The Top 8 Home Maintenance Tips To Save You Money

Homes cost a lot of money to maintain. But are you spending extra money unnecessarily on upkeep? Here are the top 7 most expensive mistakes you could be making in your home.

1. Using Traditional Light Bulbs- 
 If you still have incandescent light bulbs in your home, you could be throwing a lot of money away every month on inflated electric bills. Over its lifespan, an incandescent bulb can use $180 worth of electricity. A CFL will only use $41 worth of electricity over the same time period. Even better is the LED bulb, which only uses $30 per bulb. Think what replacing every light bulb in your home could do to your home’s bottom line.

2. Ignoring a Leaky Faucet–  A leaky faucet that drips one drop per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year, which is enough water to take more than 180 showers. Some of us live in areas where water is plentiful, but for those of us in areas plagued with drought, this could be costing you a fortune. Fix or replace your leaky faucet and save a ton on your water bill.

3. Using the Wrong  A/C Air Filter Size or Forgetting to Replace Them–  We all sometimes forget to change out the air filters for our HVAC systems or accidentally buy the wrong size. But using the wrong filter or a dirty filter can increase your power bill and cause expensive problems for your furnace down the road. Use the correct filters for your system. Set a reminder in your calendar to change them after the recommended amount of time, along with a note for the proper filter size, it’s really not one of those things I make a point of remembering off the top of my head    We also use this same calendar reminder to change the filter on our refrigerator too.

4. Not Customizing Temperature-  Invest in a customizable thermostat. If you’re away at the office all day, you can program your heater to shift down a few degrees while you’re gone and then shift back up shortly before you return home. Heating or cooling an empty home wastes a lot of money in energy costs.

5.  Not Adjusting Air Vents Properly-  
Is one room in your home hot, while the others are cold? Oftentimes homeowners will crank up the air conditioning in the whole house to combat hot temperatures in just one area. Instead, adjust air vents to direct the flow of air more evenly throughout your entire home. Professionals will come regulate this to ensure that your entire home is receiving the same amount of air conditioning or heating.

6. Over Watering Lawns-  
Many homeowners have their sprinkler systems programmed to come on in the early morning hours for optimum lawn health. This can become a problem, however, if you’re never around to see what you’re actually watering. A broken sprinkler head could be causing a fountain, or the trajectory of your sprinkler may be directed at a fence instead of your lawn. Periodically run your sprinklers during the day so you can see how they are performing when you’re not around.  If you are looking for ways to lesson your water bill – check out my blog  Save Water Save $$$.

7. Water Heater Temperature Set Too High-  
Unless you have a tank-less water heater, your water heater is keeping the water in its tank hot 24/7.  If you don’t keep an eye on the temperature as each season changes, you may be paying too much to heat your water. Decrease the temperature in the summer, and bump it back up when winter comes.

8. Timer Light Switches- We invested in a number of different types of timer light switches throughout the house.  What a difference they made!  Sure wish we had had those when all our kids were growing up. It would have saved us a lot of money and a lot of nagging too   There are all kinds of options,  some with actual timer options (10 min, 20 min, 40 min, 60 min).  Some operate on a motion sensor (great for the pantry and utility area).  Head down to the hardware store and check them out.

As Always Keep Your Castle In Great Shape!