Help Your HVAC Do More

Having a good HVAC system in your home can really help you enjoy your living space throughout the year. A solid system will keep your home cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and just plain comfortable throughout the full year. Proper maintenance can keep your HVAC system running smoothly for years, ensuring that your home’s internal climate stays exactly the way you want it as time goes by.

This doesn’t mean that things can’t be better, though. You may not realize it, but there are actually several ways that you can modify your HVAC system to improve performance and create a better overall quality of life for you and your family. Different systems may have different options available, and they can affect the function of your system in different ways.

Air Purity Add-Ons

Some of the most common HVAC modifications are designed to improve the overall quality of the air in your home, filtering out impurities and eliminating things in the air that could possibly make you sick. Air cleaners and air purifiers are readily available for a number of systems, trapping things as small as bacteria, viruses, and allergens that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. These function similarly to portable single-room air purifiers, but instead of only working on the room where the unit is located, these actually filter and purify the air in your entire home.

Another option that often goes along with air purification is UV lamps that treat air as it moves through your HVAC system. This high-intensity ultraviolet night kills bacteria, mold, and other organisms that might be in the air and moving through your vents. Not only does killing these organisms help to keep you and your family healthier, but it can also prevent them from multiplying and clogging your air filters over time. This helps to ensure that your air stays clean for longer and keeps your system running with peak efficiency.

Air Quality Add-Ons

Simply cleaning the air isn’t the only way that you can improve your home’s air quality. Depending on where you live, humidifiers and dehumidifiers can go a long way toward making people comfortable within your home. Air that’s too humid can lead to unchecked mold and bacterial growth, while air that’s too dry can trigger symptoms of asthma and various allergic reactions. Adding a humidifier or dehumidifier as appropriate helps to eliminate these issues without requiring room-to-room solutions.

Another way that you can improve the quality of your home’s air is to add a ventilator unit to your HVAC system. These units facilitate the exchange of stale air from within the home with external air to help eliminate odors and other forms of internal pollution and ensure that you always have fresh air within your home. Much of the external air is pretreated before it enters the HVAC system, allowing you to exchange air without introducing issues such as unwanted heat or accidentally cooling the house more than desired.

HVAC System Modification

It’s worth noting that not all add-ons will be available for every HVAC system. Some are designed with extensibility in mind, while others are more closed systems that are harder to modify with add-ons after installation. It’s a good idea to bring in an HVAC pro for a consultation when planning modifications to your system, since they’ll have a better idea of what options are available and which will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

 

Age in Place With a Smart Home

As we get older, some things that used to come easy start to get a little harder. In some cases, this isn’t that big of a deal, as some of the slow-downs and other problems associated with aging may just be little inconveniences. In other cases, though, the problems that occur as we get older can make it more difficult to maintain an independent lifestyle. This can be a big problem for people who are used to doing everything themselves, as it creates a greater dependence on other people, and in some cases may even make it difficult to live at home alone.

Fortunately, there are a number of technological options which make it much easier to age in place at home. Advances in connected devices and smart home technology contribute to this significantly, with home automation going a long way towards helping aging adults stay safe, secure, and largely independent at home. Even better, they make it even easier for seniors to reach out for help if it’s really needed. As the specific needs of older adults can differ greatly, here are a few examples of how smart home devices can aid with aging in place at home.

Organize and Automate

Many smart home hubs take the form of virtual assistant hardware, such as those with Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa. This can be a great benefit to seniors trying to stay sharp and keep up with various appointments and engagements as the digital assistant aids with keeping track of your calendar. Programmed routines during the day can provide prompts for meals, medicine, and any other recurring event, and appointment reminders make sure that important dates aren’t forgotten or overlooked.

Automation can also make sure that connected devices are ready when they’re needed and turned off when they aren’t. Routines for light controls, thermostat adjustments, and even appliances such as the coffee maker or air fryer can help to save on the electric bill while making life as convenient as possible. In many cases these devices can even be checked and controlled remotely to ensure that you never have to worry about whether something was left on.

Safety and Security

There are a number of smart home sensors that can help to keep older adults safe and secure while living on their own. Connected smoke detectors, leak sensors, and even window sensors help to ensure that alerts go up as soon as potential hazards or intrusions are detected. Smart door locks and connected cameras also provide protection against intruders and unwanted visitors while allowing easy access to family and others who are supposed to be at the house.

Another big benefit of having a connected smart home is that you can typically place calls to family, friends, or other emergency contacts without having to pick up a phone. In the event of an emergency, seniors can simply speak and ask a digital assistant to call an appropriate contact. By setting up a contact list with family members, emergency services providers, and others that might be needed, this puts any help that you might need literally just a call away.

 

What Can You Do With Your Home’s Equity?

If you’re like a lot of long-time homeowners, you’ve probably got a great deal of home equity on your hands right now. If you’ve been considering putting it to work, it’s still a decent time to take out a second mortgage or a HELOC, even as rates are starting to rise. Having so much home equity can enable you to make some very seriously needed changes to your home, either to allow you to age-in-place or to accommodate other lifestyle needs. It’s an opportunity to make major changes or upgrades, but there are certainly some ways that are better than others to use your home’s equity. We’ve got some ideas to get you started.

Freshen Up the Whole Place

There’s nothing better for the value of a house that’s not had much regular care in a while than a general sprucing up. You’ll have to go room by room, as well as take a hard look at your exterior space, to decide which items are tired and in need of repair or replacement. You’d be surprised how much difference some careful clean-up and maintenance work can really make.

A few common exterior items that can really make a tired house look brand new include a new garage door (for houses with street-facing garages), exterior window dressing such as window boxes or updated shutters, tuckpointing for brick homes, or cleaning and resealing your driveway. Interior items that can make a huge impact house-wide include new floor coverings or refinished floors, updated room lighting and under cabinet lighting in kitchens and baths, and a fresh coat of interior paint.

Consider Major Outdoor Upgrades

According to Remodeling Magazine, something simple like adding a wooden deck to your home can improve your home’s value and return as much as 65% of the cost back to you if you were to sell right away. Outdoor living spaces have become all the rage since the pandemic has made vacationing challenging, so it could also be an addition your family would use a lot.

Upgrading your landscaping can also add a lot of curb appeal to the front of your home, which would help if you decided to sell. You could even use your home’s equity to add landscaping that’s far easier to care for than what you have now, like xeriscape plants that require little water or intervention, or simply a better planned landscape that minimizes the need for mowing your lawn.

Make Your Bathroom or Kitchen Universal

Aging in place is becoming a more common goal for people as they age. They want to be in their own homes, and these kinds of upgrades make it possible by creating spaces that will allow for walkers, wheelchairs, and other support tools. Universal bathrooms and kitchens can be amazing ways to use your home’s equity. Universal bathrooms may need wheel-in showers, sinks that are table height, bidets and other sanitary plumbing installed, or even just simple changes like non-slip flooring and better storage added.

Universal kitchens are a bit more involved, often involving sinks, appliances, and workspaces being lowered to a height that can be used by people in wheelchairs or those who simply can’t stand for long periods on hard floors. Better task lighting, more accessible storage in cabinets and other areas, and non-slip tile are also important parts of universal kitchen design.

 

What’s Up With Electric Lawnmowers?

Maintaining your lawn is one of the summer’s big tasks. Depending on the size of your property, this could require just a few quick loops with a push mower, or it could take a good part of the day on a riding mower. Even homeowners who just use a small lawnmower are starting to feel the sting of rising gas prices, though, and those who want to leave the Earth a little greener may balk at how much added gas they use during the summer just keeping up with their lawn.

There is an alternative to traditional gas-powered lawnmowers, though: electric lawnmowers. Far from being a new fad, the first electric lawnmowers saw widespread use in the 1950s. They have a long (but not always glorious) history with homeowners, but are they worth considering today?

Electric Mowers Versus Gas Mowers

As you might guess, an electric lawnmower functions similarly to a gas-powered mower but uses an electric motor instead of a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. There’s more of a difference between the two than just the engine that’s used, however. Due to weight and power differences, the architecture of an electric lawnmower differs from gas mowers in a few different ways.

One of the big differences is in the physical size of the mower. Electric mowers tend to be smaller physically, even when they feature similar cut sizes to gas mowers. This is because an electric mower’s motor is lighter than a gas motor engine, and can be secured with a less sturdy, lighter frame. The smaller size can also allow electric lawnmowers to fit into tighter spaces than bigger gas-powered mowers, especially if the electric mower is a chuteless mulching mower. The blade speed may be slower than that of a gas-powered mower as well, though it is still capable of cutting grass at the slightly slower rotation. This can lead to some smaller electric mowers having issues with thick grass, however.

Types of Electric Lawnmowers

There are a few different types of electric lawnmowers, though the primary difference between them can be summed up as corded mowers versus cordless options. Corded mowers are what people typically picture when they think of electric lawnmowers: You plug them in with an extension cord and that electrical cord provides power for the mower while it’s in use. This is typically used for smaller yards so that the user isn’t dragging a big extension cord all over the place, and these mowers tend to be (but aren’t always) smaller in size with a smaller cut size than other mowers.

Cordless electric mowers feature onboard batteries that are charged beforehand and function much more closely to traditional lawnmowers. There is no extension cord to drag around, and these mowers can appear in both push and riding forms. In most cases the batteries are built into the mower and are plugged in to recharge, though some mowers (especially riding mowers) feature removable batteries that can be swapped out and charged in dedicated chargers as well.

Is an Electric Lawnmower Right for You?

Electric mowers aren’t right for every yard, though they can meet a wide range of needs depending on the layout of your property. Some electric mowers tend to get a bit pricey, but they feature modern technology and rapid charging which can make a big difference. For those wanting to cut out even more gas, these mowers can be paired with battery-swappable electric trimmers and other lawn maintenance tools as well.

If your primary goal with getting an electric mower is to try and cut out gas costs, you might also consider hiring a landscaping service to maintain your lawn for you. In most cases this will be for a flat rate each month, so you don’t have to worry about sticker shock at the pump or finding time in your week to cut down the grass again. 

 

Common Reasons Closings Get Delayed

Buying a home can be one of the most heart-wrenching and nauseating adventures of your life. But once closing is scheduled, that’s it, right? The stomach-in-your-throat feeling should go away and all is smooth sailing.

Well, not always. There are many reasons closings may get delayed. Don’t let this list get you down, but it’s a great bit of knowledge to tuck away just in case. Try to remember that sometimes delayed closings do actually happen.

Repairs Were Delayed

In this age of short labor and uncertain supply chains, repair delays are inevitable. It happens in ideal times, too. Maybe it happens because a part didn’t come in for that water heater that was on your repair sheet, or there was no one available to fix the siding where someone’s grill got a little overly excited and left a mark.

Sometimes you have no choice but to wait to close, especially if you’re using a loan type that requires the requested repairs be made prior to closing. But, in other cases, your real estate agent can create an addendum to your contract that allows the closing company to hold the cost of repairs in an escrow account for you, so that they are made on your behalf once the labor and materials are available.

Financing Issues

Many homebuyers, especially first-timers, don’t realize that their financial information will be verified again prior to closing. It has to match, more or less, what it was when you applied. So, same job, same amount of money in the bank, same amount of debt (or less, less is ok), same everything. Usually that’s possible within the narrow window between loan approval and closing.

Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong, and that second verification reveals a new credit line that’s been opened (for new house stuff, of course), or a change in employment, or some other problem. In these cases, closing will be delayed until those issues can be resolved. Moral of the story? Don’t do anything financially interesting between approval and closing, and all will be well.

Appraisal Was Too Low

In the current real estate atmosphere, with prices changing radically at the drop of a hat in some markets, it’s not unusual to hear of a closing that’s been delayed due to an issue with the appraisal. Of course, the issue isn’t with the appraisal, so much as it is with the market data no longer supporting the seller’s asking price for their home. The appraisal is just numbers on a page, based on what’s already been sold. A too-low appraisal can delay closing, since sometimes a second appraisal will be needed to verify that there were no errors in the first appraisal, or the seller and buyer will have to go back to the table and renegotiate the terms of the contract.

If you have to renegotiate your contract, it’s likely going to be due to your bank’s unwillingness to loan more than the house will appraise for at that moment. In that case, the contract will need to be reduced to the appraisal price. Sometimes this is possible, sometimes it’s not if the seller owes a fair amount on their house or needs the difference to make their next purchase. There’s not a lot you can do if you can’t come to terms, but most of the time, your real estate agent and closing agents will find a way.

Tips for Adding Your First A/C

The weather is heating up, and so is your house. In many areas, this summer may be yet another record-breaker, and the thought of adding an air conditioner to your climate control system has probably crossed your mind more than once. But how do you get started with such an undertaking? What should you keep in mind as you shop for a system?

Your First Air Conditioner: You Have Options

Before you even start to look around at systems, it’s important to understand your options. Until recently, the most popular home system was a unit that integrated with your central heating system. These air conditioners use an outside condenser to cool fluid that moves through a copper tubing system, and move it back into an air handler, so the air passing over the copper coils will cool as it’s drawn into the unit through a system of ducts.

While the cooling technology is absolutely sound, and the same that’s used in most air types of air conditioners, you now have different options when it comes to how this is installed.

In the past, you’d need ductwork in each room of your home, including at least one duct that would suck in warm room air for the cool coil treatment. Installing a system like this for the first time can be time-consuming, messy, and sometimes very impactful to your home. Holes will have to be cut in floors, walls, or ceilings (sometimes all three) in order to accommodate a traditional system if you’ve never had ductwork in your home before.

For these homes, another option exists: the ductless mini-split system. Ductless mini-splits are fairly new technology, but work the same as all air conditioners. Room air is drawn across cool coils to keep the temperature down. But unlike a traditional ducted system, a ductless mini-split is just that: ductless.

Instead of holes in the floor or the walls or the ceiling, you have a unit that hangs high on the wall in several rooms (depending on your home’s configuration and your need). A few small holes are drilled through the wall for things like copper tubing for coolant.

What’s a SEER Rating?

When shopping for air conditioning units, it’s important to keep in mind the SEER rating of the air conditioners you’re considering. You’ll see a whole range of price points, this is largely to do with the efficiency of the units themselves, which is expressed as the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating (SEER). The higher the number, the less the unit will cost to run, which can absolutely make it worth paying a little extra for — to a point.

Most states require at least a minimum SEER of 13 for traditional air conditioning units. Even a high-end traditional unit might not exceed 25 SEER. A ductless mini-split, on the other hand, can have ratings as high as the mid-40s.

Along with being significantly more efficient at the unit itself, ductless mini splits don’t experience temperature loss via the ductwork, so they can be very inexpensive to run since the unit directly removes room air, treats it, and sends it back in without needing to force it through sometimes long and winding ducts where some of that cooling could be lost.

However efficient, ductless mini-splits can also be more expensive than a traditional unit, so the cost should be balanced with the benefits, including longer-term savings, before you choose one over the other.

 

What’s a Smart Air Conditioner?

As temperatures rise, it’s important to have ways to keep your home cool. There are a lot of different options to accomplish this, including both single-room solutions and solutions that help to cool down the entire house. While different people choose different methods to heat and cool their homes throughout the year, the majority of cooling solutions will include some sort of air conditioning.

Smart thermostats are popular options for those who have central heat and air, as they give a greater amount of control over the temperature that the home stays at. What happens if you need cooling for one specific part of your home, though? If that’s the case, you might want to consider a smart air conditioner to help you meet your needs.

What Is a Smart Air Conditioner?

As the name implies, a smart air conditioner is an AC unit that connects to the internet via Wi-Fi to enable various “smart” features. This includes the ability to control the air conditioner’s settings remotely via a smartphone or tablet app, setting routines to adjust the cooling level automatically during the day, and the ability to incorporate the smart AC unit into routines controlled by smart assistants like Alexa or the Google Assistant. Depending on the unit, there may be other smart features available as well.

Typically, smart air conditioners are smaller in size, and have the form factor of a window-unit air conditioner. Occasionally you’ll see standalone portable smart AC units or smart units with a larger form factor, but these are less common. The purpose of a smart air conditioner is to cool a single room and maintain a desired temperature, so they are usually sized accordingly. Costs can vary based on size, cooling throughput, and smart features that are unique to the specific air conditioner.

Smart Air Conditioner vs. Smart Thermostat

The function of a smart air conditioner is similar to that of a smart thermostat, but they accomplish their tasks in different ways. Smart AC units have the “smart” components built into the same unit that is doing the actual cooling, so its technology is self-contained. Smart thermostats are controllers that interface with a standard central heat and air system, adding “smart” capacity to a system that wasn’t designed with smart function in mind.

The two systems also have different intended uses. Smart air conditioners use a small form factor because they are designed to cool a single room, and have integrated temperature sensors to help accomplish this. Smart thermostats, on the other hand, are intended to cool an entire house. As a result, the thermostat has its own temperature sensor and can also interface with additional sensors in other rooms if they are set up; this lets the smart thermostat more accurately monitor the temperature of the entire house and adjust it accordingly instead of focusing on the conditions of a single room.

Do You Need a Smart Air Conditioner?

If you have a small area to cool and want a greater amount of control over that cooling, a smart air conditioner might be right for you. This is especially useful if you have other smart appliances that the air conditioner can work within routines. By setting up a smart AC unit in the room where you need it most, you can save money on your overall household cooling costs.

If you’re hoping to cool an entire house, though, putting smart air conditioners in every room could be a costly endeavor that would really drive up your summer cooling expense. For cooling the entire home, a central air conditioner with a smart thermostat is a much better option.

 

Installing a Pool? Tell Your Insurance!

Swimming pools can be a lot of fun. They give you a way to cool off during the summer, have fun with friends and family, and even get some low-impact exercise that feels more like play than work. Unfortunately, they can also be a hazard if you aren’t careful around them. As a result, your homeowner’s insurance company is going to want to know about that pool, since it creates a new point of liability.

If your home already had a pool when you bought it, your insurance company would have wanted to know about it when you first took out the policy. If you’re installing a new pool, you’re still going to have to tell them, and they’ll adjust your rate accordingly. Let’s take a look at pools and insurance to give you a better idea of how your insurance company sees your new pool and what you can do to keep those rates in check.

How Do Insurance Companies See Swimming Pools?

Swimming pools are classified as an “attractive nuisance” by insurance companies, meaning that they are potentially dangerous and have an appeal that could attract children and others to them. The attractive nature of a swimming pool creates a liability on your part, leaving you responsible for any injuries or other incidents that occur in relation to the pool. The large amount of water that they hold as well as work-heavy components such as filter pumps also subject pools to a lot of wear and tear, and failure to properly maintain a pool can actually cause insurance companies to deny claims that occurred because of a lack of regular maintenance.

It’s worth noting that insurance companies view above-ground pools differently than they do in-ground pools. Above-ground pools are considered personal property and usually classified as an “external structure”, while in-ground pools are generally viewed as a feature of the property. This can affect not only how your liability is calculated but also how your policy covers repairs for any damage that occurs to your pool.

When to Tell Your Insurance Company

For the most part, you aren’t required to tell your insurance company when you start to install a swimming pool. Instead, you’re required to inform them once the swimming pool is complete and before it’s put into service. This means that you don’t necessarily have to let your insurance company know as soon as you contact a pool installer, but you do have to let them know once installation is wrapping up and before you actually start using the pool.

The reason for this is that many pool installers have to schedule installations in advance, and in some cases may run into delays or other setbacks that cause them to reschedule. Depending on when you contract your installation, you could schedule it weeks or even months in advance of the pool actually being ready. It can be a good idea to let your insurance company know that you’re looking to install a pool in the future, but they won’t adjust your policy until the pool is in place and ready to start being used.

Safe Pool Installation

Reducing liability is an important part of pool ownership. This includes things like installing a fence around the pool, setting up monitors or alarms to let you know if anyone is around the pool without permission, and installing non-slip walkways or putting other safety measures into place around the pool’s perimeter. In some areas these are required by law, but they are still a good idea even if they aren’t legally required.