July 2019 - One Source Home Service

5 Tips to Protect Your Home While You’re on Vacation

Just because you’re away on vacation doesn’t mean you don’t stop thinking about or needing to take care of your house. Here are 5 tips to make sure your home is safe from electrical issues while you are gone.

Unplug

Even when your devices are turned off, they still use up power and electricity and could be subject to surges and shorts. By unplugging your devices, specifically things like your TV, computers, lamps, and more you will save money on electrical use and protect from any potential fire hazards. Unless you want a stinky mess when you come home, you probably should leave your fridge plugged in, but you could always turn down the settings slightly.

Hot Water Tank

Another way to reduce your costs and power usage while you are away is to turn down the temperature on your water heater. Even though you are not using your hot water while on vacation, the water will cool on its own which will kick in the heating process of your tank. Most hot water tanks have a setting on them called ‘vacation’ or ‘away.’ Simply find the temperature knob or panel, and set it to the vacation temperature which is usually just above the pilot setting. Why heat your water when you won’t be using it?

Temperature Settings

Don’t leave the temperature on your thermostat turned up high or the AC turned on at all when you are away. If you’re traveling in the winter, you will have to leave the heat on, but the temperature can be much lower than if you were at home to keep your pipes from freezing and bursting. As well, if you are away in the summer, there is no need to keep your air conditioning on at all. You can cool your house down again when you come home. If you have pets you can’t take with you, consider having someone else look after them at their home.

Programmable Lights

At night, we want some lights on in our house, so it looks like people are at home. There are devices we can get so we can program our lights, inside or out, to come on at a particular time. Timed lights will work to reduce our electrical costs. You could also look into smart lights, either builds or fixtures which you can control from your smartphone and turn on and off wherever you are.

Check-In

Lastly, have a friend, family member, or neighbor check in on your house every few days while you are away. Someone walking around your home and property could notice a problem before it becomes severe. Some insurance companies require that someone check on an empty house for the coverage to still be valid in case of an emergency.

Looking for more info on how to prepare your home for your time away? Give the team at One Source Home Service a call today! We look forward to getting to speak with you.

7 Tips to Help You Stay Cool and Save Money on Air Conditioning

When summer days get hotter, air conditioning can be so awesome! It feels so good to escape the heat and cool down in the comfort of your home. At least it feels good and cool until the first skyrocketing energy bill comes in. Then things really heat up! How can you keep your house cool but also save money on the cost to cool it? We’ve checked with the energy experts and HVAC technicians, and found seven tips to help you stay cool and save money on air conditioning.

Set your thermostat to a reasonably good temperature. Before setting your thermostat to 72 degrees because that’s room temperature, keep in mind that we tend to dress in lighter clothes during the summer. Try slowly raising the temperature in the range of 73 to 79 degrees to see what’s comfortable for your house. The U.S. Department of Energy specifies 78 degrees as the ideal compromise—cool enough and saving you money. Every degree you go up from 72 saves you three to five percent on your air conditioning energy costs.
Raise the temperature whenever you leave home. Whenever nobody will be home for two or more hours, you can save energy by raising the temperature by seven to ten degrees. The Department of Energy says doing this consistently will save you as much as 10 percent on cooling costs.
Save money at night. When you sleep, your core body temperature lowers. So you may be able to raise the temperature a bit at night, especially if you use lighter sleepwear and lighter bed coverings.
Switch to a smart thermostat. You can program a smart thermostat to raise the temperature ten degrees during the day when everyone is at work and then lower it 30 minutes before the first person returns home. Some smart thermostats have even more advanced features to help you truly optimize the temperature setting to save you the most money.
Seal up the leaks. The older your home, the more likely cold air is seeping outside. Install new weatherstripping and caulk around doors and windows. We recommend getting a home energy audit from your utility provider to find all these leaks and to find the best things you can do to make your home more energy efficient.
Replace older air conditioning units with energy-efficient models. Just like newer furnaces, today’s air conditioners really do work much more efficiently than older ones. If you fear you’re paying too much to keep your house cool, it would be worth asking an HVAC salesperson about your options.
Call an HVAC technician to tune-up your air conditioning unit. Regular inspection and maintenance is vital to keeping your air conditioner working at its best. If you suspect that it’s not cooling properly, a technician will be able to determine whether there’s a problem other than it’s a really hot summer.

Follow these tips and you’ll save money while keep your house reasonably cool this summer, and call the team at One Source Home Service today to schedule your next A/C service!

Flushable Wipes and 7 Other Things You Should Never Flush Down The Toilet

Ask any plumber and they will tell you that people often flush things down the toilet that really should not be flushed. They’ve cleared enough clogs from toilet drain pipes to know the worst things that people flush. Save yourself the plumbing bill by never flushing any of the following things down your toilet.

Wet wipes

Baby wipes, wet wipes, and cleaning wipes are often marketed as “flushable” wipes, but many of them are only flushable in the same way that a t-shirt or towel is flushable. Yeah, maybe you can flush them, but they are going to cause clogs, if not in your drain pipe, then in the sewer line or at your municipal wastewater treatment plant. Many wipes simply do not disintegrate quickly enough to prevent clogs and backed-up sewer lines.

7 other things you should never flush

In addition to “flushable” wipes, here’s other things you should never flush down the toilet.

Paper Towels: After wiping up a mess in the bathroom, tossing a paper towel in the toilet might seem like an easy way to get rid of it. But consider those paper towel commercials that boast about how strong and absorbent their paper towels are. There’s your top two reasons not to flush them!
Feminine hygiene products: Would you believe there’s a good reason why public bathrooms often have signs telling you not to flush feminine hygiene products down the toilet? Tampons and pads are designed to be ultra-absorbent and they expand as they get wet. You don’t want them expanding in your drain pipe.
Condoms: Condoms are what plumbers least like to pull out of the toilet drain. Latex prophylactics take years to degrade and even if they get through your drain pipe, they will cause issues in your city’s wastewater treatment system.
Floss: Long strands of floss can wrap around other things, creating string balls that can create clogs by collecting more “solids.”
Cotton Swabs: Throw used cotton swabs in the garbage because if flushed they will get jammed in the drain pipe and then act like a little dam, blocking other things from continuing down the drain.
Hair: When you pull those clumps of hair out of your brush, toss them in the trash not in the toilet. Hair does not dissolve and will worsen any little blockage in the drain pipe.
Too much toilet paper: The problem with thicker, multi-ply, plush toilet paper is that it does take a bit longer to dissolve. If you have to use a lot of it, flush a couple of times rather than sending it all down at once.

Summary

If it’s too late now and you know you have flushed some of these things down your toilet, call a plumber for drain cleaning in Colorado Springs if the toilet is not draining properly. If it’s still good, count yourself lucky and stop flushing these things down the drain. Give the team at One Source Home Service a call today if you have more questions about your drains!

One Source Home Service Tops The Charts With Aeroseal

Scott Bidwell owner of one source home services

Aeroseal is quickly becoming the most talked about sealant product in renovations. Its cutting-edge technology enables installers to find those areas of the home experiencing leaks and quickly deploy sealant to stop energy loss and maintain home comfortability. One Source Home Solutions has not only seen an uptick in clients requesting the service but positive feedback coming from them after receiving their first new energy bill.

“Twenty to thirty percent of the heat and air that are meant to be blowing through a home’s vents actually escape through the air ducts,” says co-owner of One Source Home Solutions Scott Bidwell. “Aeroseal was designed to find those cracks and seal them. This not only lowers utility costs and improves performance but actually has a profound effect on air quality in the home.”

Dirt and dust particles from attics, crawlspaces, and garages are often sucked back into the vents and end up in the home, reducing indoor air quality. Moreover, those same leaks in the vents prevent much of the hot and cold air from reaching the intended room. By using Aeroseal to secure the integrity of the vents, homeowners can begin to experience not only cost savings but also better air quality. “That dust that settles everywhere comes mostly from your vents,” says Bidwell. “That’s one of the selling points of this product—it prevents the accumulation of dust particles that can really set off our client’s allergies.”

Bidwell’s sought-after home services firm is one of the first area companies to install Aeroseal and has already won prestige awards for installation and service. He believes that this has become an integral and important area of home service. “People are looking for better ways to manage costs of heating and cooling but also to protect their health,” he explains. “With one product we are able to do both.”

The company’s reputation for quality and customer service has helped them build trust with their clients and referrals. They believe that having ongoing dialogue about new products and services helps to maintain that trust built over time and will eventually lead them to new customers. They are currently one of the top agents of Aeroseal and encourages anyone looking to improve their system’s efficiency to give them a call today.

This article has been featured on: fox34.com, news9.com, news.earlymorninghearld.com, and news.beststockmarketnews.com.