Real Estate- Home Maintenance Tips

Dishwashers Tips

·         Check the manual that came with your dishwasher for the manufacture’s recommendations on water temperature; many have internal heating elements that allow you to set the water heater in your home to a lower temperature (120 F)

·         Scrape, don’t rinse, large food pieces and bones from dishes.  Soaking or prewashing is generally only recommended in cases of burned-on or dried-on food.

·         Be sure your dishwasher is full, but not overloaded, when you run it.

·         Avoid using the “rinse & hold” on your machine for just a few soiled dishes.  It uses 3 to 7 gallons of hot water for each load.

·         Let your dishes air dry; if you don’t have any automatic air-dry switch, turn the control knob to off after the final rinse and prop open the door slightly so the dishes will dry faster.

Long Term Savings Tip

·         When shopping for a new dishwasher, look for the Energy Star label to find a dishwasher that uses less water and 41% less energy than required by the federal standards.

What’s on Your “Bucket List”?

For some time now, one of the items on my “bucket list” has been to learn how to kayak. Not down the river rapids, mind you, but paddling around on a serene lake appealed to me.

 As luck would have it, our daughter is dating a young man who teaches kayaking in his spare time so I thought he would be a good resource in getting this goal crossed off my list.

 However, one of our sons decided to take the training recently and found that the first order of business was to learn what to do in case you and the kayak  tip over………….evidently, kayaks are not as stable as I assumed! This strapping young man of ours said it was very difficult to get right-side-up once you tip over.

 With that bit of information in mind, I decided this item on my bucket list is more than I bargained for. Call me “chicken”, but my plan is to scratch it off the list and go on to other pursuits.

 Care to share what’s on your bucket list?