Keeping Your Kitchen Pest-Free

of your home, lowering your wintertime energy costs. If you need help handling a pest problem or would like to schedule regular preventive services for your home, visit our website to contact a pest control professional. You can find additional tips for keeping pests out of your home on our blog. The discovery of pests in your kitchen can cause concern over the safety of the food your family eats. Finding pests in an area where you store, prepare, and eat food every day can also be extremely stressful. Taking steps to keep pests out of your kitchen will help you to maintain a healthy and sanitary home. Keep reading to discover some simple tips you can implement to prevent pests in your kitchen or pantry. If you do discover a pest problem in your kitchen, contact a pest control expert immediately to handle the situation quickly and safely.

Throw Away Overripe Fruit

While a ready supply of fresh fruit in your kitchen is an attractive and healthy snack option, overripe fruit can attract many unwanted pests. Fruit flies and gnats are frequently attracted to ripening or fermented fruits and vegetables and once inside your home, they can be difficult to eliminate. Check any fruit you keep in your kitchen daily and throw away overripe items in an outdoor trashcan—throwing them away in kitchen trash bins can still attract pests into your home. If you’d prefer to save overripe fruit for cooking or smoothies, store it in your freezer until you’re ready to use it.

Store Food Properly

Many foods come in paper or cardboard containers that provide little resistance against hungry pests. Store foods such as flour, sugar, cereal, and opened chips or other snacks in airtight plastic containers. These containers will not only keep pests away, they will make your pantry more organized, provide easy identification of items, and also keep foods fresher longer. Adding a bay leaf to dry goods such as flour or rice is an excellent and natural method to deter many insects. If you have a pet, avoid leaving food in his bowl all day long. Put food down when it is mealtime, then clean up and store any uneaten food for later.

Eliminate Pest Entrances

Eliminating the pathways by which pests enter your kitchen can prevent an infestation. The smallest rodents can gain access to your home through a hole no larger than a pencil in diameter, while insects can enter through even smaller openings. Check your kitchen and the exterior of your home for holes, cracks, and other access points where pests might enter; these include poorly-sealed windows or doors and spaces around stove and oven pipes. Seal any openings you do find promptly.

Keeping pests out of your kitchen will ensure a healthier, happier home. You can learn more about home pest prevention or get the answers to your specific questions on our Ask the Expert webpage. If you’d like to schedule pest control services in Delmarva, please visit our website to contact us.

Winterizing your home will keep pests out and improve the sustainability

Common Causes of Clogs and How to Eliminate Them

Clogged or slow drains are one of the most common reasons to call a professional plumber. Keep reading to find out the most common causes of clogs and how you can eliminate them for healthier, longer-lasting plumbing and fewer problems with your drains and pipes.

Clog Causes

Food waste and cooking oils or fats are one of the most common causes for a clogged kitchen sink. Pouring fats and oils down your drain allows them to cool and congeal inside your pipes, setting the stage for a stubborn clog in the future. If your kitchen has a disposal, putting the wrong kinds of foods down the drain can cause it to jam or clog. Toilets are designed only to handle human waste and toilet paper—other paper products such as tissues, paper towels, and baby wipes can easily lodge in your toilet’s plumbing and cause a problem. Other common cause of toilet clogs include flushing garbage such as bandages, paper or plastic packaging, dental floss, feminine products, cat litter, and diapers. The drains of your tubs and showers collect organic debris such as dead skin cells, hair, and soap scum every time you bathe. Over time, these can build up inside your plumbing as well, causing a clog that slows or even completely blocks the drainpipe.

Clog Solutions

The best way to eliminate clogs is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. Large amounts of food waste and foods such as pasta, rice, fat, oil, and stringy or starchy vegetables should go into the trash with other solid wastes rather than down your drain. When using your disposal, always run the cold water in the sink at the same time. Additionally, never flush any manmade product except for toilet paper down your toilet. Keep the toilet lid closed when not in use to prevent small objects from falling in and getting flushed accidentally. Placing a wastebasket next to your toilet can eliminate the temptation to flush garbage as well. Mesh drain covers can be placed in sinks, tubs, and showers to catch hair and other debris. Empty the drain covers into a trashcan after each use. You can maintain your plumbing by pouring a small amount of enzymatic drain cleaner or baking soda and boiling water down your drains once a month. These solutions will clear away any buildup to prevent larger clogs from forming without using the harsh chemicals found in caustic drain cleaners.

If you experience slow or clogged drains that you can’t handle on your own, call a professional plumber to handle the problem. You can contact a Mr. Rooter plumber for service at any time in the Santa Rosa area by clicking on our website. We also invite you to check out our blog for more plumbing information, tips, and tricks.

Maintaining Your Ducts for Improved Performance

Your home’s ducts transport heated and cooled air from your HVAC system to the rest of your home. Although they sit out of sight—and thus often out of mind—your ducts play an extremely important role in your indoor comfort every day. Ducts that are in poor shape may have blockages or leaks that prevent air from circulating properly, putting excess strain on your furnace and air conditioner and lowering their ability to perform efficiently. Maintaining your ducts will greatly improve the energy efficiency of your HVAC system and help you maintain a comfortable temperature in your home all year long.

Insulate Exposed Ductwork

Exposed ductwork in your basement, crawlspace, garage, or attic can radiate heat in the winter and soak up heat in the summer, costing you more to heat and cool your home. Insulating these exposed ducts is a fast, easy, and very effective way to improve your heating and cooling efficiency for greater comfort and lower bills. Adding insulation to ducts is a simple home improvement project you can undertake on your own. However, if you don’t feel comfortable insulating your ducts yourself, an HVAC specialist will be happy to perform this task for you.

Repair Leaks

Leaky ducts allow heated or cooled air to escape rather than funneling it all to the registers that distribute air throughout your home. As heated or cooled air is lost, the indoor comfort of your home drops and you are forced to turn the thermostat higher or lower. This results in extra strain on your HVAC system and higher energy bills at the end of the month. You can choose to repair leaky ducts on your own or hire an HVAC expert to handle the job for you. Sealing any leaks will restore the efficiency of your HVAC system and improve indoor comfort without the need to crank the thermostat higher or lower.

Have Your Ducts Cleaned

Over time, airborne pollutants build up inside your home’s ductwork. These pollutants include animal hair, dust mites, dirt, pollen, and other debris brought inside when you open your doors or windows. While it can be easy for these pollutants to enter your home, it is difficult for them to leave again. Instead, they circulate through your home and build up inside your ducts, narrowing the space available for air to flow. Dirt and dust inside your ducts may also eventually end up inside your furnace or air conditioner, where it limits performance and can even be a fire hazard. Having your ducts professionally cleaned will remove this buildup of pollutants for clear, more efficient ducts.

You can find more tips for improving the energy efficiency of your Columbus home when you click on our blog. If you need to reach an HVAC service professional about an inspection, repairs, or duct cleaning service using our Total Source Removal Cleaning Process, visit our website to contact us today.

Maintaining Your Kitchen Disposal

Garbage disposals are designed to break up foods before they enter your home’s plumbing pipes. A disposal allows for easy cleanup after meals by preventing clogs and backups that can occur if organic matter builds up inside your pipes. However, improper usage of a disposal can lead to numerous plumbing problems and the need for repairs. Keep reading to learn how to care for your disposal and maintain your home’s plumbing system.

Use It Properly

A large part of maintaining your disposal is using it properly. Misuse can lead to wear and other damage that affects the appliance’s function and causes clogs to form in your plumbing. Although your disposal may seem quite resilient, it is only designed to dispose of certain types of foods. Many types of waste can cause problems for a kitchen disposal and should be thrown away in the trashcan rather than flushed down your sink. Hard items such as corncobs, animal bones, and melon rinds should not be placed down your disposal. Eggshells and coffee grounds can also be problematic, and should go in the trash with your solid wastes as well. Never pour hot grease or fats—including gravy—down your disposal. These liquids cool into solids quickly, sticking to the blades and sealing off your drain to cause plumbing backups. Even if they make it through your plumbing system, grease and fat can still cause problems in public sewers and drains. Instead, dispose of cooking grease in a tin or other container that can be thrown away with your trash. Whenever you do use your disposal, make sure to run the cold water in your sink at the same time. Cold water will cause any fat or grease that does make it down your drain to congeal, where is can be broken up by the blades. Running water will also help to flush food wastes through your plumbing system so they will not collect and cause clogs or a foul odor in your kitchen.

Clean It Regularly

Regular cleaning will keep the blades of your disposal sharp and the drain line leading away from your sink clear. Every few weeks, place two cups of ice cubes followed by one cup of rock salt down your drain. Turn on the cold water and run your disposal for five to ten seconds. Next, plug your sink and fill it with a few inches of cold water. Remove the plug and run your disposal; the water should quickly drain from the sink, washing away any food remnants at the same time. You can keep your disposal smelling fresh by placing a few lemon or orange peels into the drain and running the disposal with cold water. When you wash your sink, make sure to clean the rubber lips of the disposal as well to prevent the growth of bacteria.  

Proper care of your plumbing and appliances can help you prevent many common home plumbing issues. You can find more information about how your home’s plumbing works and proper maintenance for problem-free performance on our blog. Visit our website to contact a plumber or learn more about our wide range of plumbing services in the Santa Rosa area.

Replacing Your Furnace to Improve Your Home’s Appeal

If you are planning to put your home on the market, it’s important to consider all the factors that affect the value of your home before you list it. Your HVAC system can play an important role in the final sale price of your home. Keep reading to find out how replacing your furnace can improve your home’s appeal and influence buyers to offer the price you want for your property.

Disadvantages of an Older Furnace

If your furnace is more than 25 years old, it is nearing the end of its useful lifetime. While replacing your furnace just before you plan to sell your home may not seem like a good investment, neglecting to replace an older system can lower the final sale price of your home. An aging furnace is often a turn-off for potential buyers, most of whom want to purchase a home knowing they will not need to make any large upgrades for some time. Knowing upfront that the furnace will need replacing in the near future may cause buyers to pass over your house for a property with newer features. Additionally, older furnaces are less efficient than newer models, costing homeowners more money to achieve a comfortable home. Today, many buyers are looking for ways to save money in the long run, and an inefficient furnace will not appeal to those looking for greener, money-saving features in their new living space.

Advantages of Replacing Your Furnace

Replacing an older furnace with a newer energy-efficient model offers both short-term and long-term benefits. Heating accounts for up to one third of any home’s annual utility costs. If you are planning to stay in your home for some time before selling it, replacing your furnace now offers immediate energy savings that you can enjoy for as long as you remain in your home. An aging furnace is also more likely to break down while you are still in your home, resulting in added repair costs after which you may still need to replace the unit if it fails completely. Even if you plan to sell your home immediately, replacing an older furnace can still save you money. A newer furnace will attract more buyers and can speed the sale of your home, reducing worry and stress associated with this process. If you have already purchased your new home, a faster sale will save you money by reducing the time you are paying a double mortgage.

A new furnace is a valuable investment whether you are planning to sell your home immediately or a few years down the road. You can read more articles about the benefits of today’s energy-efficient heating and cooling systems on our blog. Check out our website to explore your heating options in Columbus or to contact a professional heating expert for more information.