Efficiency, Cleanliness, Safety: Maintain your home appliances

How many of you get oil changes? Or sweep, vacuum, mop, dust, etc., etc. your home? Go to the dentist or doctor? We maintain our cars, our house, ourselves, but what about some of your household appliances? They tend to get neglected. Your dishwasher, dryer and HVAC systems all need careful maintenance of their own. Have you noticed a grimy residue on your dishes after they’ve been cleaned? Maybe you need to clean the drain. Clothes taking even longer to dry? Perhaps the lint tray needs to be cleaned out. HVAC system not cooling or heating like you want? The ducts could be dirty and the filter probably needs to be cleaned. Let’s delve in a little deeper to each appliance and see what can be done to make it more efficient, cleaner and safer.

Warning, going over the dishwasher will be gross. I recently moved into a new apartment, well, new to me, but it has had plenty of residents before me. Anyway, I was noticing that there was a grime on my dishes after being cleaned and a murky water leftover, it made me wonder what could be going wrong. I found the brand and model of my dishwasher and went to Google to find a how-to video on how to remove the drain on my dishwasher. What I found was revolting:

Mold build up which prevented my dishes from getting clean. Hot water, bleach and some elbow grease got the drain nice and clean.

Now cups, bowls, plates, silverware and everything else comes out shiny and new. It makes me feel better knowing I won’t get sick from my dishwasher and everything is working more efficiently than when it was horrifically dirty.

Next important appliance to make sure to maintain is your dryer. Not only will cleaning out the lint tray reduce drying time and therefore energy costs, it could save you from a serious house fire. Lint build up in dryers is one of the leading causes of house fires, now if that doesn’t convince you to maintain this appliance, then I don’t know what will.

First step to making sure the dryer is running efficiently is to make sure you clean out the lint tray everytime you do the laundry. It’s simple, and in my opinion, a bit satisfying, so start there. Now, if your clothes still aren’t drying, it might be a little more serious.

Next steps would be to check the discharge line, the vent flaps, and to remove the back components of the dryer to check for clogs or lint build ups. There are how-to videos out there to help you figure out what to do for your specific dryer but the thing is, it is more involved and difficult to do this compared to the dishwasher. The dishwasher only has one component that needs to be removed and cleaned but the dryer has many parts and requires somewhat specialized tools. I don’t doubt that anyone out there could do it on their own, but hiring a professional to do it will ensure that it is done properly and put back together the right way. For such an expensive appliance, personally, I would leave it to the professionals. Check out what a good clean can do for the dryer vents. Supreme Air Systems can help out with the dryer vent, but our specialty is definitely the A/C and furnace maintenance. There are a lot of reasons why you would want to maintain your home comfort system. If you read our previous blog post about indoor air quality, you’ll know the risks of dirty air circulating around your house, but it is your responsibility as a homeowner/renter to make sure your systems stay clean. If you google how to maintain your HVAC system, you’ll find plenty of DIY’s, but the thing is, it’ll only show you how to change the filter, which, don’t get me wrong, is very important, but to make sure your unit is working as efficiently as possible, the components of the unit need to be cleaned and oiled. Supreme Air Systems can do the most thorough job you’ll ever see! So give us a call for help maintaining your HVAC system, and if you’re interested, we can do your dryer on the same visit! (408)-376-0406. Here’s some examples of the filters we’ve cleaned, there are a couple types of filters, first I’ll show you a media filter, these ones are disposable, so I’ll show you a brand new filter right next to a truly dirty one that we removed. A pretty drastic difference huh? There are also washable filters. For those, we remove them, hose them down until the water runs clear, dry it out and then replace it. However, if those go neglected, we can’t ever get them quite clean enough so they end up needing to be completely replaced. Which is more costly than just cleaning them, that’s why annual maintenance is crucial to maintaining your systems.