6 Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Lawn This Summer

Lawn Care can be a daunting task in the summer. A lot of homeowners are confused on what to do with their lawns in summer. There’s too much of wrong information, and then there’s this issue of being active and careful in a season which makes you feel utterly lazy.

You must have put in a lot of efforts on your lawn in spring. It’s crucial that you protect your garden from the excessive heat and be extra cautious. More than that, it’s important that you avoid lawn care mistakes.

What are the biggest lawn care mistakes?

1. Irregular watering

In the summer season, your lawn is under a lot of stress. The regular BBQ nights, games with kids & pets and frequent use of the garden in the season make it even more vulnerable. To protect your lawn from destruction, the first thing you need to take care of is watering.

Here are some things homeowners do to damage their lawn while watering.

They water their lawn every day. Watering your lawn every day doesn’t ensure that your lawn will get enough amount of water intake. What it needs is deep watering. If you deep-water your lawn, you wouldn’t need to water more than twice a week and your lawn will be healthy. Take help of the local lawn care professional to determine the right amount of water your lawn requires and stick to that number. It’s also essential to water early morning. Any time after that wouldn’t allow the grass to absorb water adequately.

Also Read: Secrets to a lush, green lawn

2. They do improper planning while planting new flowers and shrubs

There are numerous species of plants and grass. All of these are certainly not suitable for your garden. There are draught resistant species that work well in lawns that aren’t regularly irrigated. There are pest-resistant species that are apt for areas that face massive pest attacks. There are wear-tolerant species that are suitable for lawns put up in high-traffic areas. Some species don't grow well in shady areas.

It depends on you, the homeowner, to decide what plant and grass species you choose for your lawn. If you rushed this process, you would certainly be in trouble in summer. It becomes way too challenging and expensive to manage a garden that doesn’t have the right kind of grass and plant species.

It’s also a good idea to have flowering plants and shrubs in the backyard. These plants make your garden look better. If you plan well and grow plants that complement one another, the soil will be naturally healthy and fit for your plants. These also reduce the amount of water you require for lawn care.

3. They use fertilizers in a wrong manner

A lot of homeowners have destroyed their gardens due to improper use of fertilizers. Just because these help the plants and grass grow doesn’t mean they’ll always have the same impact. Use of fertilizers on grass that’s not growing actively is a faux pas. Cool season grasses grow in fall and spring. Their requirement for fertilizers is only during these two seasons and hence, fertilizing such a lawn or plant in early or mid summer would be over-fertilization which isn’t good for your garden’s health.

Late summer is the right time for fertilization. If you’re planning to use slow-release nitrogen fertilizer, you should ask a pro for consultation as the application results will vary.

4. They make several lawn mowing blunders

Lawn mowing is a crucial aspect of lawn care, and it’s astonishing to see how many people go wrong with it.

First of all, stop trying to make your yard look like that of a golf course. Don’t shy away. We're all guilty of0 it, at least once, in our life. Grass that receives standard care must not be cut that short. Long blades help the grass beat the heat.

It’s also crucial to not overdo lawn mowing. If you had procrastinated this task for months and now suddenly want the grass to be cut correctly, you’ll probably pick up the lawn mower and cut all the grass in one go. It’ll put the grass in shock. You should not remove any more than 1/3rd of grass blades at one time.

Also, you should be extra careful while operating the lawn mower. Many people don’t consider it a big deal to hit the trees plants in the garden. It affects the tree’s health and makes them weak. Weak trees are a significant risk as they can easily fall due to a storm. Not having proper equipment can lead to accidents that can injure you and your lawn simultaneously.

5. They try to become lawn doctors

Facebook groups are usually flooded with people seeking advice on what pest has infected their lawn. While sharing the pictures of your garden and possible condition with an expert is a good idea but you must understand that everyone isn’t an expert. You may be misguided, and it will cost you a lot.

Rather, if you’re facing a pest infestation or some serious issue with your lawn, you must call a professional lawn care service and ask for assistance. They’ll be able to diagnose the actual problem with your lawn and give you a proper solution.

6. They don’t follow instructions while using products

Maybe it’s a fertilizer of a pesticide, if you’re DIYing it, you must read the instructions carefully and follow them. A lot of homeowners just don’t find it important enough to read the labels. Not doing so makes them ignorant and causes damage to their lawn. Also, try to prefer organic lawn care products.

Whatever the problem might be, you should always read the product labels properly. And it’s not only applicable to lawn care. It’s a habit you should adopt while picking up any product from the market – be it health care, skin care, food, toys or anything.

I’m sure this list can be longer. Every homeowner would have his list of blunders, what those cost to him/her and what’s the way out. But above six are the most common. Therefore, you must be careful that you don’t commit these evident and dangerous mistakes.

From Same Day Pros Blogs: 6 Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Lawn This Summer

How to find out what’s wrong with your furnace?

Are you facing the most unpleasant situation homeowners face in winters? Is your furnace not working and you have no idea on what’s wrong? If there’s a serious issue which is beyond your caliber to fix, you will need to call a furnace repair baltimore service and get it fixed. But many a time it’s a silly issue that’s causing you great trouble. Allow me to help you figure out what’s wrong with your furnace.

1. Is your thermostat set right?

It’s too obvious, and that’s why it gets ignored. Someone mistakenly changed the settings and your house isn’t getting warm enough. People who have battery powered thermostats face this issue more often. Just go and look if the thermostat is working & set right.

2. Replace the dirty filter

If your furnace is running but not working efficiently, there are high chances that a dirty filter is notoriously making you uncomfortable. Did you change the filter this month? If not, get a new filter.

3. Is your furnace getting the power?

Thermostats have a switch for the fan. Switch it to on and see if it starts running. If the fan doesn’t run, it means that there’s a power related issue. Maybe it’s the circuit breaker that tripped or some problem in the wires. If it gets tough to figure out whether you need an electrician or a furnace repair pro. Rely on basic common sense to decide.

4. Look for the ‘another switch’ on the furnace

Go to your basement and look for a switch on your furnace. It usually looks like a regular switch, and that’s why you need to look for it. Often, people mistake it as a standard switch and turn it off. If it’s down, just pull it up, and your furnace will start working.

5. Check the gas valve

There are very fewer chances that this is the problem but just check if other gas powered appliances are working at your home. Or go near your furnace and look for the gas valve. It will be within six feet of the furnace. Turn it on if someone turned it off by mistake.

If you can still not find a problem, you need to call furnace repair pro. It will be dangerous to try and fix it otherwise. You can look for pros near you using samedaypros.com. If it’s so easy and quick to find best pros around you then why worry?

5 Morning Rituals Of People With A Clean Home

How can people have a clean home ALL THE TIME? No matter at what hour of the day you visit their place, and you’ll find everything clean and shiny. No dust. No pet hair. No clutter. How do these people do this? How do they have a clean home?

It’s what they do in morning. It’s a fact that morning hours are the most productive hours in a day. What you do during this time will bring you best results. Writers wake up early to write. Bodybuilders wake up early to work out. Entrepreneurs wake up early to strategize. And people with a clean house wake up early to do the home cleaning. 

However unreal and unattractive that may sound, that’s the truth. The work from home moms and the homemakers who love cleanliness practice particular morning rituals that help them kick start their day. 

What are the morning rituals that can help you maintain a clean home?

1. They begin early

The first thing they do is wake up early. The question is how early? It depends on the workload you have and your whole day’s schedule. Do you need to leave for office at 9? Or do you need to be at your work desk by 11? What if you don’t have any time constraints, and you can spend hours at home cleaning if only they worked to make your house really clean?

First of all, rule out the thought of working on cleaning your house for hours. That won’t get the job done. Eventually, you will feel too exhausted to donate even a few hours in a day to this chore. 

Now, you need to figure out how much time you require for cleaning. For a general morning ritual that includes doing the dishes, laundry, making beds, cleaning the kitchen, making breakfast and doing dusting, you will need maximum two hours. 

It might take you a few more minutes when you’re beginning out, but most of the people reach this basic time limit to work on cleaning chores in the morning.

Back to the original point, at what time do the people with clean homes wake up? At least two and half hours before they’re expected to be done with the entire house cleaning work. 

2. They make a list

What' the first thing you do when you wake up? Just get to work straight away. Well, that’s not a great thought. You shouldn’t be just getting to work. You need a specific plan in your mind regarding what work you want to accomplish in the morning. 

People with clean homes struggle hard to make a proper list that can help them maintain a clean home. This list is a combination of essential chores that need to be performed daily and one task that can be done once or twice a week. For example, you’ll need to do the dishes, laundry, dusting and make beds daily, while tasks like vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, deep cleaning cabinets, etc. must be scattered during the week. They then go through this list every morning, make the immediate changes and then start their day. 

A perfect list will ensure that all the tasks are covered within two weeks, and no corner of your house stays untouched or unclean for anytime more than a month. 

What should your list contain? Should you just copy the list of these weird people who always have a clean home? No, certainly not! You need to develop your list. Copying those home cleaning checklist from popular mommy bloggers might help you give a head start but wouldn’t take you a long way.

Just take a week or two to make your list. Then assign the tasks to different days. Keep changing and refining until you have a perfect list that no longer needs to be modified. Put it on your refrigerator and learn it by your heart. 

3. They don’t procrastinate

Wait what? Do you think the article is getting long, and you’ll probably read it later? Well, that’s exactly why you have a dirty home. You procrastinate everything you know you should be doing. You delay home cleaning. 

Say, you made that list and doing the dishes is, of course, a daily task. Tomorrow you wake up and see there are only 4-5 utensils that need to be cleaned. Would you do the dishes or leave them until you have a big enough pile for the dishwasher? I understand about saving energy part but doing 4-5 dishes would hardly take five minutes. Why not do those with the hand?

Procrastinators are just unable to understand the importance of ‘now.' You need to finish the tasks ‘now’ to make sure you have a clean home ALL THE TIME. That’s what people with clean homes do.

4. They keep themselves motivated

All of us have a bad day. Sometimes we wake up in an awful mood. A fight with the spouse or sudden phone call from office is enough to give a bad start to our morning. At times, even the most disciplined people don’t feel like working. But do you know that individuals who maintain clean homes still follow the list in such a situation?

Keep aside the fact that home cleaning helps a lot in dealing with stress and lift up your mood. We’re going to talk about how you can still feel like working after you’ve had a terrible start to your morning.

It’s through motivating yourself. There are numerous ways to get motivated to follow your cleaning schedule. Giving your self a reward for finishing off all the tasks on the list is one way to do that. I reward myself with $1 every time I finish everything from my daily chores list. Similarly, set an alluring reward for yourself and make it like a competition. 

It’s also crucial to be mentally aware of the fact that your mood to not work today is totally because of things that happened in other spheres of your life and they have nothing to do with the cleaning. 

Being self-aware is one of the best ways to get motivated. You would know that it’s not fair to harm another aspect of your life because of one bad incident with the other. 

Every person is capable of finding his/her way to stay motivated. You need to find yours and stick to it. 

5. They decide to follow a routine

If there’s one thing that’s common with people who are successful and people who have clean homes, it’s the habit following a routine. Successful people put in a lot of efforts to build an effective routine that’s full of the things to help them grow and that they want to do. Once such a method is set up, achieving success is easy. 

People with clean homes also build routines that can help them maintain a clean home. It’s not just about morning rituals. It includes everything they do in a day to contribute to this cause of having a cleaning house. It can always be putting the things in their designated places, doing the dishes at night, decluttering before going to bed or anything that they feel helps them in achieving their objective.

Making a productive routine is a tough task. But it can be done. Once you have an appropriately customized cleaning routine in place, you will feel as if your house gets cleaned automatically.

They focus on the power of habits

Wait! If you’re not yet asleep reading my article, the last line would have boggled you. How can something as dull and unattractive as cleaning can be done automatically unless you hire a home cleaning service? 

It’s possible through developing habits. When you have a habit of doing something, you do it almost unconsciously. Doing the dishes won't seem like an overwhelming task if you do it every day, so many times that it becomes your habit. Once it’s your habit, you will never realize when you finished that daunting task. 

Don’t you feel all these are pretty basic things? Yes, they’re. But are you doing all of these right now? Be truthful. If there’s a 'no' to any of the above points, you need to work on yourself. I hope this article will give you a good start. Read it over and over again, note the points down and remember. Happy cleaning!

From Same Day Pros Blogs http://ift.tt/28Z3P23

The easiest way to clean air ducts you’ll ever know

Are you thinking of performing the inevitable task of air duct cleaning ellicott city by yourself? If there’s dust around your house even when all windows and doors remain closed, it’s coming from air ducts. They get dirty over time and thorough cleaning at least twice a year.

What if your budget doesn’t allow you to go for professional air duct cleaning silver spring at present? Here’s an easy manner to clean the air ducts by you.

What you’ll need for DIY air duct cleaning?

• Screwdrivers
• Cleaning solution
• Work gloves
• Cleaning brush
• Paper towels
• Vacuum with hose

DIY method to clean air ducts

• Begin by opening up the air vents using the screwdrivers. 
• Once you remove the vents, focus on cleaning these. Use the cleaning solution and paper towels to remove the grease or dust and then make it shiny clean again.
• Wipe off the dust from inside the air vents. Use your vacuum with the hose to reach as far as possible. Caution: The ducts can have rodents or other insects that can be dangerous. Restrict yourself from putting your hands inside the duct. If you’re cleaning your ducts because of terribly foul smell coming out of them, this method isn’t recommended. Most probably, there’s some rodent or small animal that has died inside the ducts. Only a professional air duct cleaning frederick has the right equipment to deal with such a situation.
• Once you’re satisfied with vacuuming the insides of the duct, put the vents back into their place. Make sure you reattach those properly. Get more info on air duct cleaning glen burnie here.
• Run the vacuum over the vents again to remove excess dust particles. 

This method should remove a lot of dust particles from the air ducts and make them usable for some time. It is essential that you hire a professional air duct cleaning hagerstown service at least twice a year as its work will be more thorough and efficient.

You can look for professional air duct cleaning annapolis services by logging on to samedaypros.com. It allows you to browse and contact the best service professionals near you. Did you enjoy this post? Was it useful?

Things about Air Duct Cleaning Every American Should Know

Do you hate pollution? With the passage of time, effects of pollution are causing visible trouble in our day to day life. Are you aware of the fact that air pollution inside your home can be worse than outside? What causes such kind of contamination? There could be many contributing factors, but one of the biggest causes of indoor air pollution is dirty air ducts. Get air duct cleaning rockville now.

What contributes to contaminate your house?

Dust, dirt, pollen and animal dander is easily pulled up into the air ducts during their normal functioning. It ultimately creates a favorable condition for mold, bacteria, and fungus to grow. All of these disease-causing particles then get circulated inside your home every time the air ducts run. Get air duct cleaning dundalk today..!!

Do you need air duct cleaning?

It’s obvious that you need to clean the air ducts regularly inside your home. But are there some alarming factors that should make you rush with this annual home maintenance task?
Yes. You should quickly hire air duct cleaning baltimore services if:

• Anybody in your home has asthma, or infections or allergies.
• There’s weird smell around your house, especially when you run the furnace.
• You have pets.
• You often notice dust on your furniture, even when you just finished cleaning, and there are no open windows and doors.
• Your furnace has a throw-away filter that hasn’t been changed for a while. 

How air duct cleaning works?

It is impossible for you to do the cleaning task yourself as it requires specialized equipment and needs careful examination. Here’s how the process work is done when you hire a pro.

The pro examines the air duct system thoroughly. The pro brings his sani-vac truck and connects it to your air duct system and then runs the vacuum. Once all the dust particles inside the ducts get removed due to the powerful vacuuming, the pro will use equipment to flush fresh air into all the vents. He’ll then clean all the accessible parts of the duct system and remove all the equipment and cover all the vents once again.

Benefits

Above mentioned is the general air duct cleaning columbia process followed by professional companies. It will result in the following:

• Reduction of dust allergens in your house.
• Improvement of the health of people residing in the house.
• Better performance of cooling and heating appliances.
• Reduction of the electricity bill.

On to you

Just by hiring this one service, you can make your house a healthier place, save up money on electricity and also make your HVAC system work better. We recommend you go for air duct cleaning germantown at least twice a year. If you haven’t got those cleaned since a while, log on to samedaypros.com and look for efficient air duct cleaners near you.

Would Roof Repair Help to Sell Your Home?

When you put your house up for sale, there are two things you might be looking for – wrapping up the deal as soon as possible and getting a good price for your property.  To achieve this objective, you might face some roof repair germantown tasks.

The question is whether you should do them or leave them for the buyers. How much should you invest in it before selling your house?

Selling the house without repair

You would need the advice of the real estate agent on this. Ask him if there are real numbers of interested buyers that just want to flip homes. In such a case, buyers prefer houses as they’re and you don’t need to spend a dime on roof repair silver spring.

Doing the minor repairs

For the other situations, you should do the minor roof repair glen burnie as much as possible. Replacement of missing shingles is one of such activities. All the repair work which doesn’t take up much investment and which has an outer visual appeal should be wrapped up quickly. These projects won’t cost much but will help you make a good deal with the buyers.

Requirement of major repairs

If your roof is due its average life or if it has a major roof repair annapolis due, you can scare off the customers. They’ll just get scared with the idea of such a significant investment just after they buy their new home. Rather, you should go for the roof repair hagerstown or replace beforehand. Else, you may try negotiating with the buyer and sell them the house as it is.

In case, you're not sure what kind of condition your roof is in, you should call a roof repair rockville professional and ask for his advice. You can easily locate one near you using Same Day Pros.

Remember that even if you try to hide some significant damages under some fancy and smart fix, it won’t go noticed by the building inspectors. So, don’t try to fool people. Rather sit, reflect carefully and then decide what you want to do with the roof before you put your house on sale.

Got hit by storm damage? Here are some roof repair tips

Did your area just face a storm – a hurricane, tornado or a hailstorm? Even if there wasn’t much rainfall, the wind alone could cause significant damage to your roof. Often, homeowners don’t notice such damage on time, allowing it to cause more loss. It’s crucial that you get out of your home once the storm has settled, and inspect your roof. Get roof repair baltimore now.

1. Inspection for roof repair

Begin by going outside your home and looking at the roof from the ground. You’ll be able to see if there are any missing shingles or any major repair that needs to be done.

Then go to your attic and check for leaks. Even if there are some water stains on the ceiling, it’s a cause of worry.

If the storm was severe and made a tree fall onto your roof, obviously wait until it has been removed and then ask a roof repair columbia service to inspect your roof thoroughly for the damage.

2. Calling the insurance company

Before you even think of fixing the roof, you must call your insurance agent and have him look at the roof and check if you can put a claim for the damage caused. It’s necessary to document any damage that happens to your roof. Get roof repair dundalk today..!!

Even if it’s a minor damage and you can easily fix it yourself by buying a couple of equipment from the local supplies store, keep the receipts and see if you can get the compensation from the insurance company.

3. Hiring a roofing contractor

Once it’s all done, you need to look for a good roof repair ellicott city contractor. He must be licensed and insured. He must have good experience with this task and should have good reviews, maybe online or recommendations from your friends & family. Ask for quotes from multiple roofing contractors and then hire a person who has a good reputation as well as gives you a quote which is close to the average price prevalent in your area. Get the written estimate before the work begins.

That's how you need to proceed if you’re facing storm damage. Thorough inspection, following the rules and hiring a good contractor are the three most crucial steps. Don’t make a mistake or hurry with any of these. Here’s another tip to help you find reliable roof repair frederick contractors: Use Same Day Pros to locate the on-demand professionals available near you. It’s the best way to find new contractors at present. Good luck!