Simple Ways to Prepare Your Home for Summer

Written by Your Filter Connection

Summer is nearly here, which means it’s time to prepare your home for the hottest months of the year. While most people get out and about during this time of the year, the home is always the comfortable refuge from the hot weather and blazing sun. By preparing ahead of time, you can decrease the chance of getting stuck without air conditioning or breaking a useful home appliance. Here are a few tips for home owners to prepare their house for summer.

Replace the Air Conditioner Filter

The home air conditioner is the most important piece of equipment during the summer. It’s what will keep you and your family cool and comfortable while the temperature outside reaches triple digits. But chances are you haven’t turned it on since last summer, when you might have used it nearly every day. Just like you will have to purchase a replacement furnace filter before wintertime, the same rule applies to your air conditioning unit.

If you haven’t touched your air conditioning unit since last year, it’s time to replace the filter and prepare it for this summer. Replacing the air conditioning filter will allow the unit to work properly and capture air born contaminants from circulating back into the air. Air conditioner filters are affordable and can be found at Your Filter Connection.

Replace Other Filters

Depending on the appliances you have in your home, you might need to replace more than your air conditioning filter. If you have an air filter, make sure that the filter is clean and new for the new season as well. Other filters to replace in time for summer include your water filter, the fridge filter, and humidifier filter.

Bring Out Cotton and Linen Fabrics

During the cold months of the year, our homes are usually adorned in warm thick materials, from thick drapes in the living room and bedrooms to warm and heavy blankets on our beds. But summertime calls for light and airy fabrics such as cotton and linen. Take a look around your home. It’s time to bring out new fabrics. Exchange heavy drapes for light and thin drapes. Get rid of heavy blankets and throws and bring out cotton sheets, blankets and comforters. The same rule applies to fabrics in the kitchen. Light and airy drapes will invite the summer breeze and allow the sun to shine through, while light and airy blankets and comforters will keep you from getting too hot during the warm summer nights.
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Your Filter Connection is an online retailer of replacement filters for air conditioners, furnaces, air filters, and humidifiers. Visit the website to purchase your furnace filter today.

Tools for Fixing a Car

Your car consists of thousands of moving parts and potential trouble spots. A good mechanic routinely inspects these parts, so you only make small repairs over time to keep your car running. You can run the same maintenance out of your own garage if you have the tools for it.

Lubrication

The internals of a car need to be lubricated frequently to keep those moving parts running well over time. A grease gun can be a handy tool to lubricate parts that are hard to reach by hand. You load the gun, then pull the crank to apply the lubrication. WD-40 is another compound that can fill some limited uses, like lubricating small internal parts or cleaning the grime off of something.

Hand Tools

Most car tail lights can be changed by hand if you have a simple socket wrench. Simply fit the ratchet over the bolt, then rotate to loosen. Once the plate is off, you can swap out the old light for a new one and bolt the plate back into place. You can also use a wrench, but the socket wrench is much more efficient. If you plan to do any interior wiring, bolt cutters will be very handy for stripping and cutting those wires.

Other hand tools that come in handy include screwdrivers, which can be used for both screws and for prying. It’s also helpful to keep lighting close at hand, so you can actually see what you’re doing as you work on the car’s internals.

Heavy-Duty Tools

Every car needs more than just surface maintenance, even if those jobs are few and far between. With a heavy-duty car jack, you can easily change tires or fix your own brake pads. You can also change your oil if the car is lifted from the ground. An air compressor is another heavy-duty tool that is handy for your garage. You can use it as a pneumatic socket wrench, or you can blow away debris and grime from your work space at the end of the session. You can also fit a nozzle at the end and use your compressor as a power washer, stripping away the grime from the internals of your engine with powerful blasts of water.

If you plan to spend some time beneath your car, don’t forget to purchase a kneeling pad to keep from damaging your knees.

Final Thoughts

Cars require a lot of work, which can eat into your budget unless you perform the repairs from the comfort of your home. It’s cheaper to invest in reliable tools now than it is to make repeated trips to your mechanic.
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Toolsmith Direct sells utility knives and other automotive repair tools for individual enthusiasts. Conduct repairs out of your garage with tools from Toolsmith Direct.