Smart Heating and Cooling tips

8/21/2017 (Permalink)

Smart Cooling and Heating Tips

Smart Heating and Cooling tips 

Running your household can often feel like a chore. There are many tasks related to maintenance that you have to keep in your mind at all times to keep your space performing in efficient ways. One primary area to focus your attention is the HVAC system you use to keep your home comfortable. Paying attention to the needs of your units can help you to avoid disaster and keep your home cooled and heated in the best possible ways.

To see excellent results from your maintenance endeavors, be sure to focus on specific aspects of your system. By paying attention to certain areas, you will have a much easier time getting your home in the state that you would like it to be in.

Low Numbers

Staying comfortable at home is not always the easiest of tasks. When you crank up the heat in the winter it can cost you. Energy bills are not cheap and plenty of homeowners are looking for ways to lower the numbers that they spend each month. To keep your costs low while simultaneously reducing the amount of stress on your heating & cooling systems you need to keep the thermostat set to lower numbers. When you turn the heat up as high as it can go, it will cost you a small fortune.

Instead, you can keep the thermostat at a normal temperature and see better results from a financial perspective. In addition to this, keeping your thermostat at a low temperature will help to ensure that you get many years of service out of your HVAC system. This does not mean that you can’t play around with keeping your house different temperatures but the default should always be something reasonable. Finding a balance here will help your home perform the way you would like it to.

Keeping It Clean

Another excellent way for you to make sure that your HVAC system is in great shape is by cleaning it out from time to time. Your units will benefit greatly by you taking a little bit of time to check over the various parts and provide a little care. The filters, for example, can wind up being one of the more important components of your system. These filters are responsible for catching any loose dust or dirt that is floating through the air and circulating through your units. Unfortunately, the filters can clog pretty quickly.

The more clogged a filter is, the more difficult it becomes for your HVAC system to perform the way it is intended. This can put a lot of strain on the unit, causing it to break and wear down far faster than is normal. To avoid all of this, get into the habit of changing the filters at a sensible pace. Knowing when it is time for you to change the filters can allow you the room that you require to keep your system running right and give your home a comfortable feeling whenever you walk through the door.

In the Still of the Night

Many HVAC systems also offer the option of running fans to keep a home circulated. This can be helpful if you want to make sure that your home has a fresh feeling. It can also be useful if you want to cool down your home with the natural air outside instead of having cooler air created by your unit. To achieve this goal with a level of success, run the fans primarily at night. Temperatures are lower at night and keeping the fans of your HVAC running at this point can help you to give your home a cool atmosphere.

Running a household is not always a simple task. To see the most success from your endeavors, focus on the maintenance required by your heating and cooling systems. The more you learn now, the easier it will be to spot an issue down the line.

partnered post • cc-licensed photo by Neal Fowler

HANDY DIY PRODUCTS WORTH BUYING AT THE DOLLAR STORE

8/21/2017 (Permalink)

Handy DIY products at Dollar Store

HANDY DIY PRODUCTS WORTH BUYING AT THE DOLLAR STORE

Jul 13 2017

This won’t be a long post, but during my long saga with the master bathroom reno (next steps should be posting this weekend!), I wanted to pop in about a recent trip I made to the dollar store.

My trip was practically arbitrary, having decided just to stop in really quickly to see if I can find a disposable bucket for grout. I have some old dollar store trash bins I’ve kept in a stack in the garage for years, but I had finally depleted my stash and needed more. I have often used cheap dollar buckets instead of my 5-gallon buckets for tile projects because whenever I mix up materials (tile adhesive, grout, etc.), the product is usually half-dried by the time I start to clean up. This also means that it’s a beast to remove, and can make a huge mess in my yard while I clean everything out. By letting the leftover product simply dry up in the dollar bucket, I can then toss away the entire thing if I can’t get the dried slop to come off cleanly (it’s about 50/50 as to whether or not I need to reuse it).

It was time to restock, but I was very surprised to find a number of other great DIY supplies that I never knew were available. For $1 apiece, these make for some great items to keep around for home repair projects!

On this trip, I got:

• disposable particulate masks
• assorted foam brushes
• batteries
• small utility knives (I love having these all over the house… they are my go-to over scissors)
• 4×6 plastic tarp (decent size for the price!)
• rubber mallet (this was the most surprising find)
• cleaning towels (for wiping off grout haze)
• wrinkle releaser (not DIY necessarily, but good for photography)
• more buckets
• one-time use super glue (I don’t know about you guys, but mine always dry up between uses, so smaller containers is ideal!)
• not pictured: a set of mixing spoons (they came in a set and I’m out of paint sticks, so these were great as disposable mixing paddles)
• not pictured: drain declogger tool

Other items that I saw were available (but I don’t need, so I didn’t get, but worth noting):

• hammer
• level
• screw driver sets
• safety goggles
• tape measures
• work light/flash light (small, but still!)

It occurred to me that since my friends are in that stage of buying homes and such, stopping by and picking up a handful of these things is a great idea for a housewarming gift! I wouldn’t recommend that you buy things like a hammer, or a decent tape measure, or other tools that you really need quality for at a dollar store necessarily, but if a homeowner isn’t super handy and probably doesn’t have them already, it makes a great little gift in case they run into a DIY emergency (and new homeowners always do). If they do have quality tools, they can still appreciate the other items that one can never really have too many of, like tarps, or shop pencils, or utility knives.

Have you found anything at the dollar store that surprised you?

For Immediate Service in Charles County, Call SERVPRO

7/12/2017 (Permalink)

SERVPRO of Charles County provides 24-hour emergency service and is dedicated to being faster to any-sized disaster in Charles County. We can respond immediately to your emergency and have the expertise to handle your restoration or cleaning needs.

• 24-Hour Emergency Service
• Faster to Any-Sized Disaster
• Highly Trained Restoration Technicians
• A Trusted Leader in the Restoration Industry
• Locally Owned and Operated
• Advanced Restoration and Cleaning Equipment 

Have Questions? Call Us 24/7 – 301.753.8313

Residential Services

Whether your Charles County home needs emergency flood damage or your upholstery cleaned, you can depend on us.  Our technicians have extensive cleaning and restoration training and can make your property look its best. Learn more about our residential services:

• Water Damage Restoration
• Fire Damage Restoration
• Mold Remediation
• Storm Damage Restoration
• Cleaning Services
• Building/Reconstruction Services

Commercial Services

There's never a convenient time for fire or Water damage to strike your Charles County commercial property. Every hour spent cleaning up is an hour of lost revenue and productivity. So when the need arises for professional cleaning or emergency restoration services we have the training and expertise to respond promptly with highly trained technicians to get your property back to business. Learn more about our commercial services click:

• Commercial Water Damage Restoration
• Commercial Fire Damage Restoration

Always Improving!

8/13/2014 (Permalink)

803 Stackable CAM Pro Air Movers

Here at SERVPRO of Charles County, we pride ourselves on providing our customers with new innovative equipment for their drying needs. That is why we have begun purchasing the new Stackable Cam Pro Air Movers. This product’s design allows for more airflow using less power, which means the drying process takes less time while using less power. Just one of the many ways we clean up your water damage as quick and as efficient as possible.

Our Sexy New Air Mover!

4/23/2014 (Permalink)

803 Phoenix™ Stackable CAM Pro Air Mover

From time to time, equipment reaches its end of life from heavy use and is forced to be replaced. SERVPRO of Charles County is devoted to continously purchasing equipment with newer features to help our customers dry their water damages more effectively and faster. We are in the process of replacing air movers that features low amps, high CFM and utilizes an innovative stable, stackable design.