During the chilly months of fall and the even colder winter months, it’s important that we pay some attention to the appliances in our home to ensure that they run properly through the upcoming months. Unless there is an obvious problem or an appliance completely stops working, homeowners don’t often spend much time thinking about the maintenance of or repairing their appliances. Keeping your appliances properly maintained and in good condition before the winter months arrive can not only help extend their lives, but also improve their efficiency in both the winter season and all year round. Follow these tips for repairs and maintenance jobs you should consider carrying out before the fall and winter in order to get your appliances ready for the colder weather.
Keep Your Dryer Safe
Before the colder months creep up, it’s important that you check your dryer vents for any lint clogs. Clogged dryer lint is the number one cause of dyer fires, especially during the colder months when the inside heat is running. You should also check for any screens so that rodents can’t get inside your dryer. Rodents love to chew, so you should check that there is no point of entry for them to get into your appliance and your home, especially during the colder months of fall and winter where they will be on the lookout for warmth.
Oven Maintenance
Before the holiday cooking season begins, it’s a good idea to have the thermostat on your oven checked. There is nothing worse than having a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or a special seasonal desert ruined by a thermostat that is off-kilter, so before the season of goodwill and getting together with family begins, make sure that your thermostat is working correctly in order to ensure that your cooking and baking comes out perfectly every time.
Refrigerators
If you keep a refrigerator outside or in a shed or outhouse when it is not designed for outdoor use, it’s important that you keep it unplugged or bring it into the house if possible during the colder months. If left plugged in when outdoors, the refrigerator will not work properly, and the water and ice lines are likely to freeze, with the refrigerator itself actually heating up and ruining any food that is kept inside it as well as presenting a hazard.
The colder time of year is also a great time to get your refrigerator serviced. You should vacuum the coils regularly, and call out a service technician to undertake a full service of your refrigerator before winter hits. Catching a problem through routine service is far better than to be without a refrigerator and have spoiled food, especially over the Christmas period.
Temperature Control
Having the right temperature in your home is important over the colder months, and the last thing that you need is to come in from the chilly outdoors to find that your heating system is not working properly or taking a long time to heat up, leaving you shivering under a pile of blankets. Before the fall and winter months hit, it is a good idea to get your boiling system heating system serviced in order to ensure that you don’t get caught in the cold. You should also consider having a service engineer look at your air conditioning system during the winter as being out of use for so many months could cause issues during the summer when you turn it back on again.
Washing Machine Maintenance
Piling on extra layers of clothes in the winter could have you faced with more laundry to do, which is why it’s a good idea to ensure that your washing machine is in good working order to take on the extra loads that you’ll have to do. Check the seal on your washing machine’s door, and any vents or drainage pipes to ensure that there are no leaks or blockages building up that could cause issues when faced with extra usage. The drain pump filter should be cleaned every few weeks, and even more regularly if you are washing a number of loads per day. If your washing machine is old or prone to breaking down, you might want to consider calling out a service engineer to give it a full maintenance servicing before the winter months kick in.
How do you ensure that your home appliances are in good shape prior to the colder weather? If you’d like to pass on any great tips for other homeowners, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Washing machine image by Shutterstock
These are some really important tips! It’s a big deal to make sure you are totally ready for winter, BEFORE winter comes. None of these are issues you want to be dealing with once there’s snow on the ground. Especially the heating system; that is one of the most important parts of the house during the winter.
These are great things to think about. We keep a refrigerator just outside our backdoor and it does get cold in the winter. We usually don’t think about unplugging it. I know it hasn’t been serviced for a long time, maybe this winter is a good time.
Taking care of appliances is a very important thing to do. You have some great tips here, I had never thought to check the washing machine door’s seal before. I can definitely see how that is important though, especially when Winter is approaching.