that you shouldn't have to clean out your dishwasher because it is always cleaning. It is quite the opposite. It too needs some care and feeding and requires a yearly cleaning.
Clean Out Oven
For an appliance that is so often used it just make sense to regularly (every 6-12 months) clean it out and use the self-cleaning feature.
Grease Door Hinges and Garage Doors
Recently our garage door started having issues and was started to make noises. When the garage door repairman came out he asked me when I last greased the bearings or chain. I said never. If you don't grease the bearings or chain, then you run the risk of costing yourself more in the long run!
These are just a few of my ideas on things that require regular maintenance around your house, but I'm sure that I've missed a few. What ideas or tricks do you have for doing regular maintenance? What is your number one priority? What tricks do you have for remembering to do regular maintenance?
4 Comments
Yes! Grease that garage door opener – good tip. Keeps er quiet too.
Yes!!! I think too often these days we forget that you don’t have to throw an item away when it’s dirty or not functioning properly. Regular maintenance helps us get so much more use out of the items we’ve already paid for.
Good advice…but: re heating vents in winter and summer. Since hot air moves upward and cold air falls wouldn’t the opposite advice be true? Open hot air vents on the first floor and maybe close them on the second because the warm air travels upward. This works in my son’s house. He has window A/Cs upstairs in the summer. At the foot of his stairwell he has a small fan that picks up the cold air coming down the stairs and moves it around the first floor and cools it without any window A/C on the first floor.
Roger – you are correct. I had mistyped that. Thanks!