When owning a home, you are taking on a great deal of responsibility. Situations are going to come up and you’ll have no clue how to fix it. And trust me, that’s completely okay!
In this article, we wanted to bring up a couple situations you might come across and explain how to overcome these little obstacles. This will make your home owning experience a little easier!
1. Clean Out the Gutters
This skill is a must. If you don’t know how to clean the gutter, you will have a big mess on your hands down the road.
Gutters should be cleaned every spring and fall. You’ll need to get a ladder and remove the bigger debris such as leaves and twigs. After this is cleared out, you can use a hose to rinse the smaller debris down the downspout.
To prevent debris from accumulating, check out commercially available gutter screens, or leaf catchers. They can be professionally installed and will keep you off the ladder in the future.
Also, keeping gutters clean will prevent overflow. This can be especially bad if there is a window well under the gutter. An overflowing gutter can flood a window well in a few minutes in a heavy downpour. A window well cover will certainly help in this situation.
2. Use a Pressure Washer
Instead of using a hose for cleaning the gutters, a pressure washer is a good tool to use to if you have it! And we suggest every homeowner purchase one because there are so many uses for it. Here are some other uses for pressure washers:
- Driveway Washing
- Siding and Brick Washing
- Drain and Gutter Cleaning
- Deck Cleaning
- Outdoor Furniture Washing
- Grill Cleaning
- Fence Cleaning
It is so versatile that you can use it for cleaning pretty much anything!
3. Locating Wall Studs
To hang shelving and pictures on a wall, you’ll want to find a stud in the wall to drive the nail into. To make this skill a heck of a lot easier, purchase a stud finder. You can find an inexpensive stud finder at any hardware store or home center.
4. Painting Skills
You want your house to look like it was professionally painted without hiring a person to do it, right? You can easily paint your house like a pro with some simple tips!
Purchase high quality rollers, brushes, and painters tape. These are painting necessities you don’t want to cheap out on.
If there is anything you don’t want painted, protect it with a plastic covering. Make sure to remove light switches and outlet covers to protect them too.
Paint the edges of the ceiling and baseboards with a brush before using the roller. Then with the roller, paint from the ceiling down to the bottom.
5. Unclog a Drain, Without Using a Chemical Cleaner
To keep your home safe, you’ll want to use the least amount of chemicals as possible. You only need two ingredients to unclog a drain, and neither of these ingredients are chemicals. All you need is vinegar and baking soda!
First, pour a boiling pot of water over the drain. Once you do that, add a half cup of baking soda and pour it down the drain as well. Let this sit for 5 minutes.
Mix one cup of vinegar and one cup of boiling water over the mixture. Then place the stopper over the drain while it makes a chemical reaction in your drain. Let this sit for 5-10 minutes and pour another boiling pot of water over the drain.
6. Additional tip: Make sure your basement windows are egress code compliant.
Being sure that your basement windows are in good condition and have sound caulking around them to prevent leaking and animal and insect intrusion is always a best practice. If you have egress windows check their functionality at least twice a year.
Put Your New Skills to Use
These 5 skills will help you when certain home situations come up. You’ll be thankful you know these skills and so will your family! It’s great to learn new skills and fix small problems before they become big problems.
