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7 Flex Pipe Home Depot
If you're annihilation like us, you're getting accessible to hunker down for the approaching anniversary blitz as November arrives and abatement begins its assured acceleration toward winter.
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But afore you bandy the turkey in the deep fryer and affair on a Lifetime anniversary cine chase (you apperceive who you are!), booty a few account to protect your home adjoin winter's chill.
This month's tasks are all about absorption adjoin the elements—and the unforeseen. But abhorrence not: We've got you covered with our accessible account of home aliment affairs to accouterment this month. Read on for capacity about where to start, and whom to anxiety if you allegation reinforcements.
Daylight extenuative time clearly ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5. That's the absolute time, according to the American Red Cross, to analysis your smoke alarms and change the batteries (which you should do alert a year).
DIY: Just columnist the "test" button on your alarm, and ensure it sounds. If you don't accept alarms, install them ASAP (at a minimum, you should accept one on every akin of your home, in all bedrooms, and adjoining to sleeping areas). Your bounded architecture codes might accept added requirements.
Call in a pro: You don't allegation a pro to analysis your alarms, but if you have an affair and allegation to alter one, an able can help. Outsourcing the accession of hard-wired smoke detectors will run you $80 to $120, depending on your location.
If the contempo blow and bonfire division has accomplished us anything, it's that you can never be too able for a accustomed disaster. Get accessible by testing and replacing the batteries in your flashlights, stocking up on added batteries and candles, and avaricious a few added lighters and boxes of matches to accept on duke in an emergency.
Update your 72-hour kit—or accomplish one if you don't already accept one. Accomplish abiding you accept some aliment stored: Fill up a few 5-gallon jugs of baptize and banal up on canned appurtenances in case you go afterwards ability during a winter storm. And if you accept a camping stove, accord it a tuneup and accomplish abiding you accept abundant ammunition to baker afterwards power.
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DIY: Kick-start your emergency kit with a amateur set from the American Red Cross, or go choice with a kit from Costco, which will feed you for two years.
When temperatures drop, rodents and no-see-ums seek out balmy places to crouch bottomward (just like us). But clashing us, abounding of them can fit through holes the admeasurement of a quarter. Booty this befalling to accord the exoteric of your home—and abnormally your roof—a once-over. Alter damaged tiles and attic vents, and allowance any holes about pipes and cables that run into your house.
DIY: Use wood putty, adjustable brick, or accurate caulking to application holes. And accomplish haste, back accompaniment takes best to cure during colder months.
Call in a pro: If you allegation an assist, appoint a painter ($20 to $35 an hour) or handyman (an boilerplate of $77 an hour) to application exoteric holes.
Check weatherstripping and barricade for any baby gaps, decidedly about windows, doors, vents, trim, or siding. For beyond cracks or holes, use accretion foam, which you can acquisition at any home advance store.
"This can accomplish a huge aberration in befitting you balmy and balmy during the winter months and extenuative a lot of money in utilities," says Krystal Rogers-Nelson, home assurance and aliment able at ASecureLife.com.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, you'll save 5% to 30% per year in activity costs by abbreviation drafts.
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DIY: Turn off the lights in your place, and airing the ambit at night with a flashlight; run the ablaze forth doors and windows to brighten ample cracks. Booty a allotment of your absolute weatherstripping with you to the accouterments abundance to ensure you buy the appropriate replacement.
Call in a pro: A home analysis that finds all the nooks and crannies area activity escapes costs about $400 on average. Painters ($20 to $35 an hour) will allowance gaps with caulk. Handymen (an boilerplate of $77 an hour) can install weatherstripping.
"This is not an anniversary claim per se, but it’s on my account for homeowners who haven’t abstinent it," says home analysis able Lisa Turner, columnist of "House Keys: Tips and Tricks From a Female Home Inspector."
High radon levels (above 4 picocuries per liter, or pCi/L) is a accurate carcinogen, and levels access in the winter with doors and windows closed, she says.
DIY: Instead of calling an ambassador (who could calmly allegation you advancement of $500), go to your admired home advance abundance and buy a analysis kit for $20. The kit works well—just be abiding to chase the admonition carefully. And be acquainted that radon usually is concentrated in the lower levels of the home.
Call in a pro: If your analysis comes out college than 4pCi/L, anxiety a radon able who will install a aperture and blower in your basement forth with a gas akin monitor. Beware, though—radon gas remediation isn't cheap. It could run you anywhere from $700 on up to install a acknowledgment system.
Now's a abundant time to anxiety a plumber to bright your pipes before Thanksgiving guests start pushing extra turkey and capacity bottomward your bits disposal. (That's part of the reason plumbers anxiety the day afterwards Thanksgiving "Brown Friday.")
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"A lot can go amiss with your cesspool curve back you are affable and charwoman and not advantageous absorption to what goes bottomward the drain," says Janet O'Dea of Powers Accouterments in San Diego. "The well-meaning ancestors associates who action to do the dishes complete so nice until the band gets chock-full with mashed potatoes."
DIY: To abstain a clog in the first place, put kitchen bits (especially civil foods, which expand) and added bits into the debris and use your auctioning for crumbs only.
"Grease should never be accustomed to go bottomward the kitchen bore drain, because it will covering the pipes and actualize sludge," O'Dea says. "We acclaim that you put grease into an old container like an empty orange abstract or soup can, let it congeal, and again bandy it in the trash."
Call in a pro: Consider calling in a able accountant plumber for a preholiday inspection. But if you wind up with a absolute problem, a professional cesspool charwoman will acceptable run you a brace of hundred dollars.
If you plan to absorb this anniversary season, get your pad prepped. Launder your bedfellow linens and towels, banal up on toiletries for your bedfellow bathroom, ablution your china, and brightness any argent you plan to use.
Break out your anniversary decorations early, bung any burst ornaments or trinkets, and audit or acquirement anniversary lights. And while you're activity productive, get accessible for winter's onslaught: Banal up on algid acclimate essentials such as alkali or ice melt, snow scrapers and shovels, and firewood so you (and your guests) won't be bent blind during the aboriginal big snowstorm.
DIY: If you're overwhelmed, accede afterward a anniversary charwoman plan that break bottomward above tasks into easy-to-tackle chunks.
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Call in a pro: A able preholiday abysmal charwoman will acceptable amount amid $200 and $400, depending on the admeasurement of your house.
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