Home Heating Oil & The Price is Right

Why should you be thinking about home heating oil when it’s summer? That’s when oil delivery companies offer customers the opportunity to pre-buy home heating oil and lock in the price for the next heating season.  These programs seem to be more common in the northeast which can have very cold winters. Let’s explore the concepts here so you can make the “Price is Right” decision for your budget.

Who Sells Home Heating Oil?

There are 2 different types of “Fuel Oil Companies” you can work with. Their business is selling and delivering oil to homes and businesses in their service area. Depending on where you live, you’ll have just a few choices or 100s in highly populated areas like Long Island, NY.

• Full Service Fuel Oil Companies – They not only sell fuel oil, but offer a wide range of related services including automatic delivery, 24 hour emergency services, installation of new equipment (boilers, furnaces, burners, hot water heaters, etc) and maintenance of your existing equipment. For most home owners, an annual service contract is very important as you get:
  • Annual cleaning of your equipment to make sure it’s running efficiently.
  • Automatic delivery so you don’t have to monitor your fuel tank.
  • 24 hour emergency service so when there are problems, help is just a phone call away.

• Discount Fuel Oil Companies – Typically these companies only deliver oil on a cash basis. These discounters are able to offer competitive oil prices by focusing on buying and selling oil. Home owners who choose this approach have the flexibility of comparing prices across multiple companies each time they need more oil. The trade-off is the time and risk to monitor fuel consumption and finding the lowest price each time.

Today’s Choices for Buying Home Fuel Oil

With the recent spikes in home heating oil prices, many full service companies are creating different options to allow you to “lock-in” your price for an entire heating season. This might be a new idea, but it’s very similar to your mortgage. When you buy your home, the price is fixed. The interest rate for your mortgage is fixed unless you go with a variable rate, so the only costs that vary year-to-year are taxes and insurance.

A common misconception that home owners have about oil companies is … they’re buying oil at a low price and selling at a higher price. That’s true. Costs include buying the oil, the land and tanks to store the oil locally, the trucks to deliver the oil, typical business costs from billing to marketing and more. There needs to be profit to reward business owners for the money and time they invest, along with the risk they take. Lamprey Brothers in North Hampton NH minimizes their risk, along with their customer’s risk by offering fixed price options. When they announce a program, the window to sign up is just 7 days. They bundle orders from multiple customers and use the same strategy, pre-buying from their suppliers.

At a recent workshop, Lamprey shared the details of their “Pre-Buy” programs. While each company’s plans are different, the concepts here are what home owners need to understand as you research the different companies in your local area. At the Association of Women Home Owners, we offer this type of meaningful information so you can manage decisions related to your home more comfortably and confidently!

• When you buy for the entire heating season, you get a volume discount.
• When you pay up front, you’re able to lock in a fixed price for a year’s worth of oil.
• Insurance protects you went the market price drops below your fixed, “pre-buy” price.
• Financing lets you make monthly payments over 9 to 12 months.

Cost = Oil – Volume Discount + Insurance (optional) + Financing (optional)

My thanks to the Lamprey team for helping me learn about this important subject … Don for an excellent presentation and Amanda for arranging the workshop. Looking forward to learning and sharing more, here at the Association of Women Homeowners.

Why is Your Deck Blue?

Children are great at dreaming about the world the way they would like it to be.

Somehow we lose this freedom as we get older. We dream about our college major, which college we’ll go to, what our first job will be like and ultimately who we might marry. We dream about these things until they happen and then we let go of our dreams, like clouds moving in the wind.

We still know how to dream yet we transfer the dreams to what our children might do with their lives. So why do we stop dreaming about our own lives? Things change, and that’s one constant we can depend on: CHANGE! If we take a step back and look at the big picture:

• People used to marry right out of high school or college … and now they wait, if they marry at all.
• Women used to stay home and focus on the house, their children and creating a supportive environment for their husbands … and now they work and contribute to the household income.
• Over the years, American homes have gotten bigger … but do we have more time to enjoy them?

Ready to Dream and Create a New Life?

The photo (upper right) that inspired this story shows a woman, an endless sky, a calm ocean and a woman painting a deck. What I love about the photo are the endless opportunities and the “impossible things” that challenge you, as that’s what Erik Johansson wants to do with his photos. Is the woman day dreaming, planning her future or building a new life represented by her painting?

We can hibernate with the hope that our economy will improve and things will get back to normal?

… OR

We can seize the opportunity to rethink what is important in our lives and start changing habits so we can enjoy life more. The US has become a consumer culture … the more we consume (buy), the happier we’re supposed to be?

Happiness isn’t a bigger home or more kitchen gadgets, if you don’t have time to enjoy them. Happiness comes from close friendships and time to relax with family, friends and do things you love. Try this exercise to learn how your home can better support the lifestyle you want, if you had time and space.  This might mean letting go of what you don’t use or need, to make room for the things that make you happy. For example, my closet needs cleaning out so I’m getting help from Denise Nelms who offers a great service called a Closet Cleanse.

Transform Your Home to Support Your Dreams

Here’s a simple exercise to help you discover how you spend your time and the “activity centers” you need in your home to support your lifestyle.

1. Column 1 – Make a list of the activities you and your family engage in at home. It will help if you can include a rough estimate of the number of hours you spend on each activity, i.e to highlight what’s mos important.
2. Column 2 – For each activity listed, write down where you most frequently do things … and how satisfied you are with the activity today, like 80% satisfied. Cooking might be easy but where do you relax and read a book, play board games with the kids start your vegetable garden? Include activities you don’t do due to lack of space.
3. Column 3 – Now it’s time to dream. For each activity, how closely does your current space match your dreams? If you’d love a craft room for sewing versus the dining room table, you could say you’re only getting 10% of  dream.

Now it’s time to dream, one project at a time. First identify which rooms (spaces) in your home aren’t being used, like the dining room. Next find the top 3 activities that simply aren’t meeting your lifestyle needs. Pick one and brainstorm as to changes you can make to get much closer to the lifestyle you want. It might be something as simple as a new piece of furniture to store craft materials in the dining room, or a kitchen window seat to free up the pantry for baking supplies.

Front Doors and First Impressions

Maybe you’ve  been thinking about a new entry door since you bought your or you found a door you like, but have no idea where to find one like it? You love your old house and the front door tells a story but you’re afraid it might detract from your home’s curb appeal and you’d really like more sunlight in your entryway.

In many ways your front door represents your home’s personality, and your family. It’s important that your front door compliment and enhance the overall look of your home, and it should fit into the neighborhood too. Drive down your street and several others nearby, and write down the personality you feel is most represented by the houses. Do this again, and focus on the front door and see if they match. Now you’re ready to pick a new door for your home as you should easily know if it the style of the new door should be casual, traditional, formal or unique.

Doors are also functional. You’ve narrowed down the exterior door style you want, and now you need to identify the additional requirements your door needs to satisfy inside the home. You might simply want a new front door that is energy efficient. Many hallways tend to be dark so when you’re replacing an exterior door, it’s a good time to review your options for bringing more sunlight indoors.

Picking Your Door Style

You might think it’s easy to pick your door style but it’s not. It’s true that most doors have only a single panel but there can be many more components. When you want more sunlight, you can do this with glass panel(s) built into the main door panel. You can also add narrow glass panels on one or both sides of the door, or when you home won’t accommodate that big a change, you might be able to add a transom over the door.

While looking at door possibilities, you will be tempted to pick one that stands out from all those around it. That’s good marketing but you might buy (pay) more than you need or want. Here’s a smarter way to pick out a door. Walk out and down to the street in front of your house. What do you see?

Is your home close enough to the street that standing (most often people will be driving) you can see the door details? Do you see a well designed home with the door at the center, or maybe a beautifully landscaped setting and the door is one element along with trees and shrubs. You might even want to take a photo or draw a sketch and make the door size the same as photos/illustrations in your catalogues. Cut out the door space and “audition different door styles.

Having done this exercise, you will be far better prepared to select the best door style for your home. Look at these 5 Thermatru doors and you should already see how they each satisfy different requirements. When the door is the focal point, it makes sense to pick a door style with more detail, using the texture of wood or integrated glass to create a door that captures the eye. If your door plays a supporting role then you can use a simple door  style and put more of your budget into the surrounding trim (see the small, decorative roof over the door above) and/or landscaping.

Decisions You’ll Make When Buying a Door

After you’ve picked your door style, there are more decisions to be made:

• Material choices include wood, fiberglass and steel. You want to consider energy efficiency, i.e. a door with an EnergyStar rating (check for available tax credits) and maintenance requirements.
• Even door hardware comes in different styles. The new levers are better as they’re easier for anyone who has trouble dripping small objects. Dead bolts are a great option for those who are worried about security but make sure the length of the bolt provides real protection.
• The manufacturer influences the cost of your new door. Budget will help narrow your choices from a simple, attractive front door costing $400 to 600 to a premium front door which can cost up to $15,000. Don’t forget the hardware which can run from less than $100 to more than $500.

Installing an Exterior Door Isn’t Easy

Proper installation is critical to avoid problems with water damage. The job requires professional carpentry skills so the door functions properly and remains weather tight.  Here are reasons why you might not want to install your own door.

• Door must be level along 3 dimensions which can be a problem when the rough framing in which the door sits, isn’t true on all sides. Doors must be straight vertically (not tilting left or right), plumb with the wall (one side can’t be deeper than the other) and not tilting with top or bottom deeper than the other.
• When replacing a door, it’s not uncommon to run into wood rot problems which need to be resolved while the rough opening is accessible. 
  
• A new door must work with the interior flooring and sometimes the wood rot extends under the floor requiring a new sub-floor before the new door can be installed.
  
• All exterior doors must be weather tight which involves weather stripping (should be part of new door product) and sometimes you need a rain deflector for the bottom of the door to keep out horizontal rain.
  
• All exterior doors must be painted (6 sides) when new to reduce the amount of swelling/contraction of the wood and yes, even fiberglass doors need this type of ongoing maintenance as they have a wood strip around the edges in order to get a nice, tight fit.
  

Summer Fun and Safety for Everyone

Summer is when we think about relaxing and enjoying the outdoors. We tend to do more entertaining as it’s easy to invite friends over for a last minute barbecue. Here are safety tips to keep your family and friends free from harm all summer long. Print a copy of these home safety tips and review with your children, babysitters and other caregivers not familiar with your home.

Summer Safety Tips at Home

• Be Prepared – Keep a first aid kit handy for small accidents. Make sure everyone knows where to find the kid, including the babysitter.
• Prepare for Guests – Visit your home and be the guest. Is it clear where they should park or confusing because the children’s bikes are lying on the driveway, or the basketball hoop limits driveway parking? Draw a simple map of your home and let everyone know what happens where to avoid confusion. A simple bike rack behind the house is helpful.
• Summer Storm Safety – Stay alert to the possibility of lightning and go inside immediately. Once inside, stay away from electrical appliances, electronics like TVs and computers, telephones, doors and windows. The idea is to avoid contact with anything that lightning might follow if it strikes your house.
• Outdoor Cooking – Don’t assume the outdoor grill is as safe as indoor cooking. Check connections between propane tanks and the grill for leaks and only use starter fluid with a charcoal grill. Keep the “grilling area” free from other objects (3 ft recommended) and don’t allow children or pets around while cooking. Never bring an outdoor grill indoors or any space that isn’t ventilated like a screened porch or garage.
• Pool Safety – Make sure the fence surrounding your pool is secure and gates work properly (self-closing and self-locking). Keep rescue equipment near the pool and never leave children unsupervised. Teach your children to swim early (age 4) and avoid inflatable swimming aids which give a false sense of security. For large groups, assign an adult to monitor the water at all times.
• Keeping Play Spaces Safe – Follow a consistent maintenance/repair schedule including an inspection of all equipment once a year. Swing seats should be soft and children should not be able to reach any moving parts that might pinch or trap them. Monitor playing to insure slides aren’t too hot and portable toys like a rope are never attached to a swing set. Make sure everyone wears shoes.
• Pet Safety -Not everyone likes animals so keep dogs on your property at all times with a backyard fence or backyard leash that can’t get tangled. Remember that dogs don’t sweat like humans so they need your help staying cool with a shady area, dog house with ventilation and/or dog door to return inside where it’s cool.
• Bug Safety – Eliminate areas that support insect nests like stagnant pools of water. Direct unwanted water away from your home and build/move garbage cans and compost boxes far from outdoor living spaces. A screened porch is an alternative solution so you can enjoy the outdoors without bugs.
• Lawn Mower Safety - Teach your children to respect and learn how to use tools properly. Riding mowers should not be used by children younger than 16 years, and they should be at least 12 to handle walk-behind mowers. Pick up objects on the lawn before mowing to reduce injuries from flying objects. Wear sturdy shoes that won’t come off.
• Bicycles, Scooters and Skateboards – Teach your children to always wear a helmet (meeting CPSC safety standards) to avoid serious injury.  Review rules about where it is safe to ride and always use equipment that is the right size and age appropriate. Bikes that are too big are dangerous and hand brakes require coordination that younger children may not have.

Home Safety: Do You Know Enough?

When we get in our cars and turn the key, we expect the engine to start and if there is a problem, we’re likely to hear it. We can  decide to fix it now or wait for the next scheduled maintenance check. Houses have problems too but rarely can we can hear the problem, and there is no manufacturer telling you how often to inspect your home. Few home owners have the skills to thoroughly inspect their home, so they rely on home inspections typical when selling and/or buying a house.

Can You Tell How Safe Your Home Is?

The following story might be extreme. It shows how easily silent problems in our homes can lurk for months, and often years, before they become visible in some way that can’t be ignored. Probably the only good news here are there were odors home owners could smell, and the corrosion to appliances caused them to fail quickly.

The China drywall problems surfaced in 2009, due to large amounts of defective drywall imported into the US following Katrina and due to the housing boom. The faulty drywall was found to give off a “rotten egg odor” and cause the wiring, plumbing and appliances in a house to be ruined.

Drywall isn’t something that home owners think about until it needs to be repaired or replaced. Drywall is a key component of most homes, used to construct ceilings and walls throughout a house. Drywall is made of gypsum plaster pressed between 2 sheets of paper and kiln dried. As the paper is a food source for mold growth (think plumbing and roof leaks, along with flooding), newer products are being introduced which use fiberglass instead of paper.

The China drywall problem illustrate the complexity of home contruction. Hopefully we can all learn from this problem, and take steps in the future to find and resolve problems with our homes  quickly, so costs don’t escalate.

• Accountability – begins with the manufacturers who are in China and it appears with a few judgements against them, they are starting to settle pending lawsuits. There are many players involved beyond the product manufacturers including one/multiple companies in the supply chain, the builders who bought the defective sheetrock, any sub-contractors involved in the installation, and others like the insurance companies. Quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Justice Near for the Prisoners of Chinese Drywall?, the judge involved in settling at least one lawsuit, wrote “… they will be held responsible for total repairs caused by this horrendously inferior product.”

• Repair Costs – The size of these repairs is significant because of the amount of drywall. Can you imagine dealing with …
  • Moving all the furniture out.
  • Removing the trim around doors, windows and baseboard.
  • Ripping out all the ceilings and walls.
  • Repairing /replacing anything behind the walls, i.e. wiring and plumbing, that was damaged.
  • Hanging the new sheetrock, taping and 3 coasts of mud.
  • Priming and painting the ceilings and walls.
  • Re-installing the trim that was removed.
  • Cleaning and moving the furniture back.

• Temporary Relocation and Housing – Consider how long it takes to build a house, and you realize this isn’t a project that will be done in 1 to 2 weeks. Occupants of these homes in some cases, have already left for health reasons and during renovations, there are costs associated with relocating families which can get costly when you consider staying near the home so children can remain in their local schools.

The cost of just repairs starts at $80,000 according to the Wall Street Journal, and then you have to add the costs of relocating the families. The article also touches on the costs if the home owner pays retail versus settlements being made to the builders at wholesale costs.

Hopefully this one story shows how important it is to monitor the safety of your home. While the government is continually  upgrading building codes to improve safety, home owners play an important role. We’re used to smoke alarms but they don’t help if you don’t replace the batteries. There are carbon dioxide alarms, and sprinkler systems are coming. The EPA’s new Renovate, Repair and Paint rule for homes built prior to 1978, is meant to eradicate lead poisoning which is another silent problem. By learning more about your home (subscribe to our newsletter), you can

Keep Your Homes and Families Safe

Can You Trust Online Business Directories?

Owning a small business is challenging. Few owners have expertise in marketing so they look for effective ways to spread the word about their business. There are many business directories online, similar to traditional yellow pages. Service Magic dominates the web but you need to look at how they do this, and learn to be cautious. New technologies are making it easier for mega companies to own the business directories.

A friend recently shared an email solicitation from Service Magic but can’t recall ever giving them permission, and yes there are new companies selling email addresses. One of my roles as the founder of the Association of Women Home Owners is to be a consumer advocate, helping you understand the best way to find your home professionals.

Service Directories Cost Business Owners Money

My last Service Magic call came in November, several weeks before Thanksgiving. I knew I was in trouble when the prospective customer started our conversation by asking “… oh I’m sorry, but can I ask if you had to pay for this lead?” I told the woman I had paid for the lead but it was done and not to worry. We then proceeded to have a nice 10 to 15 minutes conversation about her need for help decorating a thirty foot tall evergreen tree in front year of her parents home.

After providing an initial estimate, I learned that this woman simply wanted to decorate the tree for her family’s last dinner together in the home where she grew up. Her mother had gone into a nursing a year earlier and recently died. They were selling the house, and this meal would be the last before turning over the house to the buyers. It was really a family memorial to her parents, and she hoped to bring back childhood memories which included the outdoor lighting.

As a creative problem solver, I offered different options from the original estimate wrapping lights around the tree in circular fashion (more time to keep moving the ladder plus climbing up and down), to running the lights up vertically and offering that they could prepare the lights (lay on the lawn & test) to save time and money. While we didn’t get the work, I hope I earned the woman’s respect and maybe some day we’ll do work at her home.

Service Directories Mislead the Consumer

The good news in the story was I reached the woman after 2 phones calls. Our experience is businesses waste lots of time chasing down phantom home owners … and I’m sure that consumers feel similarly when they receive a flood of calls, as how else can I explain why they don’t answer or return our calls? A friend of mine told me he tested Service Magic’s claim to only send inquiries to 3 businesses. He submitted a request and received calls from 5 people (an easy way to increase their revenue while delivering worse service to both consumers and the businesses paying for the leads)? Here are just a few of my issues with Service Magic:

• They dominate search results because they’ve created 1,00,000s of pages of content … by state (http://www.servicemagic.com/category.New-Hampshire.Handyman-Services.10210.html), cities (http://www.servicemagic.com/c.Handyman-Services.Seattle.WA.-12039.html) and what else?
• They claim “Screened and Approved Pros” while I only recall a brief phone call and sending copy of my insurance certificate.
• They claim to have large numbers of businesses to refer. How real are these numbers? From personal experience, it appears that once you open an account, it can never be deleted as I have requested my account be closed shortly after the tree decorating story above, and 6 months later I can still login. I’ve also seen complaints online that accounts are created following a sales call, even when the business owner didn’t sign up.

Directory Content is Created by Computers

Next time you look at a directory listing, look around and you are like to see the words “Claim this listing“. That’s because computers are scraping information off the web and creating 99% of the listings automatically. Service Magic offers some great illustrations of this creativity. Search for a category by state, and you’ll get sample inquiries towards the bottom. This is done to create unique content as the search engines won’t accept the same format on the 1,000,000s of pages being created. At the city level, they list the current Service Magic subscribers serving that city, for requested jobs like handyman services.

The problem is growing. Depending on the type of Service Magic account you set up, Service Magic may “claim your listing” when they are clearly not the business owner. The business owner doesn’t realize what is happening, and so if you click on a listing at www.insiderpages.com, it is likely you are being sent to Service Magic, not the actual business! This happened to another friend who started researching what was wrong when 2 repeat customers, after receiving a postcard, called and let the owner know they thought they’d gone out of business … where they had simply cancelled their Service Magic account.

Here are just a few examples of Service Magic directories in disguise, and please feel free to share others with us.

• 1800contractor.com appears to be using Service Magics old web design, and republishing Service Magic businesses in a slightly different format.
• insiderpages.com is owned by the same parent company as Service Magic, InterActiveCorp (IACI)
• articles.directorym.com is a door into Service Magic so I’ve never published articles there.
• There are lots more but time to publish …

What I owe you next, are tips on how to find the best home professionals online. Quick tip: they need to be real people, sharing their expertise via articles, blog posts, community news and more. They also need to share who they are so you know who you are hiring, especially when they’re working in your home.

Cleaning Products: Are They Safe?

WBZTV's Focus on Cleaning Products

How Safe are our Homes?

We spend many hours at home, so it’s important that we learn about the safety of the air we breathe and the water we drink. While food manufacturers must list all ingredients in their products, and you almost need a chemistry degree (my husband has one) to decipher the list of ingredients, cleaning products are only required to list the active ingredients.

In January 2011, manufacturers begin a voluntary program to list cleaning product ingredients online. That’s one small step in the right direction but:

• Will all ingredients be included, i.e. the video indicates they won’t be including fragrances?
• Will the average consumer understand the ingredients, or potential risks?
• How will we access this information where we make our buy decisions … at the store?

This video from WBZTV is an eye opener. It offers insight into the problem, hilighting increasing cases of child asthma. Is it just coincidence that the same day I found this video, a similar report talking about equally disturbing statistics showing sharp increases in autism around the world.

Visit WBZTV’s web site for more information, Can Household Cleaner’s be Making You Sick?

Decks to Die For

It’s true that kitchens, bathrooms and the right number of bedrooms are key to buying a house. However, there are other features like decks, views and great landscaping that make a house stand out from the crowd and influence buyers.

We might not count decks in the square footage of a home, but the concept of creating outdoor living spaces is gaining popularity. Maybe in the future outdoor living space will be included in house listings similar to the way unfinished/below level or basement space is included today.

Prioritize Your Deck Dreams

Maybe you already have a deck or patio, but it’s too small or for some reason you’re not using it much? Why not dream a little and put together a list of features your dream deck might have. Build your dream list first, putting down anything you want, then go back and prioritize your list. If you already have a deck, look at your top 3 features and see how they can be added to what you have. For a new deck, your budget will tell you how many of the deck features you’ve listed will be possible.

Features to Make You Smile

Before we get into the details around size and choice of deck materials, there are some key decisions to make so get out a piece of paper and jot down your dreams, what you’d like in your deck or patio.

Family Activities - How much time does your family spend at home? What activities do you tend to do together, i.e. family dinner every night? How often do you have company or throw parties? Don’t worry about one deck that has to do it all, as most indoor parties find people gathering in several places and always around the food (the secret to directing where you want people to go).

In kitchen planning it’s common to identify activity areas. You might want one area for cooking and family dinners, and another space for small social gatherings that let you enjoy the views from the side of the house while the children play in the backyard.

Location – While we tend to think of decks hiding behind the house while porches are in front, they’re both outdoor living spaces to be enjoyed by those who live there. What views do you want to capture from your deck, porch or patio? You’ve heard about wrap-around porches … so use your imagination and imagine 2 or 3 outdoor spaces woven together by outdoor paths, with doors that fit their purpose – a patio door from the living room for informal gatherings outdoors versus family dinners on a deck off the kitchen.

Design – It’s not uncommon for new homes to be sold without a deck, to cut down on the price of a new home. Good builders will prepare the footings and leave a gravel bed where they think a deck should go. When it comes to designing your deck, you need to look at the bigger picture, one that includes your home’s design and the landscaping as they all go together to make that visual impression. If you haven’t finished your landscaping, it’s wise to plan the deck/patio space together with the landscaping and walkways that will help tie it together.

Features/Decisions You Might Overlook

• Would you like your deck to be covered? with a roof, arbor or awning?
• Is your ideal location adjacent to the house? or farther away to capture views?
• Would you like to use a design unique to your property?
• Will the use of screening add to your enjoyment, especially if there is water nearby?
• Would you like to expand the seasons when you can use your covered deck with window panels you can swap for summer screens?
• Is there a dedicated chef who wants to create an outdoor kitchen?
• Maybe you don’t have time for extensive gardening but you’d like to include planters for herbs and/or colorful flowers?
• Would you like multiple spaces, and possibly ones in different sizes to support the intended activities like a quiet nook for one person, where you can sneak off to read and take a nap.

We’ll add additional deck articles to our library soon. Ones that will help you with the advantages of decks and patios, an overview of material choices and more. If there are other aspects of deck design, installation and maintenance that we can help you with, let us know via the comment section below. Sign up for our newsletter and you’ll hear about each month’s theme and learn from our home professional members around the world.

Affordable Kitchen Updates

New products are introduced to your home professionals each year at their respective trade shows. Here’s a peak at this year’s Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Chicago, from Amy Hoak, Marketwatch. She does a nice job sharing views from many participants on budget sensitive ways to upgrade your kitchen … and you’ll feel like you’re right there at the show.

You’ll learn that people are spending less on kitchen remodels. Remember you don’t have to do everything all at once. You can replace your countertops this year, put new hardware on your cabinets next year and the year after, tile your backsplash.

Tips 4 Home Owners: Plan your updates around functionality to enhance how you use your home, and with a budget in mind, find products that visually pleasing, energy efficient and easy to maintain.

Pressure Washing: When Why & Who

There are lots of good uses for pressure washing but the important questions we’ll answer here are whether it makes sense to do the pressure washing yourself? and if you’ll be doing it, should you buy or rent a pressure washer.

When to Use a Pressure Washer

Pressure washing, also called power washing, is most often used to clean surfaces prior to painting or to clean large exterior surfaces like the vinyl siding on a home. It’s important to make sure that surfaces you plan to clean will not be damaged by the pressure, i.e. the power of a pressure washer will strip off loose paint so unless you’re planning to paint your home, you don’t want to pressure wash it. Here are the common ways a pressure washer is used for home maintenance:

• Washing your home’s siding when the material is vinyl, metal and some types of masonry BUT NOT wood, hardboard, brick or stucco siding which can be easily damaged by the pressure.
• Preparing wood siding and trim for painting, by removing all loose paint.
• Preparing wood decks and porches for a new coat of stain and/or sealer.
• Cleaning composite decks, railings and stairs which don’t have to be painted.
• Cleaning outdoor furniture which is meant to get wet.
• Cleaning your roof, especially when you’ve got moss and lichens growing there.

Special Note: If your home was built prior to 1978, it may have been painted with lead paint and special rules must be followed in how you deal with lead paint.

Why Use a Pressure Washer

Using a pressure washer will save you time when done right. The added pressure over what your garden hose can deliver, helps separate the dirt from the surface where it has attached itself. You’ll also want to use a pressure washer that allows mixing detergent or chemicals into the spray. This helps remove the dirt or living creatures which attach themselves to building materials. While much of the hard work will be done by the pressure washer, there are instances where you will need to scrub mildew first, typically because it has been left too long (multiple years).

Pressure Washing: Do-It-Yourself or Hire a Pro?

While there are 100s of articles and videos online that offer tips on “how to” pressure wash your house , roof, etc … few people stop to consider whether it makes sense to do it themselves. Where it makes sense to own a lawn mower that you use every 1 to 2 weeks, does it make sense to buy a pressure washer that you only use 1 or 2 times a year. You’ll need room to store it (about the same size as a small lawn mower), you’ll need to maintain the motor and you’ll need to drain the water so it doesn’t freeze over the winter.

Operating a pressure washer takes time to learn – which tip to use for each application, how to maneuver an electric pressure washer with both garden hose and electrical cords attached and the right detergent and/or chemicals to get your home or deck clean. There are adjustable extension handles you can use for most 2-story homes but a ladder will be needed for 3-story houses. Home owners who don’t spend lots of time on ladders, will have difficulty operating a pressure washer safely and should call a professional.

You’ll need to learn how close to hold the nozzle from the house or deck, to get it clean without causing damage. With decks, you need to learn to keep the nozzle moving in a uniform pattern to avoid streaks due to differing pressure. Most important, you need to learn how to avoid directing water where it can cause hidden water damage. This requires working from the top down, as your roofing shingles and siding are designed to shed rain water. With vinyl siding you also don’t want to point the wand towards the seams where the siding panels overlap.

Safety is key when doing any type of home maintenance, and more so where water is involved. When using a pressure washer, you should always wear safety glasses and keep the wand and water away from yourself, as well as electrical fixtures and wires around your home.