Home Maintenance Checklists with Tina Gleisner

We have Tina Gleisner with us today, from Home Tips for Women. Home Tips for Women teaches women how to care for their homes and gain the confidence to maintain and effectively update their homes to become their dream home. Tina’s content is different because she puts a lot of thought into organizing her information, to make it relatable.

“I want people to understand that their priority, as a home-owner, is to make sure that everything gets taken care of. And that doesn’t require you to take care of everything personally.” – Tina Gleisner

Dealing with mold

It’s astonishing how many people are dealing with mold in their homes, and in many cases, it’s not being dealt with correctly. 

When you buy a home in Florida, you need to get a mold inspection as well as the regular home inspection because so many houses have mold. This is a good idea for everyone because if mold is left unchecked for years, the whole house could even have to be gutted as a lot of mold hides inside the wall cavities. 

Although most people are used to visible mold, a lot of invisible molds can also exist in a home. So if a house has been flooded, you typically have three to five days to get the house clean and dry to prevent the mold from forming. 

The steps to take if you have water in your home (from flooding)

1. Identify the source of the water and shut it off.
2. Get as much water out of the house as possible.
3. Dry the house out. (Remember that you only have three to five days to do this.)

Mold can give you headaches or make you sick.

Home Tips for Women and the home maintenance check-list

Tina has a unique, three-tiered approach to her home maintenance check-lists. She explains that many people think they have to do their home maintenance themselves. So she wants everyone to understand that, as a home-owner, their priority is to make sure that everything gets taken care of. And you don’t have to do that personally.

1. Inspect your home each season, inside and out, to find out what needs to be taken care of.
2. Maintain the things that require maintenance. (Or have a handyman do it.) 
3. Update the things that require updating.

When you have little time available, inspect. When you have more time, maintain. And when you’re ready to dive into something, update.

Motivating people

Over the years, Tina has been getting more and more creative about different ways to motivate people to do home maintenance. She has been coming up with different home-maintenance strategies to suit people’s personalities and lifestyles.

She also suggests that you reward yourself after completing your home maintenance, to motivate yourself to keep doing it, going forward.

Home maintenance is a great sustainable practice because it makes things last. And preventative maintenance will reduce the number of repairs you will have to do, and it will save you money.

“Paint is not about pretty. Paint is about protecting the wood.” – Tina

Water heaters

A decent water heater should last between eight and twelve years. The minerals in the water will eventually eat the water tank away, so you should empty the tank and clean it out once a year. 

There is an anode-rod inside every water tank, designed to attract the minerals and get eaten away, rather than the water tank itself being eaten away by the minerals. The anode-rod needs to be replaced every four to six years to prolong the life of the water heater.

Great tips

 – Put pockets on the inside of your cabinet doors so that you can keep your home maintenance check-list and the receipts for any home repairs or utility expenses at hand but out of the way. 

 – The number one way that water leaks are found is through the bills. So it is important to check your water bill for spikes, to show you that you’re losing water somewhere in the house. 

 – Take ten or fifteen minutes each month to review all your bills, and check your home for changes. It could save you money in the long run.

 – Take photos of the exterior of your house so that you can check each month for any changes.

 – Have a list of everything that has to be checked each month, and pay a handyman to do the inspection and tell you what needs to be done.

 – Change the batteries in your smoke detector whenever you turn the clocks back or forward.

Inspections that you can do 

1. Home inspection (When a home is bought or sold.)
2. Mold inspection (Particularly if you live in a humid location.)
3. Energy audit (To see how well the home is performing.)

Links and Resources:

Tina’s website – go here and grab her book, too! – www.hometipsforwomen.com 

Tina’s email – tina@hometipsforwomen.com

To learn more about green homes, and how technology is a part of them go to www.greenhomecoach.com/homepro 

Get Marla’s book, Living Green Effortlessly