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Owning a home is more than just a one-time expense, it’s a continuing financial commitment. Just like regular oil changes for your car keep it running well for years, routine home maintenance will keep you from wasting money and time later down the road.

It can be frightening to consider all the tasks associated with home maintenance. It’s a long list, after all. The silver lining, though, is that you don’t need to be a professional to do most of it.

Moisture

One vital component of preemptive home maintenance is keeping moisture at bay.

• Install rain gutters to direct water away from your home
• Clear leaves from your gutters twice a year
• If your gutter drains are stopped up, flush out debris with a hose
• Fine-tune lawn sprinklers to not oversaturate your lawn
• Clean your refrigerator coils with a coil cleaning brush at least twice a year

Inspect your Fire Extinguisher

Every home should have at least one fire extinguisher. Don’t have one? Get one. Fire emergencies can happen to anyone. It’s crucial to have an extinguisher on hand in case there’s a grease or electrical fire—or if an unattended candle sets something aflame.

Inspecting your fire extinguisher doesn’t require much work:

• Make sure it’s easily accessible
• Check that the gauge shows adequate pressure
• Monitor for signs of wear and tear
• Replace before expiration date

Inspect and Change HVAC Filters

A lot of experts recommend changing the filters monthly, but that isn’t always necessary. For smaller homes without pets, you’ll probably be fine changing them every 2 to 3 months. If the filter is dirty, change it out. If you have to change them monthly, you can usually go with less expensive filters. This will save money in the long run.

Have questions about HVAC service or maintenance? Contact the experts at MaintenX!

Better Safe than Sorry

It may seem like a lot of work, but keeping up with regular maintenance on your home will save you money and headaches down the road.

 

We all know it’s essential to protect our homes against risks like burglary, arson, and fire. Having a state-of-the-art security monitoring system can help mitigate these dangers, but certain techniques can make your home even safer.

Below are four home safety tips to help strengthen your home’s defenses.

1.Strategic Placement

Install your security keypad in a location not visible from outside the house. That way, potential burglars won’t be able to easily see if your alarm system is set or not.

2.Knowledge is Power

Your home alarm system is one of the main tools in your theft prevention toolbox. That’s why you should make sure your family knows how to turn the system on. But it’s usually a good idea to NOT tell children the alarm code if they’re not old enough to stay by themselves.

3.Make it Look like Someone’s Home

If you know you’re going to be away from home for a few days or a few weeks, there are some tricks you can use to make potential burglars think someone’s there. Leave a TV or radio on in a room near the front door. Use things like timer-controlled lighting and motion detectors to keep up the illusion.

4.Sometimes it’s good to be a Nosy Neighbor!

Leaving your house unattended is a stressful thing, to put it mildly. Whether it’s two weeks or two days, simply ask your neighbor to check in daily on the house. Call your local post office and tell them to hold your mail while you’re gone; you won’t give unwanted clues that no one’s there.

You almost certainly know that sitting too much is terrible for our health and minds.  Using a stand up desk at work can provide a lot of benefits to our overall health and our mental health and the quality of our work.

Here’s how:

Inhibits Neck Strain

Sitting for a long time often means craning your neck toward your computer screen. Standing up at work tends to lengthen your spine and restores the natural shape to your spine. Using a laptop stand can improve your posture over time.

Decreases Shoulder Pain

In the same way, constantly sitting with poor posture hunches our shoulders over time, which can be pretty painful. Standing at an ergonomic desk makes your shoulders go back to a natural, more-balanced position.

Energy Boost

Standing at your desk rather than sitting can feel like a giant cup of coffee.  Standing means more blood flow and more oxygen to your muscles, giving you a natural energy boost.

Increases Productivity

Since using a standing desk increases blood flow (AND increasing your energy levels), you can get more done in less time!

Lowers Cholesterol

Anything that keeps our bodies from going “offline” means a healthier life and workplace. Standing for just two hours when you would normally sit puts your cholesterol at a healthier level.

Brain Power

Better circulation makes more oxygen available to your brain. This means you may stay sharper and be able to focus on tasks for longer periods of time.  One big advantage of standing is that it can help you evade ordinary mental fatigue.

Adding video or audio surveillance to your home or office security plan is a useful method to keep the things and people you care about safe. Nevertheless, the quantity of available options can get bewildering, and not every home or office is identical when it comes to security needs.

We’ve made this guide to help you assess your needs and choose the surveillance system that’s right for you.

Location, Location, Location!

Knowing where to install your security system’s components is vital. The better your security camera placement, the more effective the system. Catching crooks and vandals is most likely if your equipment is placed to monitor the widest field possible. Outdoors, try to find high, nondescript locations to mount cameras. Indoors, focus cameras on major access points and on objects most likely to be the target of theft.

Make a Plan

It’s overkill to monitor every inch of your property. Prioritize the most important areas. Sketch a rough map of your property, and circle the places you want to monitor. Afterwards, physically check out each place and the best place to mount a camera. Some places to consider:

• Front and Back Doors
• Back Windows
• Kitchen
• Living Room
• Driveway
• Porches
• Stairs

Think about bottlenecks, places through which people cannot avoid passing.

Do your Homework

Buy the system that best meets your needs. If you prefer, you can buy each component separately, but it’s usually more cost-effective to purchase a bundled security system. A basic system needs to have one to three cameras, a digital video recorder, wiring equipment and cables, and one or more power cords. If you aren’t monitoring a huge area, wireless cameras are sufficient.

Now that the world as become more conscious of humanity’s negative impact on the environment, methods to alleviate the need for fossil fuels are being researched and adopted. One of the biggest, yet often overlooked, energy alternatives is wind energy.

Wind energy has been kind of under the radar in recent years, which has aided in the decline of cost associated with it. That has slowly started to change, and as with any cycle it operates on a bell curve. The cost of wind energy just cannot bottom out any further, and will eventually begin to rise on the other side of the curve. Now is a great time to adopt this technology if you are in the market for an energy alternative.

Another factor lowering wind energy costs is recent developments in turbine technologies. With the new technology working in tandem with the fact that wind technology requires zero fuel costs, companies can sign long-term contracts to establish and lock in a wonderful fossil fuel alternative. These contracts, known as power purchase agreements, usually run 20-30 years. This is great news for  consumer looking for a consistent great rate and the ability to allocate finances into different business areas. Another added benefit to wind energy is that systems with power derived from wind generally last 20 years longer than traditional systems.

For more questions about wind energy as a viable alternative to your existing power source, engage an expert at MaintenX. MaintenX has the expertise to assess your situation and determine a plan of action.

As every small business owner knows, small businesses don’t have the same resources and abilities that major industry players do. This is evident when it comes to building or retrofitting your business for energy efficiency and eco-friendliness. The good news is the Department of Energy knows the struggles of small businesses and has created a voucher program to ease some of their pains in going green.

The Small Business Vouchers (SBV) pilot program is administered by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Technology to Market program to give small businesses access to technical assistance from national labs. This assistance helps companies overcome critical technology and commercialization challenges to bring the next generation of clean energy technologies to market. The SunShot Initiative funds vouchers for solar projects under the SBV pilot, which are valued at between $50,000 and $300,000 each.

The SBV Pilot will allow small business to overcome challenges including prototyping, materials characterization, high-performance computations, modeling and simulations, and validation of technology performance. Vouchers are awarded on a competitive basis. Small businesses operating in the clean energy sector can request assistance from a national lab, and if accepted, a voucher is issued. The voucher acts as a coupon and allows the applicant to access a unique skill or facility at a lab to bring clean energy technologies to market. Assistance from labs varies depending on lab capabilities and the small business’ needs.

More information on this program can be found on the DOE website. For a more detailed explanation, contact MaintenX, an industry leader in Facilities Maintenance with the knowledge and experience to walk you through any scenario, including the SBV Pilot Program.

As technology changes, businesses have more tools at their fingertips to become more efficient and reduce their carbon footprint. It was only a matter of time before facility managers started to use new technology, gaining insight like never before. This is especially valuable for companies that have large fleets or teams of service people out on the road.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a free, web-based application that gives you an inside look at your energy consumption. By inputting some basic data, you can get a real-life view of what you could reduce in the areas of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide with only a little power reduction. The software also works with electric vehicles and considers charging and battery storage.

“Users can quickly and easily screen different scenarios by varying the type of smart grid technology and other variables to best characterize their circumstances and location,” explains Karen Studarus, Power Systems Engineer at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which developed the tool. “The modules we’ve assembled are being used right now to explore the impacts of proposed projects and understand the sometimes-counterintuitive tradeoffs.”

The software will provide metrics on greenhouse gases emitted and benchmark emissions reports. Facility or fleet managers can review the metrics, compare the benchmarks in their area, and plan how to reduce usage.

There is a lot to understand about reducing your carbon footprint. The online DOE software only scratches the surface of how to go about becoming more environmentally friendly. For more information, or to receive a tailored approach to your needs, call MaintenX and speak to our experts.

 

With everything going “green” these days, it’s no surprise that bathrooms are on the short list of places to update for energy efficiency. The fact of the matter is, we’ve just been doing it wrong for so long when it comes to these private quarters. In most metro areas, 20% of all energy and utility costs revolve around water – and what better place to save water than in the restroom? Here are 4 easy ways to make your bathroom green.

#1 – High Efficiency Faucets

Installing or retrofitting your faucets to include aerators will halve your water consumption almost immediately. Today’s aerators are designed reduce water use while keeping water pressure high; they don’t inconvenience hand-washers.

#2 – Low Flow Toilets

Nowadays, a lot of toilets are dual-flush, giving you the option of how much water to send down the pipe. If your building has toilets that aren’t dual- or low-flow, install converters to displace the tank water and fool the toilet into using less water.

#3 – Lighting

Most bathrooms are so brightly lit that they can be harsh. Use lighting fixtures sparingly, and install more mirrors. Let the mirrors do the work to expand the light’s permeation without adding wattage.

#4 – Automate Everything

Faucets, toilets, and lights can be automated (motion-activated, timed, etc.) to reduce the amount of energy and water used. Because faucets and lights can easily be left on, remove the possibility of superfluous use.

Your bathrooms are a very important part of your building and should be treated like any other space. These tips are just a few of the simple ways to help make your bathrooms green. For more information or for assistance starting your restroom project, call MaintenX for a consultation.

Asphalt has been a staple of American infrastructure since the late 1800’s. Over the years, it has paved the way to new places – literally. It has shaped industry and big business, its cheap, durable nature making road construction easier and therefore facilitating the predominance of cars. The problem is, such ubiquitous asphalt coverage contributes to global warming and the urban heat island effect. Simply, asphalt absorbs a lot of heat because it’s thick, black, and has a lot of surface area in direct sun. Enter, cool pavements.

Cool pavement is a new technology, used to help reduce the heat that traditional pavement retains and emits. Cool pavements have a reflective surface, or clear coat, that reflects heat rather than absorbing it. Cool pavement stays cooler during the day, and doesn’t release heat at night, unlike traditional asphalt.

Here are the top benefits of cool pavement:

• Energy savings and reduced emissions. Cool pavements lower the outside air temperature, allowing air conditioners to cool buildings with less energy and making walking around more comfortable. Cool pavements also save energy by reducing the need for electric street lighting at night.
• Improved comfort and health. Cool pavements cool the city air, reducing heat-related illnesses, slowing the formation of smog, and making it more comfortable to be outside. Pedestrians, pets, and animals all benefit from cooler surfaces.
• Improved air quality. By decreasing urban air temperatures, cool pavements can slow atmospheric chemical reactions that create smog.
• Slowed climate change. Cool pavements decrease heat absorbed at the Earth’s surface and thus lower surface temperatures. This decrease can offset warming caused by greenhouse gases, and make cities less influential in warming their environs.

The next time you walk outside your building, look around and assess your parking lot. Think about how you can help bring positive change to your city and start a trend within the community. To find out more about cool pavement and how to upgrade your existing asphalt, call MaintenX today.

 

It takes many different kinds of equipment to run a facility, but certain types of businesses are reliant on refrigeration machinery to operate. For restaurants and other food service companies, it is essential to have properly working refrigerators and freezers. Therefore, the maintenance of that equipment is important to understand and plan for.

The key to properly maintaining refrigeration equipment is regular inspections and cleanings. The visible parts of the units should be cleaned daily, as mandated by most health codes, but the insides of the machines are also important to clean often. Depending on usage, it is recommended to take apart the equipment completely, clean every component, and put it back together at least a few times a year, if not once a month. This will help enhance sanitation and prevent bacteria and mold from growing.

In addition to cleaning, each working part of the machinery should be inspected often to ensure that it is in proper working order. This prevents breakdown of the appliances, but also promotes energy efficiency cuts down on costly energy waste. It is always better to perform small fixes and swap out individual parts such as coils, motors, and fans during the regular cleaning than replacing the whole unit when it breaks down.

Preventative maintenance and cleaning is the key to maintaining refrigeration equipment. MaintenX can help you come up with the best schedule for you and ensure every item on this checklist is taken care of.