So, you love your house! Maybe, you found the perfect apartment. Turning your living place into a home is a dream for most people. The majority of your life will be spent at home. It’s where you sleep, eat, hang out with friends, raise your kids, and for those lucky few it is also where you may work.
There are so many things you can do to make your home reflect who you are such as painting the walls, picking out furniture, and hanging photos or paintings. Unfortunately, people often attempt taking on tasks they really shouldn’t be doing on their own. And sometimes it feels like we are doing the right thing, when it is absolutely not. We’ve compiled a list of 9 piftalls homeowners and apartment dwellers need to avoid.
1) Don’t turn the heat completely off when leaving for vacation in winter
So, you’re heading to the Caribbean for a two-week winter vacation, and you live in Minnesota. You’ve packed your bags, printed your boarding pass for the flight, and turned the thermostat off. Whoa! Hold on a minute. You may just want to hold off on turning the thermostat completely off during your winter vacation. Yes, yes, I know you won’t be home, and you don’t have pets to worry about, but turning off your thermostat may have more consequences beyond adjusting out of the island heat when you get back home. When you head off on a winter vacation you will want to keep your thermostat on, although perhaps a few degrees lower than normal. Also, you will want to keep your thermostat at a consistent temperature. The reason is due to the potential for your pipes to freeze when water is not flowing through them, and if the temperature drops too low. These frozen pipes can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars in repairs.Â
2) Don’t think your old fashioned thermostat is just fine
Maybe your dad used that old thermostat, and your grandfather thought it was the best thing next to sliced bread. However, thinking your old thermostat is just fine for you, may be a mistake.
Old thermostats may have been nice for keeping your house temperatures regulated to a specific temperature, the same temperature, day and night, in all rooms. Yet, this may be a considerable cost to your potential energy savings. By replacing your old thermostat, you could save hundreds, and even thousands of dollars a year in energy bills, and for some, significant tax credits. New thermostats not only adjust the temperatures in your house during the night and day, but can be set on a regular hourly schedule every day of the week, while on vacation, and—get this—for different zones in your house. Yes, that means your wife who’s always freezing can stay warm in the living room, while you remain cozy in your man-cave.Â
3) Don’t leave space heaters unattended
We love space heaters, right? They keep our drafty old home warm, are portable, with convenient temperature settings. They are also responsible for 25,000 home fires a year, and 6,000 hospital visits.
While convenient, unattended space heaters can cause problems to your house as well as infants and pets. Space heaters generate a significant amount of heat, and are therefore also a burn and shock hazard for anyone who comes in contact with them, and who may not understand their dangers.
In addition to physical burns, this concentrated heat has a tendency to build with objects susceptible to heat, such as the latest novel you laid down in front of the heater, that pair of socks you just took off, or perhaps the fabric on your couch and carpet on your floor. The consequences are actually severe enough that many towns and cities have banned the sale of several types of space heaters. If you do choose to use a space heater, be careful and keep an eye on it.
4) Don’t flush paper towels, or feminine hygiene products down the toilet
This is going to be a sensitive topic. What, and what not, to flush down the toilet. For anyone who has had to clean up a sewage backup, you will know the importance of what can and cannot be flushed down the toilet.
The first thing you need to realize is that your sewer pipes are probably not as clean as you think. Big surprise, I know. However, I am talking about cracks, fissures, tree roots, and solid waste that is left behind and dries to form a sort of anchor for passing by debris. Toilet paper is designed to break up very quickly once exposed to water for any period of time. This enables the toilet paper to safely be flushed down the toilet, and easily flow to the sewers outside your house without causing clogs. Now, think of paper towels which are designed to clean up messes and not dissolve. Because that paper towel is strong and thicker it will catch onto all those cracks, and tree roots and essentially help form a barrier, narrowing the passage of sewage. Feminine Hygiene products are even worse as they will not only absorb water to make a bigger barrier, but they can also expand to form a web-like surface to block anything from getting through your sewer pipe. This eventually results in a sewer pipe back-up, the time and money to clean it up, and a seriously upset significant other.