New Year Resolutions for Your Home

“This year will be different”, you say. This year you’re more focused, more motivated and ready to take on the challenges of your New Year resolution to get your home in tip top shape. From de-cluttering to trimming the fat on your electricity, you’re ready to take on the home improvement New Year’s resolution challenge.

LMR Public Adjusters is here to help with some tips and tricks for making this year’s resolutions stick!

De-clutter

According to the theory of Feng Shui, clutter confuses and drains energy from both you and your home. On a practical level clearing out the unused and unnecessary build up in you home creates more storage space for the things you’d like to keep. So start off your home improvement by making room, physically and emotionally for the challenge ahead.

De-cluttering Tips:

• Install high shelves for books that you don’t often need, but don’t want to put away in storage or donate.
• Utilize the space under your stairs for storage.
• Use shoe organizers for storing things you use and need daily like keys and cell phones.

Clean up after yourself – daily, weekly and monthly

Create a daily and weekly schedule for household cleanliness. Daily tasks include sweeping, putting dishes in the dishwasher, dirty laundry in the hamper and shoes on the shoe rack. Give your home a top to bottom cleaning one day a week and a deep cleaning monthly

House Keeping tips:

• Invest in a portable cleaner carryall so you can easily move from room to room with your cleaning supplies.
• Wear a builders apron when you clean and stock it with implements such as rubber gloves, plastic bags and cleaning cloths for easy access to all the cleaning tools you need.
• Clean clockwise and from high to low (cabinets to floors) for cleaning efficiency.

Become a DIYer

While a professional is needed for a number of household repairs, there are many projects that are fairly easy for someone willing to do the job by themselves. If you’re not naturally handy, take some time to study the basics of DIY home repairs. You may even want to invest in taking a few classes with a professional to learn tips and tricks hands on. But if that’s not in your cards check out our tips below for some projects that even “Tim the Tool Man” wouldn’t mess up!

DIY Home Repair Tips:

• Lubricate door hinges and moving parts to keep them from squeaking.
• Educate yourself on home maintenance so that you know which repairs are essential to your home.
• Clean out filters, vents, air ducts and gutters regularly.

Cut down on water usage

Similarly to the advice on saving electricity, the first place to start is to make sure that you don’t have any leaks. Not only do leaks waste water, they can cause water damage to your home. Once you’ve checked for leakage and made repairs where necessary, consider upgrading your faucets, toilets and showerheads with EPA-certified WaterSense products.

Water Saving Tips:

• Install low flow showerheads and replace water guzzling toilets with high efficiency ones. Those two changes alone can take as much as $300 per year off your water bill.
• Upgrade your washing machine to an energy and water efficient one.
• Plant water conscious garden with drought tolerant plants and use companion planting practices to maintain your garden’s microclimate.

Find out more about the causes, effects and prevention for water damage to your property.

Trim the fat on your electric bill

This one will help your wallet and Mother Nature. Sealing the windows and doors as well as making sure your ducts are well insulated and clean are the first things you’ll want to do. From there you can start cutting down on electric usage.

Energy Saving Tips:

• Switch off lights when you leave a room
• Turn you AC off when you leave the house and turn the dial down on your heat to 55 degrees F at night and when you leave the house
• Turn off and unplug household electronics when they are not being used. Alternatively you can plug them into a power strip and turn that off when they aren’t needed.