Guest Author - Dale Yelich

Yeah, I know, the mid winter maintenance blues affect me just as much as everyone else. The shop is outside and needs to be heated, so unless absolutely necessary, you don’t want to take on any heavy-duty projects. There’s usually more snow and slush and keeping the walks clear kind of maintenance, then actually having time to rebuild or repair major items. Besides all that, if everything is just humming along and the upkeep has been done, there won’t be any major projects anyway.

However, although this might be a better time to be snuggling with a significant 'other' in front of a fireplace, there are a few things that can be done that may have been overlooked in all the hustle and bustle of major do it yourself projects from last year. And just to make sure you stay on your maintenance toes, I’ll give you a few suggestions that should get you through the doldrums of winter.

Here’s a killer of doors and jambs. The screws that hold the hinges into the wall get loose quite often, This will make the door hang out of plumb, and it will begin to rub on the molding, as well as begin to hit the striker plate at a bad angle, causing the latch to bend. A lot of people don't realize that the fix for this is to simply tighten the hinge screws, and then to oil the actual hinges themselves. I have gone into dozens of houses where people thought that their house was setting because the door needed to be lifted to close tightly. Nope, sorry, loose hinge screws were the culprit.

Now is the time to replace slow running sink aerators, or totally limed up shower heads. Aerators are easy to just screw off the end of a faucet, match it up at a hardware store, and then screw it back on. Shower heads can be de-limed if you wish, but if you are using one of those newer plastic water saving shower heads, you are better off spending the few bucks to get a new one. And, now really is the time to do it, because come spring and summer you would rather be taking more showers then worrying about trickling water flow.

Start replacing your lightbulbs with the new fangled energy saving CFL lighting. Mid winter is generally the time after Christmas when you can find sales on things like this. You don’t have to go whole hog and replace everything, although you can, but the best way is to begin replacing the bulbs you use the most. Those are the ones that gobble the most energy, and those are also the ones that will give you the greatest cost savings when they are burning.

So, there are some quick little ideas to chase away those mid winter maintenance blues!