There is so much dust and debris that makes its way into our homes through the ducts in our vents. If you want quality air in your home, you might need to learn how to clean the ducts in your vents. Also, clean ducts reduce the chances of allergies getting triggered in the family. Cleaning ducts is not difficult. You will need a few items and an understanding of the HVAC system.

ITEMS YOU NEED WHEN GETTING READY TO CLEAN YOUR DUCTS

GLOVES

You will need gloves so that your hands remain protected when you are cleaning the ducts. Be sure to get heavy-duty gloves and a mask. If possible, get goggles to protect your eyes.

BUCKET

It might be necessary to get a bucket with a mop so that you can remove any dust and debris accumulated in your ducts. A wet mop will absorb much dust and ensure your ducts are thoroughly cleaned. Be careful not to damage the ducts with your mop.

VACUUM

Before using any mops, it is best to vacuum the ducts. The vacuum sucks much of the dust and dirt in the ducts. You can use your household vacuum hose. Point the nozzle towards the dusty duct areas and vacuum thoroughly. If your home vacuum is not strong enough, you can rent a commercial vacuum with a long hose.

BRUSH

Once you have vacuumed the ducts, you should clean them with a brush. You can use a small brush to remove any dust clinging to the wall of the ducts.

HOSE

You will need a long hose and an Air Blaster attachment. The attachment is used to spray water into the ducts and dislodge anything that has settled on the sides. Use this attachment when cleaning your ducts thoroughly after vacuuming or after using a mop.

POWER DRILL

Use it to remove screws from the vents. You could also use a screwdriver, but it will require a lot of energy and could take much time.

AIR DUSTER

Use an air duster or compressed air to dislodge dust in tight spots, particularly in areas hard to reach with a mop.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO CLEANING THE DUCTS

1. Remove any screws that are holding the air duct covers.
2. Make sure you cover your supply vents – It is important to cover these supply vents with paper towels. The vents that are not being cleaned or have already been cleaned are the ones to cover. The aim is to stop any dust from escaping into these open vents.
3. check the thermostat and set it to “fan on” – Activating the fan allows you to move any dust in the vents. It will also loosen any dust stuck in the vents, making it easy for you to clean. Ensure the “heat and cool mode” is turned off as the fan turns on.
4. Loosen the dust in the ducts – Gently knock the ducts to loosen any dust in the ductwork. You can use the handle of your brush to knock the duct. It will loosen any dust stuck on the sides of the ducts.
5. Clean your supply registers – Use your brush to sweep out the dust from your supply registers. Then, use a vacuum to suck out the accumulated dust or debris. Take advantage of the vacuum hose to reach the furthest sections of the supply registers and vacuum thoroughly.
6. Shut the fan and furnaces – Switch off the fan from the thermostat and power off the furnace using the service switch.
7. Return the furnace filter.

Your ducts must be clean at this point. It will take a while before dust accumulates to excess levels. Also, you can conduct routine duct cleaning once or twice a month, especially during spring and summer. If you have read this and decided that this work is not for you, then you can look into services to help you. If you live near Canada, you can look for Toronto duct cleaning services and find a company to come clean them for you.

Regardless if you choose to clean them yourself, or get them taken care of by an outside company. Maintaining a clean air duct will help to keep dust and mites away from your home, and may even help lighten symptoms during allergy season. 

Guest Contributor: Hannah Boothe

 Kitchen remodeling may seem like an easy task, but it can be difficult if you don’t know where to start and if you are not prepared for it. Aside from the budget, you also have to know when to tell if you need to remodel something or not; otherwise, you might unnecessarily spend money on upgrading a part of the house that is still functioning well. 

Some home remodeling ideas can be costly, especially if you want to upgrade most parts, but if you’re tight on budget and want to remodel for a change, then there are also ways to do it the budget-friendly way.

When it comes to kitchen remodeling, you have to be smart and creative to make the best of it without spending much. You can get the design or function you want without buying a new appliance or new furniture. Sometimes all it takes is a simple repair and poof! You have a new and improved kitchen without spending a lot of money. If you’re here for that, then you’re in the right place.

Here are seven tips to remodel your kitchen while on a budget:

1. List Everything You Need

Remodeling is a costly task to do if you are not prepared. You’ll never be ready for the sudden costs if you do not plan it, so it’s always better to plan by listing everything you need to do. 

You can start by listing everything you need first. Decide which part of your kitchen you want to remodel, and list down the changes you want to do with it. Set a budget for every part of the kitchen you want to remodel so you would have a limit if you need to purchase something. 

After you’ve listed everything you need, you can start the process of remodeling.

2. Repaint Wooden Furniture With White

Nothing can defeat the color of bright white when it comes to retouching wooden furniture. No matter how outdated the wooden furniture is, as long as it still has a smooth surface, you can make it look new again with white paint. It will also be a good chance to change the ambiance of your kitchen if you’ve had other colors but white as your kitchen motif. White-colored wooden furniture can brighten your kitchen and give off a neat and relaxing mood. 

Aside from the purpose of retouching, old and rusty furniture can also look brand new with white paint. So if you want a new set of furniture but don’t want to spend a lot of money, use white paint to repaint old furniture so you won’t have to buy new ones. 

3. DIY Decorations

If your kitchen has been looking bland, add some DIY decorations. There are a lot of DIY decorations that are on the internet that you can easily search. Another easy one you can do is picture frames. You can make picture frames with some cardboard, paint, and resin. What makes them even more special is you can decorate them however you want, so get creative and start decorating.

4. Add More Greens

In the kitchen, when we say greens, the first thing that will come to people’s minds is vegetables. When it comes to remodeling and home decorations, we meant indoor plants. Having indoor plants can promote the quality of air inside your house. Some indoor plants, to some extent, also have health benefits. 

The kitchen is where most people cook, so expect that sometimes there are dishes that make your kitchen smell like someone puked in there. There are odor-neutralizing plants that help eliminate bad odors from food that smells when cooked. So if you want to have a fresh-smelling kitchen, add some indoor plants.

5. Replace The Cabinet Doors, But Leave The Cabinets

What’s the first thing that gets torn over time with cabinets? The doors. Cabinet doors are the ones that can get torn from too much use because it’s the only part of the kitchen cabinet that gets moved a lot. Most of the time, we change cabinets even when the body is still intact, so before doing this if ever you’re thinking of replacing your kitchen cabinets, check the body thoroughly. If it still looks okay and sturdy enough to store your kitchen items, then only replace the doors to save money. You can use several kitchen repair tools in doing this. You can even make your cabinet doors to design them how you want, making them look like you’ve just purchased a new kitchen cabinet.

6. Upgrade The Lighting With DIY Projects

It’s important to maintain the lights inside your kitchen because it’s where you prepare and cook food. The visibility must be 100% clear for you to work properly. When the light fixtures are already dim and dull, upgrade them with DIY kits. There are DIY kits for lights found online and even at a nearby hardware store, and you’ll find them more cheaper and convenient. 

7. Change The Walls With A New Paint Color or A Wallpaper

You can update the whole look of your kitchen by just changing how the walls look, so work on that. You can change the wall design by getting a new wallpaper, there are cheap wallpapers you can find on the internet. The fastest and cheapest way to upgrade the design of your kitchen walls is to repaint them with a color that you haven’t used before, so you’ll look at your kitchen in a new light. 

Conclusion

Kitchen remodeling is fun if you can save money while doing it, so make sure to be smart with your choices and decisions. There are so many ways you can remodel a part of your house without spending much, just remember to plan to avoid unnecessary purchases. It’s important to save money, especially in our time today when you can’t tell what will happen next. In everything you do, you have to work smarter, not harder.

Guest Contributor: Ksenija Meller

Wall clocks are a widely overlooked essential in any home that can be functional as well as decorative. They encourage you to stay organized and on schedule at all times, whether you work from home or want to be able to glance up to see the time in the evening. 

Whatever style of decoration you choose, there are many ways that you can incorporate a wall clock into your home. These are the top ten wall clock decoration ideas that can complement your home’s themes or feature walls. 

DIY WHEEL CLOCK

Firstly, for the more crafty people who want to add their own spin to their wall clock, it could be worth making your own using materials that are available to you. Some people use old bicycle wheels, but you can use anything that you like. 

It could be fun to decorate your own clock face with numbers in your own writing, too. Depending on how skilled you are at DIY and technical work, it could be worth taking the mechanism from an old wall clock and fitting it onto your desired clock face. 

Other options include creating your own mechanical clock, which is a little more challenging. 

MAKE A STATEMENT

Another option that is certain to make an impact is to scale up your wall clock. Think about finding one that has an excessively large face so that you do not have to decorate the rest of the wall. Not only is this fun and unique, but it is functional as you will be able to read the time from further away. 

MULTIPLE TIME ZONES

Some people who have family, loved ones, or friends that live in other time zones feel more connected to them by displaying multiple clocks that have the same basic design in a line horizontally and changing them to show the time in different locations. You could also print or make your own tags to sit above each clock to say which country each clock is in time with.

SUBTLE SOPHISTICATION

Modern style usually features minimalism and stripping things back a little. If this is your style within the home, you could choose to add unadorned clock faces around the house which have simple backgrounds such as marbled surfaces or plain colors. 

NOT JUST TIME

Another functional and decorative idea that can give you more information than just the time is to find a clock which shows moon phases, expected weather patterns, and even estimated temperatures for the day. These can be seen with digital displays or following the format of traditional wall clocks. 

ABSTRACT CLOCKS

You can be bold with minimalism, and explore a huge selection of different shapes that simplistic clock faces demonstrate. You can find wall clocks that do not have a base per say, but that are fixed to the wall to create a minimalist finish to a room. 

DESIGNER BRANDS

For those who want to add a touch of luxury to their home while maintaining some level of functionality, you could find a wall clock that has been made by your favorite high-end brands. One of the most popular forms of this is a rolex wall clock, as it can be styled up or down depending on where it is hung in the home. 

GALLERY WALL

Another option to make your wall clock blend in with your decoration could be to create a gallery wall. Some people space their favorite pictures, artwork, and portraits and fit a wall clock within this. You could even find a wall clock that matches the color of your gallery wall, or even the color of the picture frames. 

VINTAGE FEEL

Cuckoo clocks are making a comeback, and they can be highly entertaining talking pieces in any home. If you want something that has a little more character and animation, you could search for a second hand cuckoo clock or even a grandfather clock to place against a wall in your home. 

FILL THE WALL WITH CLOCKS

Finally, you could decide that you want to collect different types of clocks and hang them in a pattern on the wall. Make a gallery wall entirely out of clocks for something a little different. The only downside to this is that you will have a lot of batteries to change if you install these clocks at the same time! 

SUMMARY

Wall clocks are decorative as well as functional, which is why there are so many different ways that people have added their own style to them. Think about how you want to add a touch of your own character to your decor, and what a wall clock can add to your home. 

Guest Contributor: Violette Butterworth

Looking for ways to defend your basement against flooding? 

If you live in a climate that suffers from heavy rainfall or snow or you’ve had water problems before, you need all the help you can get to prevent your basement from flooding and causing myriad issues for your home. 

That’s where the sump pump comes into play. It’s a submersible device that’s installed in the lowest point of your home, such as your basement, and keeps the groundwater level from rising all the way up to your basement floor. 

When it rains, the soil around your house gets oversaturated and the sump pit fills up with water. This activates the sump pump float switch that triggers the sump pump to drain the excess water into a dry well or a storm drain away from your house.  

WHY YOU NEED TO INVEST IN A SUMP PUMP

Considering investing in a sump pump?

There’s no time to wait as the weather can be fairly unpredictable. It’s a small investment that will yield great benefits for your house in the years to come. 

Here are some advantages that are worth mentioning:

• Moisture leads to the growth of mold and mildew. Since sump pumps keep the groundwater and moisture levels in check, it significantly reduces the risk of fungus growth in your basement. 
• Moisture makes your house a termite magnet. A sump pump is just what you need to make sure your house stays protected against all kinds of pest infestations.
• Standing water in your basement can create humidity and cause difficulty in breathing, especially for asthma patients. Installing a sump pump will allow you to keep the humidity levels under control and improve the indoor air quality of your home.
• Electrical fires can occur due to flooding. Excessive water can cause the appliances in your basement to short-circuit. With a sump pump, you can prevent the water from ruining your appliances and reduce the risk of a household fire. 

INSTALLING YOUR SUMP PUMP THE RIGHT WAY

There’s so much you need to know when it comes to installing a sump pump in your house, whether you’re doing it yourself or getting a professional to do it for you. 

You may not know this but neither a homeowner’s policy nor your flood insurance will provide coverage for your sump pump failure. You’ll have to purchase targeted pump failure insurance coverage to minimize your losses.

Looking for ways to get the most out of your sump pump?

Sump Pump Advisor is here to save the day. It’s a one-stop solution where you can find answers to all the questions you may have about sump pump maintenance and picking out the right model for your home. 

With a host of informational guides to choose from and comparison tables that narrow down your options for you, Sump Pump Advisor has everything you’re looking for and more.

So what are you waiting for?

Head over to our website and learn everything you need to know about sump pumps in just a few clicks!

Guest Contributor: John Fred