Tips to Help Prepare Your House for the Snow and Cold

As the days grow colder, H. Jack’s Plumbing and Heating Co. is looking forward to the holidays, sleigh rides, and hot cocoa by the fire. But before we enjoy the chilly weather, we want to give you winter home maintenance tips to help prepare your house for the snow and cold. The last thing you want during the winter months is a furnace breakdown and a frozen home! This eight-point winter checklist will ensure you have a warm winter, despite the chill outside.

Inspect your Furnace Boiler.

Check the area around the furnace or boiler and remove all flammable objects. Before officially turning on your furnace, have it inspected by a professional technician who can spot any problems you may have missed and let you know if you need furnace repair! Also, if you have a boiler, make sure to get a boiler inspection. H. Jack’s can provide you with a boiler or furnace inspection, as well as boiler or furnace repair services to ensure your heater won’t break down on you in the dead of winter.

Check your Carbon Monoxide Detector.

Ensure the alarm is working for those winter months where you are holed up inside. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that can cause harm to you and your family, especially during the winter months when it tends to build-up inside your home. Change those batteries if need be and have peace of mind this winter.

Change your HVAC Filter.

A clean filter means air flows through your house without restriction, while dirty filters make your heater work harder than it needs to and drives up your heating bill. Air filters should be replaced just about every month, but be sure to replace your air filter especially before you turn on your heating system.

Insulate, insulate, insulate.

Check your attic, crawlspaces, and even your ceiling. Insulate any space where air is leaking, so you don’t lose the rising warm air you need to heat your house! Also, make sure to seal the smaller places air can leak through, like windows and doors. Save on energy costs by weatherstripping and caulking those places cold air sneaks into your home.

Reverse your Ceiling Fans.

Hot air rises, but you want that nice warm air to move downwards rather than stay up by the ceiling. By reversing your ceiling fans to a clockwise direction, you create an updraft that pushes the warm air down into the room. This keeps your house warmer, so you can lower that thermostat.

Radiator Tune-up and Vent Check-up.

Inspect your radiators and vents, ensuring they are free of dust and dirt. Double check nothing is covering or blocking them, such as furniture or drapes. This blockage can create a safety hazard and hinder airflow.

Pipe Insulation.

Pipes in vulnerable places like attics, crawl spaces, and basements are in danger of freezing because of extreme temperatures. Confirm that air is circulating where these pipes are located and add extra insulation around exposed pipes. Insulating pipes secures a steady water supply, and it also provides protection so that after winter has thawed, you don’t have any leaks. As a bonus, insulating pipes puts less stress on your hot water tank, –which you should also check for leaks and damage before the colder temperatures set in. If any problems arise with your pipes or your hot water heater, contact H. Jack’s for our expert plumbing services.

Clean Gutters

You want to be sure all water is away from your house to prevent leaks, flooding, and icicles from taking over this winter. Besides cleaning up those gutters, you should also disconnect your garden hose and turn off all exterior faucets. Drain out the excess water though, otherwise it can freeze and burst your pipes! Divert any extra water that might be coming down from your roof with trenches or extensions to your downspouts, so that it is deposited at least a few feet away from your foundation. Get your house ready for winter with this checklist, and call H. Jack’s to inspect your furnace or boiler to guarantee everything is working properly. However, if there’s an emergency during those unpredictable winter months, know that H. Jack’s experienced technicians are on call 24 hours a day for your heating and plumbing needs. So don’t hesitate, and schedule an appointment that first snowflake falls!

Other Way of Making a Perfect Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is coming up faster than you think! Don’t get caught at the last minute picking over leftover flowers and drugstore chocolates. There are plenty of quick-fixes and improvements around your mother’s home with which you can help. Do something that she can really appreciate and check out some perfect Mother’s Day repairs that you can treat her with this year!

Changing of the Guard

Use Mother’s Day as a reminder to change all the filters in her air conditioning and central air units. While this should be done several times a year, it is ideal to start the season with a fresh filter before summer demands more frequent usage. While you’re out there, be sure to clear away any debris or trash around the units that can impede air flow. Also, move any potential bird nests that may have been built in the corners of the units. Nests will not only obstruct proper air flow, but the unit’s fan blades make it a dangerous location for birds. If it sounds like your mother’s air conditioner or central air unit is running improperly after cleaning away any debris or obstructions, a new fan or motor may need to be installed. Be sure to contact an H. Jack’s representative right away to service the unit.

Set It and Forget It

After you’ve cleaned her air conditioning unit and replaced any old air filters, now is the perfect time to install an energy saving thermostat control unit. Programming your air conditioner to run on a scheduled routine with a set temperature will not only prove energy efficient but will end up saving money in her electric bill as well. Jack’s offers free quotes and would love to discuss the many options you have available.

Turning the Screws

A weak hinge, loose handle, or knob can easily be overlooked. While minor fixes on their own, if left unchecked, they pose safety hazards that easily contribute to slips and falls. Check doorknobs to all the rooms in the house as well as exterior doors. Verify that all your mother’s door locks catch and release smoothly. You may need to make slight adjustments to the strike plate along the door frame or spray some lubricant into the locking mechanism. Go around with a Phillips and flathead screwdrivers and tighten any loose handles to her cabinets and cupboards. Loose screws in door hinges can force a door to improperly shut. Not only does this damage the door and door frame, it also poses a potential security liability.

Sowing the Seeds

Whether it is Mother’s Day or not, now is the ideal time to sow grass seeds in any bare patches in the yard that you’d like filled. April and May will bring their fair share of both rain and sunlight to accelerate the new growth needed to reach that fresh field of green outside her kitchen window. Take a rake or roto-tiller over any patch of ground you want to seed and turn over a fresh layer of earth. While you can easily scatter seeds by hand, using a sieve can help spread the seeds more uniformly over an area.

Train that Drain

A toilet that never stops running can not only be a nuisance, it can really put a dent into a water bill. If your mother’s toilet sounds like it is constantly running you can fix it with just a few easy steps.

First, remove the lid for the tank from the back of the toilet. Check to make sure that the fill tube is properly connected to the fill valve. You also want to check that the fill tube is perched about one inch above the overflow tube so that it can properly drain.

Sometimes overlooked, the flapper chain that connects the flush rod to the flapper is critical to the performance of your toilet. For this chain to properly raise and lower the flapper, it needs to be free from tangles. While the flapper is shut there should only be a minimal amount of slack in the chain. Be sure to trim the excess links from the chain to eliminate the risk of knotting.

If damaged, a flapper and its chain are easily replaced. However, if performance issues persist you will want to contact a trained H. Jack’s technician as soon as possible. A leaky toilet, if left unchecked, can lead to backed-up flows, clogs, and flooding. While we can never do enough to show our love and gratitude for the women who raised us, these easy fixer-uppers around the house are a good start this Mother’s Day.

Be sure to give us a call so we can help you with any of your heating, cooling, or plumbing needs.

What to Do With Fallen Leaves?

Your lawn is about to be invaded by an army of beautiful yet often frustrating fall leaves. H. Jack’s Plumbing and Heating Company wants to help you keep your lawn healthy and clear this fall by putting those leaves to good use! Here are our three tips on what to do with fallen leaves.

1. Compost Them

Composting leaves is one of the best things you can do for your garden. They breakdown into a nutritious soil that you can add to your garden and planters. Plus, it is far better than trying to wrangle up enough bags and bins to leave out for the garbage collectors. Leaf mulch may take a while to develop, but by the time planting season comes around again, you will have home-made, inexpensive compost to use!

2. Use Them As Mulch

You can gather up fallen leaves and scatter them over planting beds and pots. They function as a natural, effective, insulating mulch. That way, there’s no need to buy and haul in mulch from a home improvement center. Additionally, if you have a tree planted in a flower bed or vegetable garden that naturally drops leaves every fall, you do not have to worry about gathering them up. Their mulch-like properties will still work.  

3. Pile Them Up For Critters

Instead of throwing them out, gathering up the leaves into a big pile is ideal for lawn critters. Little creatures like chipmunks, birds, garter snakes, and more love such environments. You’ll be giving them an ideal refuge from the harsher winter weather coming in the near future.

4. Leave (Pun Not Intended) Them There

Not kidding. Leaving the leaves there means they act as a natural insulator for your grass over the winter; fallen leaves are a natural part of an area with trees. If you live in a neighborhood with an HOA or something similar that has rules against this, you may not be able to exercise this option. If you do decide to let the leaves be, you will want to run the lawn mower over them a few times as they fall, so that they do not smother your grass. H. Jack’s is here for you and your home this fall! As the weather changes, call H. Jack’s to find emergency repair services and assistance with your home heating.