Keeping Your Home Warm this Winter

Keeping Your Home Warm this Winter

Baby, it’s cold outside. Time to put a big, cozy warm blanket around your house. Following are some tips to help you stay warm this winter by keeping the heat where you want it, inside!

  1. Heating unit – Hopefully, you had your heating unit serviced last fall so it’s functioning now at optimum level. If not, have it serviced now because we still have several cold months ahead of us.
  2. Pipes – Double-check insulation around exterior pipes that are exposed to freezing weather to be certain they’re insulated and that water cannot seep under the insulation. Tape and repair loose or damaged insulation. Add more anywhere it’s needed.

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What to do With Your Christmas Tree after the Holidays

Christmas Tree

1.) Make a feeder for birds and squirrels!

First, remove all ornaments and lights. Take the bare tree and move it out to your yard still in the stand. String it with popcorn and cranberries, sprinkle with birdseed or hang bird feeders from the boughs. Smear pine cones with peanut butter, hang apple rings or orange halves. Hang hollowed-out orange halves in the tree and fill them with nuts.

Enjoy the show as the birds feast on your gift to nature! Not only will the tree provide food for wildlife during the cold winter days, but it can also be a place for them to hide from cold winds.

2.) Mulch the tree for your garden. It can then be used in the landscape as a cover around trees, shrubs, and flowers. This helps insulate the soil, conserve soil moisture, and retard weed growth. It also helps return nutrients to the soil as it breaks down. Pine needles are great for ground covering and mulch.

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Tips for Reducing Fire Hazards in the Home

Thanks to Phill from Fire Safety Store for this post.

With the approaching holidays and holiday decorations abounding in the home, fire hazards and dangers increase. Here are a few tips to increase fire safety in your home.



Install a Smoke Detector

 -The holidays are a great time of year for decorating and bringing the family together. To avoid fire dangers in your home, install smoke detectors and keep them in good working order. If you do not already have smoke detectors installed in your home, now is a great time to put one in. Smoke detectors are inexpensive and you can find them at any home improvement center or home department retailer. Install a smoke detector in every region of your home, including the living areas and bedroom hallway. If you already have smoke detectors installed, check the batteries to make sure they are in good working condition.

Christmas Tree Safety

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Apps – Jetfuel for Your Business

Apps

Do you have a smartphone or tablet? I use the iPhone and iPad. In fact, don’t know how I got along before them…

And, I use apps – everyday. Following are 15 of my favorite; some for business, some not. I hope you find them helpful.

  1. Gas Buddy – Find the cheapest gas! Gives a list of surrounding gas stations and their prices.
  2. TripIt -Travel organizer – All your travel emails and confirmations in one spot. You can share your travel info right from TripIt.
  3. Booking.com – Hotel reservations for over 170,000 hotels. Finds your location, shows nearby hotels and their rates.
  4. Nearby and AroundMe – Quickly find Restaurants, Cafes, Bars, Banks and other places near your current location.

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Prepare Your Home for Winter – be safe and save money!

Winter

It’s time!

The best way to prevent problems and keep costs low is to be prepared! Just a few pro-active preparations can save you time, problems and tons of money this winter!

Safety and Money Saving Tips:

1. Locate your water main in the event you need to shut it off in an emergency. Pipes can freeze and burst. When they thaw, water will run where the pipe has broken. To protect your home and your valuables, it’s always important to know how to shut off your water anytime a leak in your plumbing may occur.

2. Make sure any exposed pipes are properly insulated or covered. If you have a pipe that freezes regularly, it’s probably not insulated inside the wall or under the flooring of your home. Have the plumber check and insulate pipes to stop water coming into your home from freezing.

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Top 5 Ways to Save Money When Moving

Guest Post

Thanks to Alban Smith for this article.

No one likes moving. Between packing, cleaning and trekking back and forth, the cost of moving just adds insult to injury. These five tips will not only make your next move more affordable, but easier and less stressful.

1 – Get a professional quote

Even if you’ve never thought about using professional movers, get a quote before you start loading your car – you might be surprised. When you look realistically at costs to move yourself, consider the wear and tear on your vehicle, the cost to hire a trailer or van, the fuel to drive back and forth when you can’t fit everything in your car or trailer at once, not to mention the beer to pay off friends and family for helping out.

If you ask a professional mover to give a quote, you could find it’s more affordable to have someone else do the move. When a mover comes to your home, you get the best possible price because they quote what they actually have to move, not what they think you might have.

Remember, your time is money and how many days did you have to take off of work last time you moved?

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16 Ways to Protect Your Home From Burglaries

Every 14.6 seconds, a home is robbed. According to statistics by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the average dollar loss per burglary is over $2,000.

With the national economy getting worse, burglary is becoming a more common crime. But, it doesn’t take much to get the thieves to leave your house alone. What can you do to stay safe?

  1. Lock windows and doors – I was surprised to read that many people don’t. Of all reported burglaries, 33.2 percent were unlawful entries (without force) – the house wasn’t even locked.
  2. Close and lock your garage door. It’s easy to break in from your garage. Many interior doors between the garage and your home aren’t as strong as exterior doors and may not have deadbolts. Also, once inside the garage, a burglar can use your tools to break into your home, out of sight of the neighbors.
  3. Close shades and curtains in the evening. One way thieves decide where to strike is simply by window shopping. Close the blinds so they won’t see what you have.

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How To Reduce Your Energy Bills / Energy Conservation Begins at Home

Guest Post

Thanks to Mark D. Tyrol for this post.

Imagine leaving a window open all winter long — the heat loss, cold drafts and wasted energy! If your home has a folding attic stair, a whole house fan or AC Return, a fireplace or a clothes dryer, that may be just what is occurring in your home every day.

These often overlooked sources of heat loss and air leakage can cause heat to pour out and the cold outside air to rush in — costing you higher heating bills.

Air leaks are the largest source of heating and cooling loss in the home. Air leaks occur through the small cracks around doors, windows, pipes, etc. Most homeowners are well aware of the benefits caulk and weatherstripping provide to minimize heat loss and cold drafts.

But what can you do about the four largest “holes” in your home — the folding attic stair, the whole house fan or AC return, the fireplace, and the clothes dryer? Here are some tips and techniques that can easily, quickly and inexpensively seal and insulate these holes:

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16 Fall Household Tips

Have you noticed that new chill in the air? What does it mean for your house and lawn?

Time to prepare for winter! Here are some things you should be doing now:

  1. Aerate, fertilize and seed your lawn for beautiful spring grass.
  2. Bring cold sensitive plants inside.
  3. Have your furnace serviced.
  4. Change furnace filters to increase efficiency & save on your heating costs.
  5. Drain your hotwater heater and clean out sediment now to keep water hot all winter!
  6. Plant bulbs to produce spring blooms.

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Time to Plant Trees

Trees

And may I say that the leaves are falling like crazy in my yard and on my deck right now. Not necessarily because Fall is approaching, but because of the drought we’ve been having, but I digress..

This is the perfect time of year to plant trees, at least here in North Carolina. Cooler temps and more rain makes it easier to give the young trees a good start and nurseries are discounting trees and shrubs to get rid of their stock before winter.

For your real estate, it’s all about the landscaping and there’s no question that landscaping adds value.

Smaller trees that shade windows cut cooling costs and tall trees that shade the roof are big energy savers.  The U.S. Forest Service estimates that three 25-foot trees can reduce summer cooling costs by as much as twenty five percent. And, it’s always a good idea to shade your air conditioning unit.

Interesting tree facts:

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