Cold Weather and Your Home – Tip #5

Today’s tip focuses on dealing with cold spots around your home. If you have areas of your home that are constantly colder than the rest of the house you can take some steps to ensure the heat distributes equally around the house. First, fully open all your dampers and registers and turn the heat on in your house for a few hours. Then walk around your house to find which rooms and spots are the coldest. If your home has multiple thermostats you should then adjust the thermostats so that the colder areas become equally warm to the warmer areas. Finally, to even out any additional cold spots within an area, adjust the dampers and registers in the hotter rooms to bring them down to the same level. It is important to do this before temperatures get really cold outside to avoid having to deal with areas of your home becoming an uncomfortable temperature. If you have any questions on this topic please contact one of our experts at dfwimproved.com.

Cold Weather and Your Home – Tip #4

Cold weather can enter your home in places that you might not always be thinking about. Before the next freeze it is important to do a complete assessment of your home to identify any places where cold air might leak inside. Special attention should be paid to areas near where pipes are located. Air leaks can occur around electrical wiring, dryer vents and pipes. With severe cold, even a tiny opening can let in enough cold air to cause a pipe to freeze. If you find a problem area where you believe air is able to leak into your home, use proper insulation and/or caulking to seal the leak. Air leaks left unattended can lead to pipes freezing, or worse, it can lead to a pipe burst and flooding. If you have any questions on this topic please contact one of our home experts at dfwimproved.com.

Cold Weather and Your Home – Tip #3

When temperatures are freezing outside there are so many things you can do to protect your home from the cold. Today we wanted to provide another tip on this topic. If your home is equipped with a sprinkler system then it is important to make sure that the system does not come on during freezing temperatures. Many newer systems are equipped with a freeze sensor that keeps it from turning on during freezing weather. But even if you have a newer home or a late model sprinkler system, it is a good idea to check if you have a sensor. If your system does not have a freeze sensor, be sure to watch weather reports during colder months so that your yard isn’t turned into an ice rink. If freezing temperatures are in the forecast be sure to turn your sprinkler system off. If your sprinkler system is equipped with a freeze sensor then you should not have to worry about your system turning on when temperatures drop below 32 degrees. Most older systems can be retro-fitted with a freeze sensor. Many cities now require that your sprinkler system be equipped with a freeze sensor. If you have any questions regarding this topic or if you have any other home repair or home remodeling questions, feel free to contact us at dfwimproved.com.

Cold Weather and Your Home – Tip #2

During colder months homeowners should consider energy efficiency and indoor air quality. Replacing a home’s air filter affects both. During cold weather your heating system is cycling more often. This means that more duct and particulates collect on your home’s air filter. When air filters get clogged with dust the air flow is reduced and the heating unit has to work harder to bring the air into your home, increasing the energy bill.

It is important to clean your ducts during the winter to increase indoor air quality. When it is cold, we keep our doors and windows shut. This prevents clean outdoor air from entering the home. This means that the same air is recycling through your home over and over again. If the ducts are already dirty, and they are if you have not had them recently cleaned, then the recirculating air is dirty. This can cause allergies and breathing problems normally associated with Spring.

In addition to home remodeling and home repair services DFW Improved provides duct cleaning services. For more information contact us at dfwimproved.com.

Cold Weather and Your Home – Tip # 1

Wow, it’s cold out there! With temperatures dropping as low as they have been over the last several days we thought it would be helpful to share some pointers on how to save energy while keeping your home warmer and to protect it from the harmful effects of freezing temperatures. Our first tip on this topic may be something that you have heard before, but we wanted to post it again in case you needed a friendly reminder. If you have ceiling fans in your home, be sure to set your fans to the reverse direction during the colder months. When you set a fan on the reverse direction it will push the air upward toward the ceiling which helps draw warm air down. This will help keep your rooms warmer while using your heater less. By using less overall energy, this ultimately helps you save money. If you have any questions about this tip or you have other questions for our home experts, please contact us at dfwimproved.com.

Welcome to DFWImproved.com!

Please allow the DFW Improved Team to be the first to welcome you to our new online home. Our new web site is just one initiative that is part of a multi-faceted effort to sharpen our image and serve our clients even better than before. The site was designed to better capture the vision of the company and to provide existing and prospective clients with great representation of the quality work that we do. The site was designed to be easier to navigate and to keep people who are interested in the company and its work in the know about company happenings via a news section and this blog. The new photo gallery tool will allow for clients to find imagery of various types of projects quickly and easily. In addition, contacting us and finding us online have also been improved. At DFW Improved our mission is to leave everything better than we found it. We are excited we were able to apply this line of thinking to our own online presence.