More Ways to Stormproof Your Home

As spring turns to summer, one thing that unfortunately comes along with that change is summer storms. For some people this means frequent downpours or heavy rains. For others it means lightning or the possibility of severe weather. Even for those who don’t live in areas that commonly experience tornadoes or other severe weather, there is still a possibility of damage from things like flooding and high winds. Whether storms are a common occurrence where you live or only infrequent, keeping your home safe during bad weather should still be a concern.

You’ve likely already seen suggestions for how to stormproof your home and stay safe during inclement weather. To make sure that you’ve covered all the bases, here are a few additional ways to stormproof your home that you might not have thought of.

Stormproofing Your Property

There are a few changes that you can make to your property that may significantly reduce the likelihood of storm-related damage to your home. One big thing that you can do is inspect any trees on your property before storm season, and again in the fall to make sure that there aren’t any dead or damaged limbs that could break under pressure. Getting these removed will not only make your trees look better, but will also help protect against home damage or injury from falling limbs.

If your home is on a downward slope or located in a low area, you might also consider installing French drains to reroute water away from your foundation. This can be very effective in preventing damage from flooded basements and garages, as the drains will keep a lot of that water from actually reaching your home. Depending on how the French drains are set up and where they drain to, this can move a significant amount of water away from your home during a storm.

Upgrading Your Defenses

If you’re considering home improvements, there are a few options you might consider. If thunderstorms are common where you live during the summer, installing a lightning rod or other lighting protection components can be a good idea. You also might want to get transient voltage surge suppressors to plug high-value electronics such as computers and televisions into as well, since these help to limit voltage to 1.5 times the normal voltage range. While this is still higher voltage than these devices are used to, they are much more likely to survive without damage compared to the significant amount of voltage they might experience during a lightning strike surge.

Other improvements you can make to better protect you during a storm include installing new windows and a new roof. Advances in window and roof materials make them much more durable than they were even a decade ago, and if your windows and roof have been in place for a long time, then they might already be experiencing some wear and tear. Not only will replacing them before the weather gets bad help to prevent leaks and other storm-related problems, but in the event of a big storm, you may even have an installation warranty on your side.

Review Your Policies

One last thing that you might want to do is look over your homeowner’s insurance and any other insurance policies you have for your property to see exactly what is and isn’t covered regarding storm damage. Flood damage commonly isn’t covered by standard policies, and depending on where you live there may be other storm-related exclusions as well. You definitely don’t want to wind up surprised at your coverage level if you have to make a storm-related claim.

If you’re looking for additional coverage or considering changing your existing policy, let HomeKeepr help. Our app can connect you with insurance agents in your area who will make sure you have the coverage you need for whatever problems might come your way. Creating a HomeKeepr account is free, so sign up today!

 

Tips for Adding Your First A/C

The weather is heating up, and so is your house. In many areas, this summer may be yet another record-breaker, and the thought of adding an air conditioner to your climate control system has probably crossed your mind more than once. But how do you get started with such an undertaking? What should you keep in mind as you shop for a system?

Your FIrst Air Conditioner: You Have Options

Before you even start to look around at systems, it’s important to understand your options. Until recently, the most popular home system was a unit that integrated with your central heating system. These air conditioners use an outside condenser to cool fluid that moves through a copper tubing system, and move it back into an air handler, so the air passing over the copper coils will cool as it’s drawn into the unit through a system of ducts.

While the cooling technology is absolutely sound, and the same that’s used in most air types of air conditioners, you now have different options when it comes to how this is installed.

In the past, you’d need ductwork in each room of your home, including at least one duct that would suck in warm room air for the cool coil treatment. Installing a system like this for the first time can be time-consuming, messy, and sometimes very impactful to your home. Holes will have to be cut in floors, walls, or ceilings (sometimes all three) in order to accommodate a traditional system if you’ve never had ductwork in your home before.

For these homes, another option exists: the ductless mini-split system. Ductless mini-splits are fairly new technology, but work the same as all air conditioners. Room air is drawn across cool coils to keep the temperature down. But unlike a traditional ducted system, a ductless mini-split is just that: ductless.

Instead of holes in the floor or the walls or the ceiling, you have a unit that hangs high on the wall in several rooms (depending on your home’s configuration and your need). A few small holes are drilled through the wall for things like copper tubing for coolant.

What’s a SEER Rating?

When shopping for air conditioning units, it’s important to keep in mind the SEER rating of the air conditioners you’re considering. You’ll see a whole range of price points, this is largely to do with the efficiency of the units themselves, which is expressed as the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating (SEER). The higher the number, the less the unit will cost to run, which can absolutely make it worth paying a little extra for — to a point.

Most states require at least a minimum SEER of 13 for traditional air conditioning units. Even a high-end traditional unit might not exceed 25 SEER. A ductless mini-split, on the other hand, can have ratings as high as the mid-40s.

Along with being significantly more efficient at the unit itself, ductless mini splits don’t experience temperature loss via the ductwork, so they can be very inexpensive to run since the unit directly removes room air, treats it, and sends it back in without needing to force it through sometimes long and winding ducts where some of that cooling could be lost.

However efficient, ductless mini-splits can also be more expensive than a traditional unit, so the cost should be balanced with the benefits, including longer-term savings, before you choose one over the other.

Still Not Sure What Unit Is Right?

Don’t worry! We’ve got your back. Just log into your HomeKeepr community, where your network can recommend an HVAC installer who can answer all the questions you may have about installing a brand new air conditioning system. They can explain what type of unit is best for your home, as well as the costs that will be involved from start to finish.

You can even get second or third opinions, so you’re really prepared for the project ahead. Don’t worry, membership is always free! Log in today to get started.

 

Installing a Pool? Tell Your Insurance!

Swimming pools can be a lot of fun. They give you a way to cool off during the summer, have fun with friends and family, and even get some low-impact exercise that feels more like play than work. Unfortunately, they can also be a hazard if you aren’t careful around them. As a result, your homeowner’s insurance company is going to want to know about that pool, since it creates a new point of liability.

If your home already had a pool when you bought it, your insurance company would have wanted to know about it when you first took out the policy. If you’re installing a new pool, you’re still going to have to tell them, and they’ll adjust your rate accordingly. Let’s take a look at pools and insurance to give you a better idea of how your insurance company sees your new pool and what you can do to keep those rates in check.

How Do Insurance Companies See Swimming Pools?

Swimming pools are classified as an “attractive nuisance” by insurance companies, meaning that they are potentially dangerous and have an appeal that could attract children and others to them. The attractive nature of a swimming pool creates a liability on your part, leaving you responsible for any injuries or other incidents that occur in relation to the pool. The large amount of water that they hold as well as work-heavy components such as filter pumps also subject pools to a lot of wear and tear, and failure to properly maintain a pool can actually cause insurance companies to deny claims that occurred because of a lack of regular maintenance.

It’s worth noting that insurance companies view above-ground pools differently than they do in-ground pools. Above-ground pools are considered personal property and usually classified as an “external structure”, while in-ground pools are generally viewed as a feature of the property. This can affect not only how your liability is calculated but also how your policy covers repairs for any damage that occurs to your pool.

When to Tell Your Insurance Company

For the most part, you aren’t required to tell your insurance company when you start to install a swimming pool. Instead, you’re required to inform them once the swimming pool is complete and before it’s put into service. This means that you don’t necessarily have to let your insurance company know as soon as you contact a pool installer, but you do have to let them know once installation is wrapping up and before you actually start using the pool.

The reason for this is that many pool installers have to schedule installations in advance, and in some cases may run into delays or other setbacks that cause them to reschedule. Depending on when you contract your installation, you could schedule it weeks or even months in advance of the pool actually being ready. It can be a good idea to let your insurance company know that you’re looking to install a pool in the future, but they won’t adjust your policy until the pool is in place and ready to start being used.

Safe Pool Installation

Reducing liability is an important part of pool ownership. This includes things like installing a fence around the pool, setting up monitors or alarms to let you know if anyone is around the pool without permission, and installing non-slip walkways or putting other safety measures into place around the pool’s perimeter. In some areas these are required by law, but they are still a good idea even if they aren’t legally required.

HomeKeepr can help you to find installers to set you up with the pool of your dreams, as well as the pool safety measures that will keep your friends and family safe. You can even look for insurance providers if you’re in the market for a new homeowner’s policy that will provide you with pool coverage. Creating an account is free, so sign up today to make your dreams of your own pool a reality.

 

What’s a Smart Air Conditioner?

As temperatures rise, it’s important to have ways to keep your home cool. There are a lot of different options to accomplish this, including both single-room solutions and solutions that help to cool down the entire house. While different people choose different methods to heat and cool their homes throughout the year, the majority of cooling solutions will include some sort of air conditioning.

Smart thermostats are popular options for those who have central heat and air, as they give a greater amount of control over the temperature that the home stays at. What happens if you need cooling for one specific part of your home, though? If that’s the case, you might want to consider a smart air conditioner to help you meet your needs.

What Is a Smart Air Conditioner?

As the name implies, a smart air conditioner is an AC unit that connects to the internet via Wi-Fi to enable various “smart” features. This includes the ability to control the air conditioner’s settings remotely via a smartphone or tablet app, setting routines to adjust the cooling level automatically during the day, and the ability to incorporate the smart AC unit into routines controlled by smart assistants like Alexa or the Google Assistant. Depending on the unit, there may be other smart features available as well.

Typically, smart air conditioners are smaller in size, and have the form factor of a window-unit air conditioner. Occasionally you’ll see standalone portable smart AC units or smart units with a larger form factor, but these are less common. The purpose of a smart air conditioner is to cool a single room and maintain a desired temperature, so they are usually sized accordingly. Costs can vary based on size, cooling throughput, and smart features that are unique to the specific air conditioner.

Smart Air Conditioner vs. Smart Thermostat

The function of a smart air conditioner is similar to that of a smart thermostat, but they accomplish their tasks in different ways. Smart AC units have the “smart” components built into the same unit that is doing the actual cooling, so its technology is self-contained. Smart thermostats are controllers that interface with a standard central heat and air system, adding “smart” capacity to a system that wasn’t designed with smart function in mind.

The two systems also have different intended uses. Smart air conditioners use a small form factor because they are designed to cool a single room, and have integrated temperature sensors to help accomplish this. Smart thermostats, on the other hand, are intended to cool an entire house. As a result, the thermostat has its own temperature sensor and can also interface with additional sensors in other rooms if they are set up; this lets the smart thermostat more accurately monitor the temperature of the entire house and adjust it accordingly instead of focusing on the conditions of a single room.

Do You Need a Smart Air Conditioner?

If you have a small area to cool and want a greater amount of control over that cooling, a smart air conditioner might be right for you. This is especially useful if you have other smart appliances that the air conditioner can work within routines. By setting up a smart AC unit in the room where you need it most, you can save money on your overall household cooling costs.

If you’re hoping to cool an entire house, though, putting smart air conditioners in every room could be a costly endeavor that would really drive up your summer cooling expense. For cooling the entire home, a central air conditioner with a smart thermostat is a much better option. If you’re considering this, HomeKeepr can help you connect with the HVAC pros you need to get everything installed and set up. Creating a HomeKeepr account is free, so sign up today and you’ll be cooling down in no time.

 

Do Plants Help Sell a Home?

When you’re looking to sell your house, there are a lot of little things that you can do to increase the likelihood that some prospective buyer is going to make an offer. Many of the tips you’ll find to improve your home’s appeal focus on things inside the house, ranging from paint colors to furniture and a variety of other little tweaks. There is something else that you can do to improve the appeal of your home that’s often overlooked, though: add some plants.

A lot of people don’t put much thought into the plants around their home when prepping for a sale, and this can be a big missed opportunity. From fixing up your lawn and garden to adding splashes of greenery indoors, there are several ways that you can leverage plants to help sell your home when the time comes. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Increase Your Curb Appeal

While interior staging is important, it’s easy to forget that the outside of your home is the first impression that potential buyers are going to get. There are obviously a few external things that you can do, such as slapping a fresh coat of paint on the door and cleaning up the windows a bit. However, one of the biggest boosts to your home’s curb appeal comes in the form of improving your lawn and external plants.

As soon as you start considering selling your home, it’s time to treat brown spots or thin areas on your lawn so that everything is lush and green. Cleaning up flower beds, adding decorative plants on the porch or along the walkway, and otherwise sprucing up the look of the outside will go a long way toward capturing the attention of potential buyers. Just like a shabby exterior can dampen buyer enthusiasm, a well-manicured lawn and decorative flowers or trees can get buyers excited before they even step inside.

Bringing in a Touch of Nature

Exterior landscaping isn’t the only way that plants can help you sell your home. Potted plants, vases with fresh flowers, and even small decorative potted trees or other tall plants can add both color and a sense of freshness to your home that are hard to replicate. It’s the same reason that a lot of grocery stores have fresh flowers near the entrance to the store; when people see plants and flowers, their brains immediately focus on the idea of freshness and life. In stores, this makes people assume that the produce is all fresh, and in your home, it helps potential buyers to picture themselves living in the house.

If you choose flowers or other plants with pleasant scents, bringing them in can add to the overall freshness of the air without the need for artificial air fresheners or incense. This can let your plants serve double duty, improving the quality of the air while also adding a splash of color and life to your home. Just make sure to avoid plants that produce a lot of pollen or else you may have some cleanup to take care of before potential buyers come for a tour.

Call Some Help if Needed

It’s possible that you won’t really be able to take care of everything you want to do all on your own. Perhaps you have trees on your property that need trimmed or have to have dead limbs removed. Maybe you want to revitalize a flower garden but don’t really have the time. It’s even possible that you’d love to add some floral touches to your home, but aren’t really sure what would go best with your house. It’s okay, we’ve got you covered.

HomeKeepr can connect you with landscaping and trimming pros in your area that can take care of whatever issues you’re having. Creating a HomeKeepr account is completely free, so there’s no reason not to reach out to professionals if you need the help. Sign up today and you’ll be one step closer to taking your home from “For Sale” to “Sold.”

 

Choosing a Studio Shed

The idea of the “she-shed” has come and gone, and left behind a whole new understanding of how sheds can be used to add extra space to a property that could stand more room to move. With the rise of work-at-home jobs, a home that’s already stuffed full of life can be made even more useful for work or play with the addition of a studio shed.

What’s a Studio Shed?

A studio shed is just that: a shed that offers workspace that’s just as safe, secure, and dry as any indoor room in your home. People use them for a range of applications, from arts and crafts spaces to outdoor reading rooms, and even work-from-home spaces. After all, there’s nothing as satisfying as closing the door on your work and walking away from it for the night. It sure beats staring at piles of work left undone, just sitting in the corner of the living room.

But you can’t just throw up an empty shed and hope it’ll be enough. When you’re shopping for a studio shed, it needs to be a space that you can wire, insulate, ventilate, and heat and cool. You don’t need a bathroom or water, but hey, if it’s in your budget, a corner bathroom or kitchenette isn’t a bad addition. Think of your studio shed as a Tiny House, except that it’s a Tiny Office.

Some Tips for Choosing the Best Studio Shed

There are tons of shed kits and pre-built sheds out there that would make perfectly decent studio sheds. When you’re looking for a shed for your ideal outdoor workspace, it’s important that you keep your ultimate use for the space in mind. You almost certainly will need a bigger shed than you imagine, and it’s easier to deal with too much space than not enough. Adding a shed onto a shed when you realize the first one is too small is really pushing the limits of quantum mechanics, after all.

Remember that adding interior walls and insulation will reduce the space you’re looking at by at least several inches in all directions. It might not seem like a lot, but if you’re trying to save money by taking the smallest shed that’s doable for your studio space, those few inches may mean the difference between everything fitting inside and it ultimately becoming a fancy house for spiders.

Large double doors on the longest wall will give you more options when it comes to how you’d like to use your space. It will also give you opportunities to open the studio up to the environment on those really lovely spring days. Pre-installed windows are also a feature that you will appreciate as you’re putting your studio shed together. The less you need to modify the shed to suit your needs, the faster it’ll go together, and the less you’ll ultimately spend in making it your own. And windows are a must, both for ventilation and for safety.

Finally, if you’re looking at shed kits, make sure that the shed kit you’re buying actually comes with a floor. If it’s pre-built, this will be obvious, but if it’s not, you may find that your kit doesn’t come with a floor by default, and you’ll have to add that onto the expense sheet. Wooden sheds are much easier for climate control than metal or plastic, and similarly easier to modify should you need to later.

If You Really Want a Custom Number…

Check out your HomeKeepr community. If your custom shed doesn’t exist yet, or you’d rather not have to go through all the hassle of pulling permits, calling in subcontractors, and building it yourself, you’ll find the experts you need with just a few clicks. Your friends at HomeKeepr are there to recommend the very best construction experts in your area to you, and you know they’re gonna be great because this wasn’t just some random review you read online. It’s free to join, and free to ask questions, so why not give HomeKeepr a try for your next building project?

 

Unexpected Tips for Better Home Staging

Putting a home on the market can be a stressful experience. Sometimes it seems like homes sell almost before you can get them listed, while others appear to languish due to shifts in the economy and buyer enthusiasm. Fortunately, there are ways that you can increase the likelihood of your home selling even if the market isn’t at its best. One of these options is to improve your home staging so that potential buyers will be wowed by the property and want to make it their own.

Some people view home staging as simply making sure that everything is neat and orderly so that buyers can see the home at its best. While this is important, it’s not the only thing that you can do to improve the appeal of your home. Here are a few unexpected ways that you can make your home look better to prospective buyers.

Bigger and Brighter

When staging your home, you want to make sure that you not only present its best qualities but that you also reduce the impact of some of its less-great aspects. Take your bathrooms for instance. If one or more of the bathrooms in your home seem kind of small, try putting a larger bathroom mirror in there to make the whole room seem bigger. Also, hang it slightly lower if possible so that you don’t have a large mirrored surface looming over visitors’ heads; ideally, the center of the mirror should be slightly below eye level for the average person using it.

Another tip that can work in both bathrooms and any room that seems a bit too dark is to lighten up the walls to improve the overall brightness of the room. This can be as simple as replacing dark colored curtains with light white ones or adding white hand towels and decorative items to add light areas to the room. If you feel like taking in a larger project, add a couple of coats of paint in a light color that goes well with existing decorations, such as a light blue or soft light green.

Upscale and Comfortable

Tweaking your furniture and decorations is another way that you can improve your home staging and make your home a must-buy. If you wish that you had some more upscale furniture to show off, talk to developers that have model homes available in planned communities around where you live. Much of that furniture is used solely for staging, and excess pieces can usually be bought relatively cheaply since they’re considered used. Staging companies in your area may also have furniture available for rent or purchase under similar terms. The best part is, if you buy the furniture for your staging then you may be able to recoup some of your money by selling the furniture along with the house.

While you want buyers to like the way that your home looks, it’s also important that they think it looks comfortable and ready for them to move in. Add fluffy comforters and knit throws to beds, drape a soft blanket along the back of the couch, and add other little touches to make it look like the house is just waiting for someone to make it theirs. Just be sure that you remove photos and other personal items from the home before the staging since you want potential buyers to picture it as their house and not yours.

Knock Out Those Repairs

One last thing that you can do to improve your staging is to go ahead and finish some of the little repairs around the house that you never quite got around to doing. If you need a handyman or contractor to help, HomeKeepr can hook you up. Creating a HomeKeepr account is free, and you can use our app to connect with pros in your area to take care of the little repairs and improvements that will really help take your home from being on the market to being sold.