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Home Maintenance

Walk and Caulk Your Home’s Exterior

Caulking was not created for bathrooms alone. If you’re interested in weatherizing your home and need to keep the cost of doing so to a minimum, buy some fresh caulk and get the cobwebs off your caulk gun. There are spaces and gaps all over the exterior of your home that are just waiting to be filled – and you might just be surprised at how many you find – according to Andy, Chicago Exterior Painting Contractor. Grab your caulk gun and take a walk outside.

First, take a look at all your utility lines. Electric, telephone, cable and satellite all require utility lines to tunnel into your home. Holes are drilled into your home that let your utility lines in along with unwanted cold air. But that’s not all. The passageway for gas pipes, water pipes and sewer pipes are harbors for subways of air loss to run through. Remember that there will be more than one entranceway for many of these utility lines and pipes. Find the exterior entranceway for all of your utility piping and wiring, and caulk the gaps closed.

That’s just the beginning. Now you’re going to look for exterior electrical fixtures to seal. Exterior light fixtures usually need some caulk around the base. Exterior electric receptacles need caulk around the box, even though they have a gasket between the cover plate and the electrical box. Dryer vents, fans and roof vents can always use some caulk around the edges to seal things up, and you’ll probably need some caulk to tighten up the seal on your air-conditioner.

Modern electricity isn’t the largest culprit to induce air loss. Take a look at your windows, then grab a ladder. Old peeling caulk needs to be removed and replaced. You can cut the old caulk with a utility knife to get a good start on a strip. Pull the old caulk off gently and dust off the area. Prime the area with an exterior primer, and make sure you prime the nearby exposed wood. Once the primer dries, you can re-caulk the area. After you have re-caulked the window area and the caulk has dried, you can brush on a coat or two of paint. Once you’ve caulked the window edges and frames, do the same for door frames.

If you have any extensions on your house, such as a deck, front porch, or an added on room, take a look at where the joint meets the main house – you might be able to squeeze some caulk in there. While you’re at it, look where the house siding meets the foundation and see if there isn’t room for caulking improvement. When you get off the ground, look around at all of your siding. Wherever a joint meets a stone or brick wall, at corners, or where two different sizes of siding meets – check to see if there’s room to caulk. You might as well caulk up any nails and scratches in the siding since you’re in the area.

Once you take a look around you might feel your house is no more than a window screen holding the heat in, and the job may seem overwhelming. Rest assured that if you fill your exterior gaps with caulk, you’ll fill your pockets with energy savings. Just use your anger at the cost of your heating and cooling bills to motivate you to get the job done – you can’t do any harm with a caulking gun.

Atomic Painting, Inc. – Chicago Exterior Painters.

Categories
DIY Home Repair

Patch a Crack in Your Vinyl Siding Using Kindergarten Skills

A crack in vinyl siding that took five seconds to make can turn an admired professional siding job into a wall that makes you cringe. By using basic kindergarten skills, you can patch the crack in your vinyl siding and go back to admiring your sleek uninterrupted siding job. All it takes is a little bit of cutting, a few brushes of glue, and some sneaking around.

To fix the crack in your vinyl siding, you start with sneaking around your home to find a scrap piece of siding. If you’re lucky, you might find some leftover vinyl siding in your garage from the original installation. If not, it’s time to take a walk around the outside of your home and look for a good hiding place. You won’t need to hide in the bushes (unless the crack in your vinyl siding is really bothering you that much), you just have to look for a good piece of siding to cut and steal.

Your goal is to snip off a piece of vinyl from a spot that nobody can notice, and use that piece to patch the crack that passerbys are gaping at. Make sure you measure the crack before you start cutting the patch. The patch that you are cutting off should be as long and wide as the crack you are fixing. If the crack is thin, make sure your new patch is at least an inch wide.

You don’t need any fancy tools to cut siding, just a sharp pair of scissors and a strong hand. Tin snips or a strong utility knife work just as well. A saw can be used, but will make your edges rough. If the piece you are using as a patch is dirty and grimy, simply wash it with water and detergent. While you have the sponge out, wash the vinyl with the crack as well so the glue will adhere. Don’t use a wire brush or a hard scrubby because it can scratch the vinyl.

You need kindergarten skills to clean and patch your vinyl, but you can’t use kindergarten products. Elmer’s glue might work for paper crafts, but it isn’t going to work for your vinyl siding. You need PVC cement and PVC primer-cleaner. If you don’t already have some tucked away in your workshop, you can buy some at a local hardware store. PVC cement is also referred to as pipe joint cement, the lingo will depend on the salesperson. The primer-cleaner and the cement usually come together.

After washing the vinyl, dry it off and apply the PVC primer-cleaner on the patch and on the vinyl siding it’s being attached to. Then just put the PVC cement on the patch and siding, put the patch into place (making sure that it covers the crack), and hold it together for at least 30 seconds. By then, the cement should harden. If you feel it slip, the cement isn’t dry, just move it back into place and hold it tight together a little longer. Once it’s stuck together, your crack is now patched.

Go ahead and reward yourself with a gold star and thank your kindergarten teacher for helping you perfect your cut and paste skills. Enjoy a night of relaxation after all of your hard work, and watch the passerbys get jealous of your perfectly sided house.

Categories
Gutter Maintenance

Exterior Gutter Maintenance for Year Round Protection from Water Woes

After gutters guard your home from moisture mayhem for many seasons, they begin to look a little war-torn. And when your gutters start looking war-torn, your house will look worse. Sagging, rusty-looking gutter pipes overstuffed with leaves that drip with staining dirty water do nothing to add to the aesthetics of your home. If you’re not one to worry about what the neighbors think, keep in mind that if you don’t maintain your gutters, the condition of your house will start deteriorating from the outside in. Moisture problems will start seeping in, bringing in contagious mildew and rot with it.

Maintaining your gutters should be a part of your yearly maintenance plans. If you’ve ignored your sagging gutters for a few seasons, it’s time to get up on your ladder and bring your gutters back to life.

The first thing you need to do is clean your gutters. Use your hands and a putty knife to wipe out all the leaves and twigs that have accumulated over the years, and rinse the pipes and downspouts out with a garden hose. Once it’s cleaned out, you can take a look at the damage.

Take a look inside the trough at the joints between connecting pieces. You don’t want water dripping through these joints instead of being fully focused on the diverting downspout. Fill the seams with a caulking compound – you’ll find some labeled as “gutter seal” at the hardware store. After you clean and dry the seam area, squeeze on some caulk and smooth it in. There are also aerosol sealers on the market that can make the job easier.

If you have rusty galvanized metal gutters, you can fix up the rust holes with a few layers of foil paper and roofing cement. Scrub the area clean with a wire brush, then liberally brush on some roofing cement. Then press on some heavy-duty foil paper. Apply a second layer of roofing cement over that piece of foil paper, press on another sheet of foil paper, then add the last and final layer of roofing cement over the second piece of foil paper. Smooth out the final layer with a putty knife. If you have wood gutters, you should be treating your wood with a preservative every five years.

If it’s been a particularly windy fall or heavy winter, you might have ended up with sagging gutters. Basically, you just need to push them up and snap them into place. Remove the hangers or spikes that are keeping your gutters up. Snap the gutter back up to its original height, then refasten the hanger or spikes to keep the gutter pipe in its proper position. If your gutters are supported with hanging brackets, you might just need to loosen the bracket, reposition the gutter pipe, and tighten the bracket back up. Inspect your gutter line for broken hangers, brackets or spikes and replace any that look like they’ve had a rough season of holding things up.

If you don’t have a screen or leaf guard on your gutter covering the water trough, now is the time to put one on. You can fasten on a homemade screen, or buy easy-to-install mesh guards or aluminum leaf guards. The aluminum leaf guards are more costly, but they are angled so leaves fall to the ground instead of collecting on the wire mesh.

Plan on a dry day or two after the autumn season to get your gutter work done. Keeping your gutters from entering a war-torn state will keep your house from being a constant battle to repair. Gutter maintenance is time consuming, but by investing only a couple days a year, your gutters will work year-round to guard your home from water woes and moisture mayhem.

Categories
Home Siding

Home Siding Options: Masonry Siding

Masonry siding is a more “expensive” and “elegant” choice compared to the other types of siding. It is rarely used in the middle-class communities and more commonly seen in “upper” class homes. Masonry siding can fit to the personality of the owner, stucco, stone, and brick being just some of the choices you have to choose from.

Masonry siding may be a right solution for homeowners who would like to have either a beautiful old-looking house or a contemporary-style. The wide variety of color options available allows you to create a house from your dream. The durability of Masonry siding is ridiculous, lasting up to hundreds of years. At first glance, Masonry siding is quiet expensive. Yet, when you take into consideration that the siding should last all of your lifetime and probably most, if not all of your grandkids’, Masonry siding is very cost efficient. It might cost a lot now, but in the long run you will never have to replace it. Just make sure the choice you make you enjoy, because more than likely you’ll be sticking with it for the rest of your life.

One thing to keep in mind though, is to use the right kind of Masonry depending the area you live in. For example, Stucco does not do well in an area of a lot of rain, and brick can lead to overheating a house if you live in a very warm environment. Remember to take such factors into consideration when purchasing your masonry siding. And most of all, try and put your personality into it. Masonry siding is the best type of siding where you can truly express yourself. And for the type of money it costs, and how long it should last, you should definitely muse over your decisions before making your choice. For after all, this gives a new meaning to a “long-term investment”. Best of luck on choosing the Masonry siding that fits you best!

Categories
Home Siding

Home Siding Options: Metal Siding

The first types of metal siding were popular as an alternative to wood siding. It was mentioned in the previous articles that wood siding requires high maintenance. Metal siding could save time and money because it is quite cheap and very durable but it is not recommended for home owners because of its look and it is very noisy. It is the first choice for any kind of industrial buildings.

Metal siding is very prone to denting, hail damage, extreme heat and rain and it is a good option in the places where houses are exposed to the salt and moisture especially ocean areas. So who may prefer this type is siding? It is not to everyone’s tastes. Those looking for siding that looks “elegant” or “beautiful” might consider looking elsewhere. Yet if you’re the type of home owner looking for durable, long lasting, and very cost efficient siding, Metal siding the way for you.

Another alternative is aluminum siding. This type of siding is often used on trailer park homes, and is a far cheaper alternative to metal siding. The big issue with aluminum siding is that the color seems to dull significantly over time, and it has durability issues over the long haul. Back in the 50’s and 60’s it was a very popular alternative, yet over the years its drawbacks were exposed and Aluminum siding quickly went out of style. Yet in tough economic times like this, aluminum is still a viable option for the desperate homeowner needing to urgently replace their siding. After all, it could be replaced later on in better days.

Categories
Home Siding

Home Siding Options: Wood Siding

Shingles, machine-cut square pieces, come in a variety of patterns and colors. They are placed from the bottom up, so each layer overlaps the one below it and are a very good way of protecting your home. Wood shingles have been popular from the last century as siding for middle class homes, especially in the last thirty years. Due to the large variety of colors and textures, wood siding allows your creativity to flourish. Wood shingles also offer the ability for easier replacement than something such as metal or stone siding.

As well as the clapboard siding wood shingles are very high maintenance, it means that the potential homeowner of the wood siding house is obligated to take care of regular painting and caulking to protect siding from pests. Also watch out for poor drainage. Poorly routed drainage may lead to water flowing down the side of your house, ruining the shingles. Other reasons for bad shingles would be a poor product, owner not paying attention to maintenance, or bad installation by the product. Such things makes wood shingles a risky investment, yet, the exquisite look wood shingles give off should make it worth the effort.

The most popular types of wood siding are wood shingles and the wood clapboard siding. The clapboard method as the oldest technique of house siding installation doesn’t require much knowledge and professional skills. The planks are attached to the building from the base (above the foundation) to the roof line. An advantage of wood siding – it offers insulation, a disadvantage is that it is not low maintenance. Wood Siding, if installed properly, should be able to last a lifetime. If your wood siding turns out to be defective, then its probably your fault or your contractors. If your wood siding seems to be defective, contact a third party to inspect the siding for you.

Categories
Home Siding

Benefits of Vinyl Siding

Vinyl siding is an interesting and popular alternative to painting a room for people who are looking to improve the appearance of their home. Vinyl is very cheap and will last you a long time. There are certain advantages and disadvantages to Vinyl that one should know about though, before choosing it as an option.

One of the greatest advantages of vinyl is its durability. Vinyl siding should last you a very long time and is easy to maintain. It is capable of withstanding extreme weather, and is very easy to clean. More modern versions of Vinyl are even stronger than the older versions, adding more bang for the buck. Vinyl siding also copes very well with sunlight without losing any of its color.

Maintenance on Vinyl siding is extremely easy. The side never needs to be painted and it should never fade because of sunlight. All that is needed to maintain vinyl siding is washing it, for occasionally it might get dirty. Yet after washing it, it should look just like new. Not only is it easy to maintain, it is also very inexpensive and cost efficient. Unlike paint, which constantly requires new layers every few years, Vinyl siding should last you an absurdly long period of time without ever needing to be replaced.

Vinyl siding can be found in many colors, textures, and designs. This gives a house owner a lot of options to find a style that fits just their taste and goes well with the rest of their house.

Yet, there are some negatives to Vinyl siding. It is more expensive to replace incase it does get ruined, such as in very severe weather conditions. In some cases it could turn out be less durable than even wood. And if a part of the Vinyl siding gets damaged, you’ll be forced to replace the whole panel. Another concern is moisture. Vinyl can be a trap for moisture. If moisture gets in between the panels, mold begins to grow. This would entail you to have to replace all the panels, again, costing you money.

Yet all in all, Vinyl siding, excluding freak accidents of weather or poor maintenance, is very cost effective. It looks good, it’s easy to set up, and is a great alternative to painting. So if you’re looking to remodel your house, or maybe just a room, in the modern day and Age you should consider Vinyl Siding.