Welcome to the Homeowner’s Newsletter! Bi-weekly, you’ll find plenty of useful information for keeping your house in great condition so that you can enjoy it for years to come. Preserve your investment—and keep your family safe and healthy—by maintaining your home using the following tips.
Interior Doors: Monitor the condition of your home’s doors and door frames, including the interior of entrance doors and storm doors. Check their hardware for finish, wear, and proper functioning. Sticking doors or out-of-square frames may indicate house settlement, which is normal. Pocket doors and sliding doors need to be checked for stiffness, out of rail and safety guides. It may be necessary to lubricate the rollers or change them out if they become stiff.
Exterior Doors: Exterior doors should be checked often for their condition, operation, and the functionality of their hardware. Most Door types in Nova Scotia include hinged, and single and double doors made of wood, steel, aluminum, and plastic with and without glazing. Monitor wood and plastic doors that are not protected from the weather. These doors should be rated for exterior use. Some homes use glass-framed doors of fixed and operable panels that have wood, vinyl-covered wood, and aluminum frames. Check the tracks of these sliding doors for dents, breaks and straightness. Any compromise of these protective panels would lead to water penetration and deterioration of the wood underneath. Any of these should be repaired promptly where observed.
Doors should also be monitored for the exterior condition of their frames and sills. Check doors that are not protected from the weather for the presence of essential flashing at the head commonly called Z-flashing (A protective metal or vinyl material designed to shed water away from the door opening, sills and jambs). Over time, the interior condition and hardware of exterior doors can wear out or fail. Here in Nova Scotia, we experience a lot of wind-driven rain. These rains can usually beat the eaves, porch roofing and other overhangs designed to protect exterior doors. If you notice leaks, water marks or stains on exterior door finishing on the inside during wind-driven rains, you most likely do not have a functional door header flashing and would need to get a professional to install one.
Garage Doors: Garage doors should be monitored for operation, weathertightness, overall condition, and fit. Garage doors are typically made of wood, hardboard on a wood frame, steel, fiberglass on a steel frame, and aluminum. Garage doors come with glazed panes in a wide variety of styles and now even have entry or access doors built into them (isn’t that cool!). Wood and hardboard can rot, hardboard can crack and split, steel can rust, fiberglass can deteriorate from ultraviolet light, and aluminum can dent. Keeping an eye on all these periodically is the key to keeping your investment in great condition.
Garage doors with motors should be periodically tested using each of the operators on the system, such as key-lock switch or combination lock keypad, where control must be accessible on the exterior remote electrical switch, radio signal switch, or photo-electric control switch. Check the operation for smoothness, quietness, speed of operation, and safety. Check for the presence and proper operation of the door safety-reversing device for safety of children and pets. Look at the exposed parts of the installation for loose connections, rust, and bent or damaged pieces. Also test the emergency manual release operation of the garage door. This is the red lever hanging approximately six feet from the ground. This is used to operate a garage door when the motor fails, there is none or no power. Making sure that this manual release lever operates the garage door fully is important. If this is not the case, consult with a garage door expert.
Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence – Colin Powell. Do what you love and love what you do!
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