Home Maintenance For Dummies, 2nd Edition

by Carey, James

  If you have only one unit, place it in the hall outside the bedroom area of your home. Invisible, odorless, poisonous CO in concentrated form is far less likely to awaken someone who’s sleeping than thick, toxic smoke is.

  CO detectors can be battery operated, hard-wired, mounted directly in an electrical wall outlet, or plugged in to an electrical cord (which allows units to sit on a shelf or tabletop). If you use a unit that plugs in to a direct power source, make sure it also has an independent battery backup.

  Your CO detector should have a digital display with memory that indicates and records a problem, even when it’s too small to trigger the alarm. A normal low level of CO in a home is zero. Nada, zilch, zip. However, even a small reading — such as 25, 30, or 35 parts per million — indicates a problem that could escalate.

  The care and maintenance of CO detectors is basically the same as for smoke detectors with regard to cleaning and frequent testing. (See the “Smoke detectors” section, earlier in this chapter, for more information.)

  Because you can’t test a carbon-monoxide detector using an outside source (the way you can light some matches under a smoke detector to see if it’s working), you have to remember to press the test button on the CO detector once each month to make sure the detector is working.

  Paying attention to sources of carbon monoxide

  Don’t mess around with CO. Once a year, have your heating system, vents, chimney, and flue inspected (and cleaned if necessary) by a qualified technician. And make sure that your fuel-burning appliances always are vented. (See Chapter 10 for more information on heating and venting systems. Chapter 15 tells you all about chimney and flue inspections.)

  Other maintenance procedures should include checking and correcting any signs that indicate potential CO problems, including:

  A noticeably decreasing hot-water supply

  A furnace that runs constantly but doesn’t heat your house

  Soot collecting on, under, and around any appliance

  An unfamiliar burning odor

  A loose or missing furnace panel or vent pipe

  Damaged brick, chimney discoloration, or a loose-fitting chimney pipe

  Keeping Your Natural-Gas Line Safe

  Of all emergency preparedness efforts, gas lines deserve extra consideration — both in the event of natural disasters and for day-to-day living. Natural gas is the most potentially dangerous item in your home. Gas can cause instant flash fires and devastating explosions that can result from negligence and carelessness.

  Gas lines must be properly installed, monitored, and maintained to prevent these catastrophes. Here’s how:

  Protect your gas meter. An exposed gas meter is always susceptible to damage or being dislodged by contact. For protection from housework and gardening, and to keep gas meters located near driveways and sidewalks from being hit, place two heavy metal pipes in concrete (much like you would set a fence post) in front of and on both sides of the gas meter.

  Don’t pour concrete or put asphalt around the rigid gas delivery pipe that comes up out of the ground leading to the meter. This pipe must remain in soft and pliable dirt to safely ride out any seismic activity.

  Keep the gas-line shut-off wrench handy and easily accessible in a gas emergency. Attach the wrench to the main line at the shut-off valve with a piece of chain and a hose clamp. If you ever have to close the main gas valve, you only need to rotate the bar on the valve one-quarter turn, so that it runs across the gas line (closed) rather than parallel to it (open).

  Inspect all gas-line connections in your home. Those leading to appliances, furnaces, and water heaters should only be a flexible, corrugated stainless steel or a new epoxy-coated flexible connector. You should see a shut-off valve where the gas line meets the solid gas delivery line.

  If you have a rigid connection to your gas appliance, remove it and replace it with an approved flexible connector.

  Always call before you dig. There are many types of underground lines serving your home — from gas and electricity to water, telephone, and cable TV — and they’re often only a few feet below the surface. So before you dig a ditch, sink a fence post, or plant a tree or bush, call your local utility companies to come out and mark where the lines are.

  If you dig and hit your cable TV line, you face a slight inconvenience until the cable company can come out and repair the line. But if you hit a gas line, you may cause an explosion or fire.

  Shining a Light on Electrical Safety

  What are the signs of a potentially dangerous electrical problem? It’s time to call the electrician when you see any of the following:

  Habitually flickering lights

  A breaker that repeatedly pops

  A fuse that repeatedly burns out

  Any of these can signal a loose connection or an overloaded circuit, which ultimately can cause a house fire.

  You should leave most electrical work to a qualified electrician.

  The ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) was developed to help save people from getting shocked. When a short or ground fault occurs, the GFCI detects it. Any variation indicates that some of the current is going where it’s not supposed to go and is creating a shock hazard. When this occurs, the GFCI trips in 1/40 second — a short enough period of time so that most healthy people aren’t injured.

  Make sure that GFCIs are installed at all receptacles within 4 feet of a sink, at all exterior and garage receptacles, and at all electric fixtures over showers and tubs.

  All GFCI receptacles have test buttons. Be sure to test each GFCI receptacle in your home once a month. If the test doesn’t trip the breaker, replace the GFCI immediately.

  Common sense measures to keep the bad guys at bay

  A few simple guidelines can make your home as tight as the proverbial bug in a rug, affording you greater safety while you’re home and when you’re away:

  Check all window and door locks to make sure that they’re operating properly. Install backup or secondary security locks and latches at vulnerable locations. Then use these simple protections — always.

  Add a heavy-duty security storm door to outside doors.

  Toughen up sliding patio doors with pin locks and crossbars to deter forced opening. A pin lock is a small barrel bolt that mounts on the floor against the interior of the sliding patio door frame. A thumb turn inserts the barrel or “pin” into a hole that you drill into the bottom of the center upright of the door frame. A crossbar is a fancy metal version of the wooden broom stick or closet pole that you lay in the door track to prevent the door from being opened. Instead of laying in the door track, the crossbar is attached to the interior of the sliding patio door frame (usually midway up the door) and abuts the sliding door, preventing it from being opened.

  Trim back any thin shrubbery and bushes near windows and doors that may provide cover for a burglar’s work-in-process.

  Add outdoor security lighting with a motion detector on/off control. See Home Improvement For Dummies, by Gene and Katie Hamilton (Wiley Publishing), for more information on installing a motion detector.

  Add metal security bars over windows and doors in high-risk areas, such as basement windows. Make sure that these bars have quick-release safety latches for easy emergency escape for those inside.

  Never hide a house key in an obvious location. Even amateurs know most favorites, like under doormats, in flower pots, and inside fake rocks.

  Close drapes and shades when you’re out. The goal is to prevent burglars from seeing that you’re gone.

  Always be on the lookout for unusual activity and new faces near your home.

  During the holidays, don’t leave large displays of gifts and presents in plain view when you’re out. If your holiday involves decorating a tree, keep it well watered for fire safety, and unplug all indoor decorative lighting before leaving the house.

  Maintaining Your Burglar Alarm

  Not all household dangers come from the inside. You also need to take measures to prote
ct against those who would storm the castle, scale the proverbial stone walls, and plunder your family’s treasures. A number of whole-house alarm systems are available today, and — just as with smoke detectors and carbon-monoxide detectors — these need occasional testing, checking, and tuning up:

  At least twice a year, check and replace the batteries in your alarm system. Most alarm systems include a fail-safe battery backup.

  Check the fire-sensing capability of your burglar alarm monthly. Many systems have a fire-sensing capability; check and maintain it as outlined in the “Smoke detectors” section, earlier in this chapter.

  Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for maintaining and checking the keypad and the horn or siren. Pay particular attention to all points that signal an intrusion when contact is broken.

  Make sure sensitivity levels are properly set to avoid both frequent false alarms and a system that doesn’t respond properly when it should. If you experience frequent false alarms, you and your family will eventually start to ignore them — and you may ignore the alarm when you need to pay attention to it!

  Before ordering and installing an alarm, check with local law-enforcement agencies to see about any restrictions or special ordinances in your area. Most police departments now discourage homeowners from installing a dialer-type alarm system that automatically calls the police or sheriff’s department when activated because, during major disasters, this type of alarm completely swamps incoming lines that are needed to field calls for specific individual emergency situations.

  A good alternative is to have your alarm monitored by a central reporting agency. Thus, if there is a false alarm, the police or sheriff won’t be summoned, and you’ll be off the hook for a false-alarm fee and the embarrassment of having the cops show up at your home only to find you in your bathrobe collecting the morning paper. Oops!

  Testing the Safety Mechanisms in Your Automatic Garage-Door Opener

  Garage doors are heavy, and they can close quickly, posing a danger to anyone or anything that happens to be under them when they come down. To address this safety issue, a federal law was passed in April 1982, requiring closing garage doors that are operated by automatic openers to reverse off of a 2-inch block (that is, the door must open if it meets even a small obstruction on the way down).

  Even with the safety improvements mandated by the April 1982 legislation, injuries continued to occur, and safety remained an issue, resulting in a 1993 law requiring that a garage-door opener must be equipped with a monitored non-contact safety reversing device or safety edge that stops and reverses a closing garage door, such as:

  An electronic-beam sensor that is installed at either side of the door opening: When the beam is broken, the door stops and reverses itself.

  A pressure-sensitive electronic rubber strip that attaches to the bottom of the door where it makes contact with the floor: When the strip comes into contact with an object, the door automatically stops and reverses itself, avoiding injury or damage to property.

  In addition to extending its life, monthly inspection and testing of the automatic opener can prevent serious injuries and property damage. Careless operation and allowing children to play with or use garage door opener controls are dangerous situations that can lead to tragic results. A few simple precautions can protect your family and friends from potential harm.

  These tests are particularly important after any repairs or adjustments are made to the garage door or opener:

  Test the force setting of the garage door opener, by using one of your hands to hold up the bottom of the door as it closes. If the door doesn’t reverse, the force is excessive and needs adjusting. Check your garage-door owner’s manual — it explains how to adjust the force sensitivity.

  Test the reversing mechanism and the pressure-sensitive rubber strip. Place a 2-x-4-inch block of wood flat on the floor in the door’s path before activating the door. If the door fails to immediately stop and reverse when it strikes the wood, disconnect the opener and use the door manually until the system can be repaired or replaced.

  Test the electronic beam sensor. Place a bucket or some other big object in the beam path, and activate the door. The door should not move. If it does, it needs to be repaired immediately.

  Test the non-contact safety device. Activate the door and wave a broom across the beam. The door should stop and reverse immediately. If it doesn’t stop, it needs to be repaired immediately.

  Never stand or walk under a moving door. Don’t let children play “beat the door.” Keep transmitters and remote controls out of reach of children and teach them that they are not toys. The push-button wall control should be out of reach of children (at least 5 feet from the floor) and away from all moving parts. The button should always be mounted where you can clearly see the door in full operation.

  As with all mechanical components in a home, an automatic garage-door opener requires periodic maintenance to ensure safe and efficient operation. One of the best resources for garage-door maintenance is the opener owner’s manual.

  Maintaining your garage door

  Here are common maintenance tasks that you can perform to keep your garage doors operating smoothly:

  Visually inspect the garage-door springs, cables, rollers, and other door hardware. Look for signs of wear and frayed or broken parts. Most minor repairs, such as roller replacement, can be performed by a handy do-it-yourselfer, while more complicated tasks should be handled by a qualified garage-door service technician. Warning: The springs and related hardware are under high tension and can cause severe injury when handled improperly.

  Periodically lubricate the rollers, springs, hinges, and tracks. Use spray silicone, lightweight household oil, or white lithium grease according to the instructions in your owner’s manual.

  Periodically test the balance of the door. Start with the door closed. Disconnect the automatic-opener release mechanism so that the door can be operated by hand. The door should lift smoothly and with little resistance. It should stay open around 3 to 4 feet above the floor. If it doesn’t, it’s out of balance and should be adjusted by a professional.

  If you don’t have an owner’s manual, you can usually order a replacement copy by contacting an installing dealer or the manufacturer. Some manufacturers make owner’s manuals available on the Internet — all you need is the brand and model number.

  Guarding Your Home against Natural Disasters

  Natural disasters can befall the average home and typical family without warning. Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, mudslides, blizzards, tidal waves, lightning, squalls, gales, downpours, monsoons, typhoons, whirlwinds, and microbursts can come out of nowhere and cause substantial damage to a home. You can’t do anything about the weather, but you can be prepared for such emergencies — and being prepared may save your life and avert damage to your home.

  The best defense against becoming a victim of a natural disaster is a strong offense — keeping your home in tip-top shape. For example, maintaining your roof can prevent shingles from being blown off and a roof leak from occurring. Installing a plumbing pipe heater can prevent hundreds or thousands of dollars in damage caused by a burst pipe due to freezing. The first step to shoring up your castle is to properly maintain your home everyday.

  Your emergency preparedness kit

  Once an emergency is upon you, it’s too late to gather the things. So assemble the following beforehand:

  A full first-aid kit: Look for a kit that comes with instructions on how to deal with most major situations and injuries step by step. Also, watch for free first-aid training classes in your area, often sponsored by local organizations, hospitals, police departments, or fire departments.

  Emergency food provisions and bottled water: Check this kit twice a year for expiration dates and the freshness of the products it contains. When they expire, replace them.

  Emergency gear: You need a pair of sturdy shoes (to prevent injuries from rubble and broken glass), heavy socks, heavy work
gloves, and clothing for keeping warm and dry for an extended period of time, both day and night. Make sure to include all these items for each member of your family. (You don’t need heavy work gloves for your children, but they should have everything else.)