8 Items to Toss out During Your Spring Cleaning

5/5/2017 (Permalink)

Expired Medication

It is important to know and stick to your medications expiration date. Over time medication can lose its original potency, decreasing its effect. Instead of allowing these expired medication cluttering your medicine cabinet, simply flush them down the toilet or crush the pilled form and mix with dirt, kitty litter, or coffee ground and throw the mixture in the trash.

Old Receipts

First make sure you do not need the receipts for any kind of tax purpose. If you don’t, you should then shred the receipts (by hand, scissors, or shedder) and toss in the trash.

Freezer Foods

Frozen foods can be tricky, but foods that are freezer burn or any kind of meat products that are older than one year should certainly be disposed. The best way of disposing of these foods is waiting until trash day, this way the frozen foods will not have time to thaw and start smelling.

Makeup/Nail polish

Believe it or not, makeup and nail polish have an expiration date. It’s not printed on the items, but if you “google it” people have put together charts with lengths of time each type of makeup product lasts. Nail polish should be thrown out once too much air has gotten inside the bottle and becomes like molasses.

Clothes

Your clothes that don’t fit, are discolored, or have holes, must go. They are just taking up valuable closet space that could be replaced by items you would actually wear. Throw out the clothing that are discolored or have hole and drop off the others at Goodwill.

Towels/blankets

Towels and blankets wear overtime and loose that soft fluffy feeling it had when you first bought it. Take these worn linens and donated them to your local animal shelter. You will feel good about it and get to treat yourself with new ones.

Gift bags

Recycling gift bags is a great way to save a few bucks, but that requires you to actually use them. If you did recycle them, you did it! If not, the bags are probably bent or ripped a bit and taking up storage space. Toss them out and feel good about the space you’ve recovered.

Travel samples

If you’re like me and always bringing home the mini travel size shampoo, conditioner, and lotion and believe that I’ll be able to use them for the next time I travel somewhere. But in reality, these samples are forgotten underneath the bathroom sink, simply taking up space and collecting dust.

Air Ducts and HVAC Cleaning

5/2/2016 (Permalink)

For many people, indoor air pollution is a growing concern. The air in a home generally circulates five to seven times a day through the HVAC air ducts. During these circulations, it carries the dust and debris of everyday life. For this reason, it’s important to get an air duct cleaning.

While your furnace filter will catch most of the dust and debris, neglect, remodeling projects, or shoddy duct installation can lead to a buildup of undesirable debris inside your air ducts which will threaten the efficiency of the system. You’ll know you’re in need of an air duct cleaning because clogs of dust, cobwebs, debris, or noticeable particles will blow out of the supply registers. Other possible signs will be visible mold inside the furnaces of ducts or rodent droppings and deceased insects inside the ducts.

Having the professionals at SERVPRO clean your HVAC air ducts will ensure the removal of the dust that’s accumulated so it won’t spread into the household. It will also ease the airflow and increase your system’s efficiency by as much as 40 percent.

Duct Cleaning

Air duct cleaning is the process of cleaning the various heating and cooling system components of a forced air system that includes supply and return air ducts and registers, grilles and diffusers, heat exchangers heating and cooling coils, condensate drain pans or drip pans, fan motor and fan housing, and air handling unit housing. If the system is not properly installed, maintained, and operated, these components can potentially become contaminated with particles of dust, pollen, and other debris. The existence of moisture can cause the growth of mold which can cause health problem to the building’s occupants. These mold spores have the potential to be released into the living space. Other contaminants can cause building occupants to have an allergic reaction or other symptoms.

If you’re having your air ducts cleaned, it’s important to have all of the components cleaned. Failure to do so could result in one contaminated component re-contaminating the entire system which would negate all potential benefits of the cleaning. Professionals that are hired to handle the job will bring specialized tools that helps them to dislodge dirt and other debris in the air ducts. Then they’ll vacuum the dirt and debris out of the ducts with a high-powered vacuum cleaner. They may also propose the application of chemical biocides to the inside of the ducts and other system components.

Do You Need Your Ducts Cleaned?

There are several reasons why you may need the air ducts cleaned in you home. If the occupants of the building are experiencing unusual or unexplained symptoms or illnesses and you think it might be related to your home environment, you should have your air ducts cleaned. You should also make sure to consult a doctor about the symptoms.

Over time, air ducts will collect dust and debris so it’s a good idea to have them cleaned occasionally. It’s also important that you use the professionals at SERVPRO to avoid other potential problems. If the cleaning is not done properly, the cleaning could cause even more indoor air problems. An example of this includes using an inadequate vacuum collection system which could end up releasing more of the dust, dirt, and other contaminants than if it had just been left alone. If the service provider hired to clean the air ducts is careless or has been inadequately trained, he or she could cause damage to the ducts or the heating and cooling system. This could force costly repairs or replacements.

There has been some research to suggests that having your heating and cooling system components cleaned can improve the efficiency of the system which could result in it having a longer operating life. This research has also suggested that due to operating a higher efficiency, cleaning may result in energy and maintenance cost savings.

If your heating and cooling system hasn’t been cleaned in a while, it may be time to have it done. Ridding your HVAC air ducts of dust and debris can prevent potentially harmful growth like mold from accumulating in the ducts. If your air ducts and heating and cooling system hasn’t been attended to in a while, call the certified professionals at SERVPRO to handle the job.