Home Maintenance Tips

A house is more than an investment. It’s also your home, the place where your family
spends most of their time. As an investment and for your family’s safety it is important to keep
your home in tip-top shape — and the key to a safe home is regular maintenance.
How Home Warranties Help Homeowners

Maintenance Tips

Europe Home Warranty can help you stay informed and keep track of maintenance for your home systems and appliances. How often do you think of the maintenance required to keep your home systems and appliances up and running? If you’re like most homeowners, probably not often enough.

Follow the manufacturer’s direction on yearly maintenance to extend the life of your unit. Filter changes, routine cleaning, and knowing what to check to fix easy problems quickly can extend the life of your homes systems and appliances.

Here are several routine Europe Home Warranty maintenance tips for your homes major systems and appliances.

Use these lists, sorted by season, to schedule indoor and outdoor home maintenance tasks. Adhering to a preventive maintenance routine will extend the life of your home and help prevent costly repairs later, especially since home warranties don’t cover maintenance.

WINTER

  • Have your furnace serviced annually by a competent professional for efficiency and safety. Choice Home Warranty contracts require unit to be properly maintained. Complaints are common with all home warranty providers if consumers fail to clean or maintain their unit.
  • Woodburning stove connector pipes and chimneys should be inspected by a certified chimney sweep annually.
  • Smell around the appliance for gas orders.
  • Insulate pipes in your home’s crawl spaces and attic.
  • Clear debris out of window wells, gutters, downspouts, and storm drains.
  • Clean the clothes dryer exhaust duct, damper and space under the dryer.
  • Check the attic for adequate ventilation.
  • Make sure the caulking around doors and windows is adequate to reduce heat loss.
  • Clean the kitchen exhaust hood and air filters.
  • Check the water hoses on the clothes washer, refrigerator icemaker and dishwasher for cracks and bubbles.

SPRING

  • Make sure the light bulbs in all your fixtures are the correct wattage.
  • Consider installing a lightening protection system on your home. Choice Home Warranty does not cover lightning, power surges, or natural disasters.
  • Have a professional air conditioning contractor inspect and maintain your system as recommended by the manufacturer. Choice Home Warranty contracts require unit to be properly maintained.
  • Trim shrubs and plants near condensing unit to ensure proper air flow and circulation.
  • Check for damage to your roof. Choice Home Warranty offers roof protection and other optional coverage.
  • Protect your home from sewer or drain back-up losses.
  • Drain sediment from water heater tank according to manufacturer’s recommendations.
  • Check the shutoff valve at each plumbing fixture to make sure they function properly.
  • Clean clothes dryer exhaust duct, damper, and space under the dryer.
  • Inspect cold and hot water supply hoses for cracks and deterioration.

SUMMER

  • Have annual system maintenance service done before the air conditioning season begins. Choice Home Warranty contracts require unit to be properly maintained.*
  • Keep curtains closed when temperatures are at their peak.
  • Use exhaust fans when cooking to remove excess heat and humidity.
  • Close registers in rooms that are not being used. To avoid damage to your central heating system, close no more than one fourth of the area of your home.
  • Caulk and weather-strip all windows to close any air gaps.
  • Set your thermostat at 78 degrees.
  • Close the flue when your fireplace is not in use.
  • Move furniture away from vents, registers and radiators.
  • Change the filter on forced air units.
  • Use compact fluorescent lights. You can lower your lighting bill by converting to energy-efficient low-wattage compact fluorescent lighting and fixtures.

FALL

  • Flush out sediments from your hot water heater and test the pressure relief valve, plus other annual inspection duties should be performed according to the instructions in your manual for the unit.
  • Have a heating professional check your heating system every year before the winter season.
  • Protect your home from frozen pipes.
  • Drain in-ground sprinkler systems.
  • Have a certified chimney sweep inspect and clean the flues and check your fireplace damper.
  • Make sure the caulking around doors and windows is adequate to reduce heat/cooling loss.
  • Check painted surfaces for paint failure, water damage, or mildew. Repair or repaint if necessary.
  • Insulate outdoor faucets, pipes in unheated garages, and pipes in crawl spaces.
  • Remove bird nests from chimney flues and outdoor electrical fixtures.
  • Inspect and clean dust from the covers of your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

Why! Wait...

A home warranty is like your home’s best friend! It can save you money when you use it the right way. It’s here to help with things like your appliances and systems when they wear out from regular use. While it can’t cover absolutely everything, we’re always here to do our best to help you out and get things back to normal.

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