Eight Home Maintenance Myths You Should Stop Believing
This comes shortly after you close on a new home : Now that you’ve sunk a ton of money into a property, you can experience the joy (and ongoing expenses!) of maintaining it. If this is your first home, that means a steep learning curve. When it comes to home ownership, you just don’t know what you don’t know.
Eventually, you’ll learn a few things. Leaky toilets and leaky roofs no longer make you fall over because you know what to do — or at least who to call. But even seasoned homeowners sometimes hold on to home maintenance myths that, at best, waste time and money, and, at worst, can cause damage to your home. If you still believe any of the home maintenance myths on this list, it’s time to learn the truth.
“New” means “maintenance free”
When people list new construction or recently renovated homes in their home search, one of the main reasons is usually the perceived lack of maintenance . A brand new home or one that has recently been completely renovated should last at least a few years before the materials, systems, and appliances begin to wear out and require maintenance, right?
Wrong. First, even brand-new, high-quality materials or appliances can be installed improperly, have manufacturing defects, or perform below expected tolerances. Second, maintenance isn’t just about old stuff: Properly maintaining, cleaning, and servicing your roof, gutters, HVAC systems, and everything else in your home from the start will extend its life and make it more efficient overall over its lifetime.
Testing smoke detectors
Smoke alarms save lives. But they can only do that if they are fully functional, so checking them regularly – at least once a month – is a very, very good idea.
But if you test your alarms by pressing that big TEST button, you’re really only testing the alarm . That’s important—a smoke alarm you can’t hear is useless—but it’s not enough. You also need to test the sensor to make sure your smoke detector is actually detecting smoke. You can do this the old-fashioned way by lighting a match near your alarm, or you can buy a product specifically designed to test these sensors . Either way, doing this test (in addition to pressing the TEST button) is an essential part of testing your alarms.
More insulation = better
Sometimes it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if a little of something is good, then a lot of it must be better. If that were true, then it would follow that if a certain amount of insulation in an attic, basement, or other part of the house is good, then it’s better to pile on a ton.
In reality, the ideal amount of insulation is carefully calculated based on the material, space, and square footage, among other factors. For example, too much litter between attic joists can compress the insulation too much, making it less effective. An overinsulated home will suffer from higher humidity, leading to visible condensation and potential mold growth. Air quality can also suffer, and you may notice extreme temperature differences between rooms because the home can’t “breathe.”
Your devices clean themselves
It seems logical, so when someone tells you that you don’t need to clean your washing machine or dishwasher because you literally run them through soap and rinse cycles every time you use them, it’s easy to believe. What good does another cycle of detergent and water do to the inside of a machine that’s constantly soaking in detergent and water? And how can dirt even accumulate there?
But appliances like dishwashers aren’t self-cleaning. In fact, they can get downright dirty over time. Wash cycles leave behind residue—greasy, dirty stuff that’s not easy to rinse away. Over a (relatively short) time, that residue builds up into a huge layer of grime that can lead to mold, unpleasant odors, and poor appliance performance.
Fans cool the room.
Ceiling fans are powerful tools for making your home more comfortable. They circulate air, moving hot air down and cool air up (or vice versa, depending on the season). And if you’re sitting under one, that breeze is very pleasant when you’re hot.
This cooling effect makes people think that a ceiling fan actually cools the room, but it doesn’t. The reason a ceiling fan makes you feel cooler is called the “wind chill effect.” The air movement speeds up the evaporation of sweat from your skin, helping you cool down. But a ceiling fan will not actually have any effect on cooling the room, which means that turning it on when you’re not in the room is a waste of money and energy. In fact, a ceiling fan left running for long periods of time will get hot and can actually increase the temperature of the room.
Cutting the grass too short
Given how many people seem to think that a lush, green lawn is the epitome of the good life, you’d think that people would be thrilled by how much work goes into maintaining one. You’d be wrong — most people hate maintaining their lawns and would pay a lot to not have to mow them so often. This leads to a popular myth: if you cut your lawn really short (like brutally short), it will take longer for it to grow, so you’ll have to get out the mower less often.
In a sense, this is true, but only because cutting your grass too short will likely kill your lawn, and a dead lawn doesn’t need mowing. Fortunately, opportunistic weeds will crowd in, at which point you can simply mothball the mower and give up. It’s much better to just suck it up and mow your lawn more regularly, but leave it a little taller—about three inches high is a good starting point for most people.
Turning the air conditioner on and off
Summer comes, the temperature rises, so you turn on the air conditioning. Then you go out for a few hours, so you turn it off. After all, why pay to cool your home when no one is there?
Because that’s actually the worst way to manage both your indoor temperature and your utility bills. When you turn off the air conditioner completely, your house heats up. When you come back into that hot, swampy pit, you turn the air conditioner back on—a blast, because you can feel your soul leaving your body through your sweat glands—and your air conditioner has to work really, really hard to bring the temperature down again. If you leave the air conditioner on but adjust the thermostat when you leave (or set it to “economy”), your house will remain relatively comfortable, your energy consumption will actually go down, and it will be easier to make the rooms even cooler if you want.
“Cleaning” Garbage Chutes with Eggshells and Lemons
Garbage disposals aren’t as useful or necessary as people think, but if you have one at home, you’re going to use it. If you use one, you already know that it can get dirty and smelly, and the blades can get dull, just like any other blade. And you might think that throwing some eggshells in there will help sharpen the blades, or throwing some lemons in there will get rid of the stink.
In fact, those eggshells won’t do anything to sharpen the blade, and they might even break it. If they don’t break the blade, they’ll likely cause a clog somewhere in the system because they’ll cling to the walls of the pipes. And the lemon might mask the stench coming from your disposer for a short time, but it’ll likely mix with it to create some new, horrific smell because the lemons won’t do anything to combat the root cause of the stench: the dirt.