Evicting Animals From Your Chimney

Having a mouse in the house can be a real pain. The little thing runs around, gets into everything, and generally causes chaos. And that’s just one little mouse. What happens when you have a much larger animal, or a nest of animals, in a harder-to-control area like a chimney?

Unfortunately, unwanted animals in chimneys are a pretty common problem for homeowners, especially if the chimney isn’t used often. Some are difficult to evict because they’re very dug in once you notice them, others because there are specific laws about how and when they can be removed.

What Kinds of Animals Enter Chimneys?

When it comes to chimneys, there are a whole host of creatures that might come inside. Generally, you’re going to encounter animals that aren’t terribly afraid of people and that are either very good at climbing or very good at flying. For example, birds often make nests in unused chimneys.

Other animals commonly found in chimneys include raccoons, squirrels, and bats. If your chimney has a damper (most modern chimneys do, but older chimneys may not), you may not even know they’re in there, since the damper should be creating a tight seal that would minimize noise. However, if you open the damper, evidence of the animals may fall down into your fireplace, as well as any animals (often babies) that were hanging out on top of the damper at that moment.

Evicting Animals From Your Chimney

Although some people still suggest smoking out animals that are in your chimney, we live in far more enlightened times. Smoking out animals is a great way to ultimately smoke yourself out, or even start a flu fire. Rather than trying this method, you can do a few different things to encourage the animals to move along.

Remember that if the animals have young that are too small to carry themselves out of your chimney, they may not be able to leave just yet, no matter how annoying you get. Check for breeding seasons for the animals you suspect are your problem before proceeding. A few are federally or locally protected, in which case your window for eviction is limited.

For most animals, chimneys are nice places to raise a family because they’re quiet, dark, and safe. Your goal is going to be to disrupt this. You can turn the lights on by dropping a caged work light attached to an extension cord about half way down your chimney. Leave it on all the time until the animal is gone. Often, lighting the place is plenty of motivation to convince an animal to leave.

If they need more motivation, play loud music into the chimney from below for prolonged periods. Again, if they have young babies, this is unlikely to work simply because the babies can’t be moved yet. Time your eviction and rave accordingly.

Preventing Chimney Animals

Once you’ve got the animals out of your chimney, you have to make sure they don’t come back. Usually, this means repairing or replacing your chimney cap, if you had one to begin with. Over time, chimney caps can take damage from bad weather, high winds, activities of animals, and even DIY chimney repair.

Because animals will likely continue to seek your home out, since something about it was pretty appealing to the first batch that moved in, also check that your attic is secured with screens, caulk, and expanding foam. Without the chimney available, those same animals will seek alternative routes, and attics are awfully cozy spots.

In addition, you can help yourself with bird or bat problems by installing appropriate housing nearby. Bat houses, for example, don’t attract bats, but they will house bats in your area and prevent them from seeking your home instead.

Cleaning Up After Animals in Your Chimney

Evicting animals from your chimney is not the end of the story, unfortunately. You also need to clean the chimney to eradicate any sources of parasites or disease that might be present. This is not difficult to do, but it can be hard to know if you’ve really cleaned the whole chimney without professional help.

Many pros recommend starting a big fire in the fireplace, if your chimney is safe to build a fire under. A very hot fire can raise the temperatures in the chimney high enough to destroy any potential parasites, as well as disease-causing microbes, that may be present from the animal’s occupancy.

If you can’t start a fire, hire a chimney sweep. Make sure they know the reason that you need your chimney cleaned so they can ensure that they don’t blow bits of detritus into your home, putting you at risk of disease.

HVAC Troubleshooting for Homeowners

Climate control is one of the greatest inventions of humankind since leavened bread, but when it’s suddenly not working properly, or it stops working all together, your HVAC system can become a massive source of stress and worry. Before you decide to panic, though, consider doing a little troubleshooting of your system. There are several very easy things you can check before you even have to call a repairman.

Is Your HVAC Powered and Set Properly?

Often, when HVAC systems go awry, it’s because your system is simply not powered. That might seem like an obvious problem, but since your HVAC system likely has at least two different breakers in your breaker box, it can be easy to miss that a switch has been flipped. Reset both your air conditioner and your furnace or air handler’s breakers, then try to kick the system on again.

Another major source of headaches for homeowners is the thermostat itself. Not only do thermostats actually go bad from time to time (even smart thermostats), they can also throw curveballs. Check that your thermostat is set to a temperature that will turn your system on, and that the right mode is enabled, if your system doesn’t automatically change between heat and air. Learning thermostats can sometimes randomly change your programmed settings, if they think you’re regularly making a specific adjustment, and may have simply changed the program in an attempt to help.

Are Your Filters Clean?

It might sound like a small thing, but your filters determine how much air makes it from the interior of your home into your air handler and back out the vents at some temperature that is meant to help you achieve your desired comfort level. If your filters are dirty, they can drastically cut down on how much air is moving through your home.

Change your filters monthly, even if they only look slightly dirty, since today’s high filtration filters can get clogged quickly. You can also swap those paper filters for custom built electrostatic filters, so you only need to vacuum and hose your filters down once a month, rather than go to the additional expense of buying new ones constantly.

Are Your Ducts Leaky?

If your HVAC is blowing air, hot or cold, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s as hot or as cold as it normally is, your problem might be in your ducts. Ductwork can work loose over time, or be pulled down by animals who might have snuck into your crawlspace or attic. When there’s an opening in that ductwork, you can lose both air pressure and some of the temperature treated air that you’re trying to keep inside your house.

To check your ductwork, you’ll just need to go to where it’s hanging, and start at one end. Make sure the HVAC system is blowing so you can feel for leaks with your bare hands. When you find one, reconnect the ductwork. Some systems fit together with screws, while others use clamps. Once reconnected, you can double-secure your handiwork by winding aluminum tape around the seam where you made the repair. You may also need to add additional support to help hold the ductwork in place if there isn’t adequate strapping.

If your ductwork is in good shape, but it still feels like you’re not getting enough treated air, check your windows and doors for leaks and seal them tight. You can do this by feeling around them for drafts, or waiting until after dark and going outside to look for light peeking through cracks in doors and around trim. Doing both will catch more leaks than either one alone.

Do You Need an Expert?

If you’ve done all you can on your own to figure out what’s keeping your heating or air conditioning from being its best, it might be time to call in an HVAC expert. Not only will they have all the right tools to properly diagnose your problem, their experience can also help them find the issue right away. 

Radiant Barriers Help Insulation Do More

We all know the old song and dance: insulate and weatherproof your home to maximize your utility dollars. Filling all the gaps and keeping all the climate-controlled air where it should be is a huge part of creating a home that’s not only comfortable, but efficient. Or so we’ve been told. The truth is that there’s another step in the process that many homeowners are overlooking, and it’s both easy to install and inexpensive: a special kind of foil called a radiant barrier.

What are Radiant Barriers?

Radiant barriers aren’t much to look at. In fact, they pretty much just look like really heavy foil like you’d use on your grill or on top of a casserole dish. But they make up for looks in performance. According to Energy.gov, a website produced by the US Department of Energy, radiant barriers can reduce cooling costs by up to 10% in sunny climates, and may even allow a homeowner to install a smaller air conditioning system, saving additional money over the longer term.

They work by reducing the radiant heat that comes into an attic or other space. When roofing materials get hot from sun exposure, that heat eventually transfers into the attic via radiation. So, to slow or even stop this process, a barrier that’s designed to reflect that radiant heat back out of the attic is necessary.

Many houses lack radiant barriers, either because it wasn’t invented when they were built and no one thought to add it later, or because the climate where they were built was once considerably cooler than it is now. That doesn’t mean you can’t add one, though.

Installing Radiant Barriers

Installing a radiant barrier is not a difficult process, but it can be a time-consuming and messy one. After all, you’ll need to be in your attic for prolonged periods, working with a sort of heavy foil material that can be cumbersome for a single person to manage. But it’s definitely possible as an advanced DIY project.

When you install a radiant barrier, it’s really important to not only pay attention to which side is up on the barrier material, so the proper side faces the roof, but that you install it in such a way that it won’t be contaminated with things like dust and other debris. The more dust and material that collects on a radiant barrier, the less effective it will be.

In the past, some people have installed radiant barriers on top of their insulation, but this has proven to be a poor way of installing the material. Instead of the wanted effect of cooling the attic, in these homes, the radiant barrier instead interferes with the insulation’s ability to work properly. Since they also tend to act as a moisture barrier, radiant barriers can also trap moisture inside attic insulation, causing all kinds of other problems.

When installing a radiant barrier, hanging it along the contours of the attic roof or rafters is your best bet, but you’ll need to let the material droop slightly between attachment points to create a 1-inch air gap between the material and the bottom of the roof. You can also choose insulation with a radiant barrier built-in, called reflective insulation, where the barrier acts as the facing material.

Safety With Radiant Barrier Materials

Because radiant barriers are made of metal foil, they will conduct electricity. Many homeowners don’t consider this when installing them and may overlook serious hazards like contact with bare wire or old wire with failing insulation. Electricity can cause serious injuries or damage to homes, especially if the contact is prolonged and widespread, like it would be when accidentally electrifying an entire attic’s worth of foil.

Lightning Proofing Your Home

Big storms can be scary. With the wind, heavy rain, and the threat of even more extreme weather, they can also bring with them a lot of damage. While a lot of people make plans on how to react to some of the big dangers associated with storms, there’s one more common threat that often goes overlooked: lightning strikes.

To be fair, there’s a lot of folk wisdom about how unlikely it is to be struck by lightning (less than a 1 in 15,000 chance) and about how lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice (though it does). What this leaves out is that there’s a 1 in 200 chance that your home will be struck be lightning, or the amount of damage that one of these strikes can do. If you really want to protect your home and your belongings from the dangers of lightning, there are a few things you’ll need to do.

Protecting Your Home

The most well-known way to protect your home from a lightning strike is the installation of a lightning rod. These devices provide a simple but effective means of attracting lightning strikes and then diverting it to the ground instead of allowing it to strike and damage other parts of your home. They are an effective solution when it comes to direct lightning strikes, but you may be surprised to learn that even with a lightning rod in place your home can still suffer significant damage from lightning.

The problem is that lightning from nearby strikes can also damage your home as they gets conducted through wires, pipes, and other materials in your house. Unfortunately, a lightning rod isn’t going to help with this. Instead, it’s recommended that you have a whole-home lightning protection system that includes lightning rods as well as protection on main conductors, grounds, and other elements that can divert and redirect lightning electricity even if it isn’t coming from a direct strike.

Protecting Your Belongings

Another big issue with lightning strikes is that they can cause damage to a wide range of electronic devices in your home. Computers, televisions, and any other electronic device that’s plugged in can be irreparably damaged by a lightning strike and will have to be replaced. This is one reason that surge protectors and similar devices are so highly recommended, as they can help protect the devices that are plugged into them.

Whole-home surge protection systems are also recommended, as they can prevent a lightning surge from even reaching your outlets, preventing possible damage to your home’s wiring, and greatly reducing the likelihood that your devices will be damaged by a power surge before a power strip surge protector can trip its breaker. You should also take the time to unplug unnecessary devices during storms just in case, and to make sure that the surge protectors you connect your electronics up to feature transient voltage surge protection that place a hard limit of 1.5 times the normal voltage range, so that your belongings are protected against even non-lightning spikes and surges.

Overcoming the Threat of Lightning

One big thing that you should do to help protect your home and your belongings is to check your homeowner’s policy to make sure that it features protection from lightning-related damage both to the structure of your home and to the items within. While this is common in a lot of policies, this sort of protection isn’t always there, and it’s better to know what coverage you have before you need it. If you don’t have sufficient coverage, you should talk to your insurance agent to see what’s needed to increase the coverage your policy provides.

It’s also a good idea to talk to an electrician or other pro to get a lightning protection system professionally installed to make sure that it’s set up correctly. They can ensure that your system has everything you need to keep you safe in the event of lightning strikes on or near your home.

Good Scents: Using Smell to Entice Homebuyers

There are a number of unpleasant smells that can occur in your home. Sometimes they’re temporary bouts of unpleasantness, and other times they stick around. A lot of smells and odors can seem manageable, since even lingering mustiness or other odors can kind of fade over time as you get used to them. Unfortunately, just because you’ve gone somewhat “nose blind” to those smells doesn’t mean that other people have, and that can be a major problem if you’re listing your home for sale.

If you’re trying to entice people to be interested in your home, you need to make sure that the first thing they smell when walking in the door isn’t some awful smell that you’ve just gotten used to. Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to bringing the smell of your home around to work to your advantage. With that said, here are a few things that might help.

Eliminate Smell Sources

If there are unpleasant smells in your home, the first thing that you should do is work on getting rid of the source of those smells. Enzyme sprays and other specialty cleaners can reduce or eliminate the cause of many pet odors, even if your pets have had accidents on the carpet. Likewise, a mix of ice, rock salt, and white vinegar can help clean and neutralize odors from the garbage disposal. A dehumidifier can go a long way toward getting rid of musty smells by reducing the humidity to a level where mildew and mold can’t grow. A thorough cleaning can also help, especially if it involves both vacuuming and shampooing the carpets and plush furniture surfaces.

If specific items such as a rug under the litter box or an old and musty pair of work boots are the source of the smell, get them out of the house or get rid of them entirely. Tossing things out may seem like a drastic step, but unless you eliminate the source of an odor, it isn’t really ever going to fully go away. Plus, if something is stinking up your home that bad then you probably don’t really need it around anyhow.

Improve Your Home’s Scent

As you work on removing unpleasant scents from your home, you can also work on adding pleasant ones. Provided that the weather allows for it, spend a few days with as many doors and windows open as possible (shutting off the HVAC first, of course) to air out the house and get fresh air everywhere. You might also want to set up fans to help circulate the air so that it reaches as many points in the house as possible. This will serve the dual purpose of getting out lingering odors and bringing in fresh scents from outdoors.

Air fresheners and air sanitizers are also useful in this regard. Opt for something with a light scent that’s either fruity or floral, but not overbearingly so. After all, your goal is to leave the air smelling fresh but not smelling like perfume. Before people come to look at the house, put out fresh flowers in key rooms to help improve the scent of the room without having to rely overly on sprays or other artificial air fresheners.

Bring in the Pros

With some odors, you may not be able to fully get rid of them on your own. In these cases, it’s a good idea to call in professional cleaners and explain what the problem is. These pros use specially-formulated cleaners and other solutions that help them break down the causes of even some of the nastiest smells to get your home smelling fresh and clean before you list it.

Trellising 101: Climb, Plant, Climb!

Growing a garden is the ultimate act of faith. After all, you never know if your plants will thrive or if they will cease to be long before reaching their full potential. Hopefully, with diligent care, and a little luck, your plants will grow big, strong, and glorious. When it comes to growing climbing plants (often referred to as “vines,” “climbers,” or “lianas”), two of the most important parts of their success are having the right kinds of things to climb and the right help to get started on their way up.

What Is a Climbing Plant?

The term “climbing plant” is kind of a giant catch-all term that includes a range of plants with long, flexible stems, and some mechanism that allows them to reach great heights in their native environments. However, some climbing plants will also just become shrubs if they have nothing to climb, and others will climb for a while, then set roots where they land before shedding their climbing tools all together.

But in most cases, when people think of climbing plants, they think of plants that are vining. These plants climb over structures and other plants using several different mechanisms. This can include stems that twist around supports, leaves that twist around objects or one another, curly tendrils that wrap around supports, long roots that help them cling to solid surfaces, or hooks like thorns that help them move upward.

Although it’s common to see vines sold as ornamentals, there are also a number of climbing plants that are part of the vegetable garden. For example, cucumbers and tomatoes are both vining plants, which makes them perfect for vertical gardening.

Trellising Vining Plants

Climbing plants can be easy to grow, if you give them appropriate things to climb and help them get a foothold when needed. Trellising a plant isn’t difficult, but choosing the right trellis can be sometimes. Not every plant will respond to every trellis, so it’s very important to consider the method by which your plant climbs before choosing a trellis for it.

For example, if your plant climbs with tendrils, it will do best with a wire trellis with frequent horizontal cross pieces. Because it needs to be able to reach up and wrap the tendrils around something substantial but narrow, the thick, flat trellises can be difficult for this type of vine to climb. On the other hand, if you’re trying to grow something that uses its roots to climb, like Virginia creeper, you need those trellises with the wide, flat components. It’s very difficult for this kind of plant to climb up narrow trellis material because it has to have some significant space and texture to allow it to really grab on with its roots.

So, whether you choose your trellis first (maybe you already have one in mind) or you choose your plant first, they need to be compatible. For many climbing plants, something as simple as mesh fencing can make a magnificent trellis.

How to Train Your Vines

Training vines to their appropriate trellises is surprisingly simple most of the time. As long as your trellis is close enough to the ground that your vine can reach it quickly in its growing process, often all you have to do is wait and let the plant do its own thing. If your plant is a bit more resistant, that’s ok, there are ways to encourage it to grow up.

A common technique for training vines onto a trellis is simply to wait for it to grow long enough for you to start winding it through the trellis material. Be very gentle, as you’ll need those delicate growing tips to remain undamaged, but loosely weaving it through the trellis as it grows will help it establish a framework for where it should be hanging out, so to speak.

With vines that need to attach to flat areas using their roots, you may be able to tie them on loosely until the root has firmly secured the plant. Use a cloth tie if at all possible to reduce the risk of damage to your plant. Before you know it, you’ll be able to untie the plant and let it get on with growing.

Still Need Help Moving Your Plants Up?

If your vining plants are still giving you trouble, or you simply don’t know which vine is right for your really magnificent arbor, it may be time to consult a landscaper or other plant expert.

 

How to Keep Your Ductwork Clean

Your home’s HVAC system works hard throughout the year. Unfortunately, this can cause it to experience problems over time, often at a time when you’d really rather it not fail on you. This is why yearly maintenance and inspections are recommended, since a little bit of attention now can save you a whole lot of problems (and money) later on.

There’s more that you can do to help your HVAC system stay in good working order than just having it inspected and maintained, though. One of the big things that you can do to help is keeping your ductwork clean. This helps to prevent blocked airflow, keeps dust and other particles from being recirculated into the air, and overall reduces the strain on your HVAC unit as it tries to push air through the entire ductwork system. If you’ve never cleaned your ductwork before, here’s what you need to know to start.

Cleaning Your Ductwork

There are a few things that you can do to clean up your ductwork. One that’s often overlooked is actually vacuuming it out to remove built up dust, dirt, and other particles. You obviously can’t do this to the entire length of your ductwork, but removing vent covers and vacuuming around the vent area still makes a huge difference. Dust and debris tend to pile up here because some of it is trapped by the vent cover itself, and it mixes with debris and other items that might get dropped down the vent by mistake. When the air kicks on, some of this loose debris is circulated back into the house, bringing with it mildew and mold spores and a variety of other things that will either be breathed in or clog up your air filter. Vacuum it out now to help keep this from happening.

Speaking of air filters, they are one of your best tools when it comes to cleaning up your ductwork. Changing them monthly keeps them in good working condition, preventing a lot of the dust, dander, and other unwanted particles from making it into your ductwork in the first place. Set a schedule to change your filter, writing it on your calendar or setting up some other reminder so that you don’t forget. Once this schedule is in place, you’ll be amazed at how much of an effect this consistency can have on the state of your ducts.

Keeping It Clean

Cleaning your ductwork isn’t just a one-and-done event. You’ll still need to vacuum your vents periodically and stick with your air filter schedule to keep it clean. There’s more that you can do to help keep the ductwork clean and reduce the strain on your HVAC system, though. Things like installing a dehumidifier to reduce overall indoor humidity and dusting your home on a more regular basis can make a big difference, especially in the weeks following your initial cleaning to get any loose particles that you couldn’t reach with the vacuum.

Another thing that you can do to help keep your ductwork clean is to make sure that all your vents are open at least a little to facilitate air flow throughout the entire duct system. A lot of homeowners close vents in rooms that don’t see much use, but this actually increases pressure on the HVAC system and creates dead ends where dust and other particles can build up. By opening these vents at least partially, you can ensure good airflow throughout the house, and avoid situations where closed vents lead to buildup.

Ductwork Cleaning and Inspection

It’s already been mentioned how important HVAC inspections are, but you can actually get your ductwork professionally cleaned and inspected as well. This cleaning helps to ensure that the entire duct system is cleaned out, and the inspection ensures that there isn’t any damage or other issues that negatively affect airflow.