Home Services

Heavy rain and storms can cause several problems for your home, and many homeowners dread a flood in their basement. Not only can heavy rains damage your plumbing and foundation, but heavy rains can also cause a sewer backup to occur, creating a whole slew of additional problems.

Plumbing has completely changed the way we live in our homes and has brought about an element of sanitation and convenience all in one. Plumbing systems can vary between commercial and residential applications, but usually, cast iron or PVC pipe are the materials of choice for contractors worldwide. While each pipe has its advantages, one pipe is superior to the other.

Wasps are lean, mean, and ready to sting you and ruin your time in the garden. They wreak havoc on countless homeowners during the spring and summer. The average homeowner would do anything to keep wasps away. Understandably, many people struggle with how to get rid of wasps.

When I was about 20, I lived in a gutted warehouse in Newark for a while. I had no furniture and slept on an airbed. The place was so grimy, we still had bed bugs, rats, centipedes, mice, and roaches. When I told my landlord, he gave us bed bug powder. Did it work? Well…Let me tell you my experience and advice.

Spiders can understandably make anyone feel uncomfortable in their house. Not only do they look scary, but some of them, like brown recluses, are quite dangerous. You may struggle with how to get rid of spiders in your basement, but it’s quite easy.

Honeywell thermostats are recognized as some of the best heat control devices a home can have. They also happen to have a tendency for using auxiliary heat pretty heavily. The problem is that excess auxiliary heat use can be a drain on your heating bill and may even contribute to higher energy bills. So, how do you turn this feature off?

Water heaters can seem a little bit intimidating since they use gas, and heat, to warm the water. You may have some trouble getting the electronic ignition, to light your water heater, which can be frustrating. We’ve put together this guide to help you find the solution.

In finding the best water heater company, both Rheem and AO Smith are easy contenders for the top. Both of them have a couple of hundred years of experience under their belts. They have also produced an impressive line of products. But when comparing the two, which of these water heater companies is the best?

Nobody wants roaches in their home. But getting rid of them can be a challenge. So, who’s responsible for a roach infestation? And can you sue your landlord if they don’t fix the problem? Here’s what you need to know.

You are currently dealing with one of the worst problems an air conditioning unit can have: a bad compressor. It’s been diagnosed, your repairman confirmed it, and you are upset. You should be. It’s a pricey repair, no matter what type of AC unit you own! Right now, you have to figure out the answer to a pressing finance question. Should you replace your compressor, or just buy a new unit altogether?

Dealing with fleas is a nightmare, especially if you aren’t sure where they came from. You can find fleas in your apartment even if you don’t have pets, which can be quite confusing. So, can fleas travel between apartments?

How long a landlord has to fix a mold problem depends on a variety of factors. When dealing with mold, many variables affect how it is dealt with. The time allowed for a landlord to fix mold issues is largely dependent on where the property is located and how severe the mold problem is.

A burglar alarm is essential to basic home security. Statistics show that 60% of burglars avoid homes with a burglar alarm, indicating they are effective. Today, burglar alarms are quite affordable, especially if you buy a basic system without smart features. 

You rely on your air conditioner to keep your home cool and comfortable when it’s hot and steamy outside. But what happens when your house is humid with the AC on, leading to excess moisture in the air? Isn’t your AC supposed to take care of that?

Air conditioners will no doubt play an important role in your home. When you live in hotter climates especially, going without air conditioning means a very sweaty experience. But choosing the right unit is key as well.

You might get excited when you see the words “heat included” on a rental sign. Heat and air conditioning can be some of the highest utility expenses when renting a home. Your excitement may change to confusion or anger when you move in and see that the thermostat is locked by the landlord. 

The weather outside is frightful, but your furnace fire ain’t feeling so delightful. If your furnace won’t stay lit, trying to deal with winter weather can become a serious problem. Furnaces that don’t stay lit are more than just a pet peeve. This is a major problem that can harm your wellbeing. So, what’s the deal with this issue, anyway?

Welcoming a baby into the family is often one of the most memorable and precious moments in a person’s life. Preparing a nursery for a child can be a full-time job in itself. From purchasing a crib to gathering a wardrobe, the entire process can leave you tired and broke.

Your hot water heater is perhaps one of the most important things inside your home. Keeping warm water flowing, is essential, for living. If your hot water heater’s pressure relief valve keeps opening, we have some tips that will help you fix it.

A blower motor that works in A/C mode and not heat mode is a perplexing problem. Diagnosing these kinds of problems can be a challenge for a homeowner. Before you call an expensive repair technician, there are some things you should check yourself.

Is your water heater in the middle of your bathroom or kitchen? Maybe it is in a hall closet or taking up space in the center of the basement. The only solution you may have is to move it. But this can be a costly endeavor when paying someone else to do it for you.

Hissing sounds coming from your boiler may sound bizarre, but there is nothing to worry about. Some people refer to it as a “whirring” sound, but a hissing sound doesn’t indicate a problem. Hissing or whirring sounds typically appear when a boiler first turns on.

If you are trying to connect a 1 ¼-inch tailpiece to a 1 ½- inch drain, you are most likely doing so because you need a longer tailpiece. The standard tailpieces that come with the drains sold at most hardware and big-box stores tend to be shorter than you may need. That being said, making the switch is not a difficult thing to do.

You should flush your water heater at least once per year. However, many people flush their water heaters every 6 months. That’s especially a good idea if your home has hard water. Your water heater will quickly become full of sediment if your water supply has a high mineral content. 

Your furnace is a complicated piece of machinery. There are so many components involved to ensure that your home stays nice and toasty without so much as a second thought. But those various components can mean that things will go wrong from time to time.

If you get manicures and pedicures often, you’re probably familiar with the smell of nail polish remover. It’s certainly a unique smell, and when it emanates throughout a home it’s impossible to miss. So, what causes a house to smell like nail polish remover?

When people think about water heater upgrades, they tend to want all the bells and whistles. A well-running water heater means lower bills, better safety standards as well as piping hot water. What could be better than a well-ventilated water heater, right? If you are a home improvement fan, you probably are wondering what you can do. Is it possible to put a power vent on any water heater you could have?

The sight of mice in the home is enough to leave any homeowner with an uneasy feeling. It feels like an invasion of privacy and a health hazard, so it only makes sense to repel them however possible. So, do coffee grounds keep mice away?

As you’re used to your furnace doing its job without any issues, it can come as a shock to see water pooling around its base and realizing that something is wrong. It’s essential to take immediate action as, left uncorrected, even a small leak can result in extensive and costly damage.

During the fall, winter, and early spring are the best times of the year to move. That is the “off-season” for moving companies, as fewer people schedule professional movers during this time. This is one of the best ways to save money on movers. 

Galvanized pipes have many ways of telling you they need replacing. Perhaps they make weird noises, or maybe you notice decreased water pressure due to plaque buildup. You might even notice a slight discoloration in the water.

Taking a vacation is always an exciting endeavor, but it also can take a lot of planning. This is particularly true if you are a homeowner and are planning to leave your home vacant for an extended period of time.

Being a landlord is not an easy thing, especially when it comes to all the tools and junk that is required to keep a home running. Even if you’re a fan of apps like Clutter, the truth is that it’s often more convenient to store tools and stuff on-site. But, is this actually legal to do on a rental property?

Because most people don’t necessarily peer into their sinks at their garbage disposal, it’s easy to forget about it. That said, you’ll likely think about your garbage disposal when you realize it doesn’t work nearly as well as it once did. You may then wonder, should I replace my garbage disposal?

The kids have left the nest, or you’re tired of taking care of a huge house — whatever the reason, you want to downsize. You figure it will be easier and less expensive to live in a smaller place, but that isn’t always the case. Before you move into a smaller home, do your research, because downsizing might cost you more than you think.

Heat pumps and mini splits are both considered central HVAC units because they are able to bring heat from inside to outside in order to control indoor temperatures. However, they are not the same. Paying attention to their differences is important in selecting the type you need for your home.

Mice are a common household pet but can also be wild in your house as well as outside. The house mouse is the most commonly encountered and economically significant of all the rodents. It has, for some years now, also become a very popular household pet.

Is there a drastic difference between the temperatures in the upstairs and downstairs of your house? If this is something new, you must be confused about why it is happening. After all, we all want to be able to expect what the temperature of a room will be before stepping into it. There’s nothing more frustrating than thinking you’ll have a peaceful sleep in an air-conditioned room only to find it’s more like a sauna instead.

Whether renovating a current shower or building a new one entirely, it is important to ensure that the water wiping is up to proper standards. That means using the right materials for piping water into your bathroom.

Moisture, darkness, and insects attract brown recluse spiders. They also love overgrown plants and weeds that provide great hiding spots. This can eventually draw brown recluses into your home as they crawl through door gaps. 

All homes and most businesses can’t do without a water heater, and this is because hot water is needed in homes and businesses for a variety of reasons. There are different kinds of water heaters available in 2021, as the days of 50-gallon-tank heaters being the norm are long over.

When your A/C drain line becomes clogged, a plumber’s snake may be the most cost-effective option. With the right type of snake, snaking a drain line is a straightforward task.

You may notice that the AC in your home is not cooling as well as you think it should. The filters are new, the evaporator coil is clean, and the blower fan is working as well as ever. Inspecting the condensing unit outside leads you to a question. Which way should the fan on the condensing unit spin?

Imagine a situation where you just installed a water heater, but you found a mobile home that is much more in your price range. You don’t want to lose the value you put into this water heater, but you also can’t use it in your mobile home. When it comes to a mobile home water heater vs. regular heater, the two have significant differences.

With all of our devices, power lines are essential in our electricity-driven world. This is apparent every time there’s a power outage, and we can’t use our microwave, cell phones, and TVs. But you may not have considered what it’s like to live near, or even under, power lines.

One easy way to reduce the likelihood of spider and other insect infestations is to reduce the amount of clutter in your home. For one, clutter can attract small insects that spiders eat. 

If your water pipes are making a humming noise, this could be due to several reasons. In some cases, homeowners describe this strange humming noise sounding like a foghorn, as it usually reverberates.

If you’re getting rid of your 50-gallon old-fashioned water heater and choosing to go with a tankless heater instead, congratulations! You’ll be saving a lot of space.

Moles eat everything from grubs and beetles to earthworms, ants, and crickets. Unfortunately, this means that nearly every homeowner’s yard can attract moles. Moles make their way from yard to yard in search of food, like bugs, and stick around as long as possible.

Termite fumigation uses chemicals that penetrate walls to kill unreachable termites, so will termite fumigation kill rats in the walls too? The fumigation process is an effective option, but it can be disruptive to your everyday life as it is lethal for mammals. It requires you to make preparations inside your home and stay out of it for a certain amount of time.

Your landlord should make every effort to provide you with a clean and safe home. However, some of the responsibility is yours. So, do you get charged for damaging the property? And how much can a landlord charge for a hole in the wall?

When homeowners have a furnace that works well, they’re not going to complain. Furnaces that are well-maintained can easily last 20 years or more. However, after a certain point, even the most reliable furnace will need to be replaced or repaired. If you’re like many homeowners, you probably are wondering when it makes more sense to replace rather than repair.

Heating your home with water and a boiler is not all that common in the United States.  However, this type of heating, called hydronic heating, is quite common in other areas.  In some cases, hydronic heating can be an efficient means of heating your home.  If you have a 2000 square foot home, what size boiler do you need?

When you first rented your apartment, things went swimmingly. Then, the toilet started running. First it was a little dribble. It never seemed to stop. You called the landlord and nothing happened for a while. Then, your landlord got your water bill. It’s sky high. Does this sound like your scenario? It may be time to know who’s to blame.

Finding the perfect apartment can feel like a full-time job. You have a list of necessities you require in a living space and you likely are trying to stay within a reasonable budget. When you find the perfect place within your budget you are probably eager to submit the application and move in right away. But when a landlord asks you for sensitive information, including your driver’s license number it is normal to feel apprehensive.

If you live in a warm climate with brief or non-existent winters, then there’s a strong possibility you have lizards in your yard. Whether they are speedy desert lizards or translucent geckos, all lizard species are best admired outdoors rather than inside the home. If you’ve seen one or more lizards scurrying across a countertop or find yourself wiping up their droppings, then it’s time to find ways to keep these reptiles outside where they belong.

Whether you’re buying or selling a home in Chicago (or the suburbs), you never want to move forward without getting a home inspection. These inspections let you know exactly what you’re getting into before you finalize the purchase – allowing you to ask the seller to make repairs and/or back of the deal, if necessary.

Once you sign a lease, you expect to be in your home for the entire term of the lease. But then, one day, you receive a notice from your landlord that the lease is being terminated early. Can your landlord terminate your lease early?

Being evicted for calling the police may sound unlikely, but unfortunately, it’s something that happens somewhat frequently. You might wonder whether these evictions can only happen if the police are called without a legitimate reason. In reality, it depends on your local laws and whether a nuisance ordinance is in place.

Your backyard is undoubtedly so much more than a fenced-in area behind your house. For you, it might serve as an extension of your living space, complete with cozy, plush lounge seating. Or perhaps you host dinner parties and BBQs with friends and family or enjoy frequent picnics. But when uninvited guests, like mosquitoes, show up, it can take a big bite out of your fun.