Home Appliance Maintenance Tips That Will Save You Money

Imagine these scenarios: the washing machine breaks in the middle of the wash cycle, flooding your laundry room; an electricity surge causes your refrigerator to crash, leaving all your food stock at the mercy of the microorganisms; and while you prepare to have a pleasant family dinner, the oven stops working. Why do these things happen? And how can you ensure that your appliances don’t malfunction in the future?

Is there anything worse than a broken or malfunctioning home appliance? Maybe, there is, but you should know how to prevent the simple malfunctions from happening over and over again. To avoid hiccups down the road, take care of the appliances so that you can avoid costly repairs later.

Keep your appliances clean and maintain them properly. It is entirely possible to prevent your essential appliances from failing. Appliance maintenance does not cost a lot of money, and it can be done by anyone, even without any prior experience.

Here, we’ve outlined a few tips for appliance maintenance.

Routinely Check the Pipes of Your Washing Machine

Water leakage from the hose is the most common cause of washing machine flooding. If you find cracks, leaks, deformations, or weak spots anywhere on the water hose that connects to your washing machine’s back panel, replace it with a new one immediately. Water hoses need to be changed once in every five years at least.

And the laundry isn’t the only place where you should look out for water damage. If you have a water leak problem anywhere in the house, you should immediately let water damage services take care of it before the water proceeds to damage all the other electrical appliances in the house. The pipes in your house need to be regularly checked for leaks by plumbers, because a small leak now can lead to a flooding in the future, and, in case you don’t know already, insurance doesn’t cover water damage.

If an appliance stops working, get a second opinion

Some appliance repairs people also sell their own products and would want to make as much money as possible by stacking up repair options that you might not even need. They might not want to repair your old machine as much as sell you a new one. Always get a second opinion when repairing appliances, so that you don’t overspend on something that is already working.

Make sure your toilet isn’t leaking

A leaky toilet may be obvious from the puddle of water on the bathroom floor. Sometimes what you have is a leaking water tank that just keeps on trickling water into the toilet bowl. A plumber can easily fix toilet-related leakages.

Fix the faucets

Another area of water leakage are the faucets. Regularly checking which faucets are leaking in the house from time to time can ensure that you save yourself the trouble later on. Check the faucets in the most regularly used areas of the house as well as the less used areas.

Again, if you have a bit of a basic know-how of how to fix a faucet, you can do it by your own. But, if you don’t, why not watch a tutorial or two on how to fix leaky faucets. Get in the habit of using your toolbox more often than you are used to.

Taking care of your fridge or freezer

Coils in refrigerators and freezers are susceptible to clogging for a variety of reasons. The coil has to work harder to keep the optimum temperature inside when it is surrounded by dirt or dust. Use a vacuum to clean out the coils.

Defrosting also helps with the fridge’s efficient use of electricity and prolongs its life.

Remove and clean the range hood or exhaust fan filters

Put metal-mesh grease filters in a dishwasher or wash them with your hands. Please do not wash carbon or filter papers under any circumstances. It is better to change them instead.

Taking care of the oven and stove

Most people clean their ovens and stove regularly, but few do it because they’re aware of how it can help them save money later on in avoiding costly repairs. However, a simple job like checking the seals on the oven door, when you are cleaning it, can ensure that your oven door closes tightly and that valuable heat is not leaking through it.

Similarly, keeping the stove clean is equally essential because the dirt or debris can be blocking some heat from reaching the pan. Again, if not cleaned properly, this means repairing costs down the line as well as energy wastage.

The Takeaway

Making a calendar with dates for the next cleaning session will help you keep up with home and appliance maintenance. In this way, you will not forget to do the essential maintenance chores around the house ever again. Most of the tasks mentioned above require less than an hour to do and save a fortune in repair and replacement costs.