Dry It Out

Your first priority in dealing with flood cleanup is getting everything as dry as possible. Use pumps, buckets, wet/dry shop vacs, or other tools to remove as much water as you can, then wipe up or mop areas that still have a little bit of surface moisture on them. Set up fans to keep air moving to aid with the drying process, and open windows if possible to give water-laden air a place to go. For rooms that don’t have good ventilation, set up dehumidifiers to help remove moisture from the air. Getting as much water as possible out of your home quickly will help you avoid mold and mildew growth that is quite common after flooding.

If you’ve got mud, sludge, and other debris in your home, use a shovel or similar tool to scoop it up and remove it from the house. Try to get as much of it as possible while it’s still wet, because it will be much harder to remove once it starts to dry. Getting this sort of debris out of your house as soon as possible is also important to keep unwanted smells out of your home; mud and other debris can contain fungi, mold spores, and other materials that will break down and decay, so you want to get it out quickly if you can.

Traditional Banks

Traditional banks are exactly what you imagine when you think of banks. They’re big institutions that collect deposits, notarize things, and sell bonds to the public. With the funds from these activities, they also may lend their own money for the long term, or they may sell their loans to a secondary loan buyer like Fannie Mae to free up more cash.

With a traditional bank, you’ll often get a pretty good deal when it comes to fees, since there are no middlemen to pay, and a competitive lending rate. However, if you’re looking for special homebuyer programs, you’ll find that banks can’t always offer the same ones, and you may have to go to the specific bank offering the program you’re after. They can also be pretty picky when it comes to borrowers, and may not be willing to overlook blips on your credit report.

Mortgage Brokers

Mortgage brokers often get a bad rap, but they can be very useful if you’re looking for different kinds of programs to help with things like down payment assistance or loans that are far more forgiving of credit issues or high debt-to-income ratios.

You will pay a higher fee for using a mortgage broker, but sometimes that fee is worth the value they bring. Unlike with a traditional bank, mortgage brokers can match you with loans from a portfolio of banks, making it easier for borrowers to secure the mortgage loans they’re after. They can also often close very quickly, since they should know which lenders move quickly and which are slower to respond.

How Smart Switches Work

At their core, smart switches operate like most standard light switches and can turn lights or other connected devices on and off. Given that the switches are smart devices, though, they can do significantly more than that. Smart switches allow you to control the lights remotely using either an app or voice control through a digital assistant or a third-party hub. Depending on the bulbs that you use with your smart switch, you may also be able to control the brightness of the lights (similar to a dimmer switch) or function as a three-way switch. It’s worth noting that unless the bulbs are designed for it, smart switches can’t give you the ability to control the light’s color the way that standard smart bulbs can.

Perhaps the greater benefit of smart switches is that they allow you to tie your lighting into a larger smart ecosystem without having to pair each individual light bulb to the network. This gives you greater control of your home as a whole and allows you to incorporate lighting into smart home routines without having to program a bunch of individual components. You can also pair your smart switches with remote controls, giving you a portable switch that lets you control your lighting even without accessing your overall smart home controls.

Deep Energy Retrofit Versus Weatherproofing

Weatherproofing is vital for homes of all ages, just to make sure that your home is sealed as best it can be, and that the equipment you have is performing at its best. But weatherproofing usually involves sealing cracks, caulking trim, and making sure everything fits snugly together. Deep energy retrofits can go well beyond that, depending on your home, your goals, and what your experts have to say about it.

In a deep energy retrofit, sealing the holes is important, but so is upgrading materials that are fundamental for the energy efficiency of an older home, using materials that make it more on par with newer ones. For example, as part of a deep energy retrofit, you might replace all your windows with triple pane insulated glass unit windows, and insulate the underside of your roof to help prevent heat penetration into your attic.

You might also upgrade or completely change your HVAC system, for example, going from a boiler to a ductless mini split system or improving air flow by adding new air intakes throughout your home. The combinations are endless, and largely depend on your local climate and your home’s needs.

What Is an Awning?

Awnings were very popular features of homes prior to widespread air conditioning systems, and even persisted after central air was common to help shade windows and porches. You still see them as standard features on recreational vehicles, but they’re also coming back as important parts of a home’s exterior.

These large shades, made of materials like durable cloth or aluminum, are simple to install, relatively inexpensive, and create pools of shade immediately. Unlike trying to grow trees for shade, which can take years and years, or installing temporary shades like sail shades, awnings are fast and permanent solutions to your heat puddle woes.

In the past, they only came as fixed units, so once installed, they were where they were, even if you needed there to be more sunlight in the shaded space at certain times of the year. Today, however, you can choose between fixed awnings and retractable awnings, and even awnings that have remote controls to help you open and close them whenever you feel like it.

HELOCs Are Lines of Credit

The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to a HELOC is that, unlike a traditional home equity loan, HELOCs are lines of credit. That means that they work much more like a credit card than a mortgage. You’re approved for a line of credit that represents the maximum amount of money you can charge to your HELOC (just like with a credit card), and your payments are based on how much of that line of credit you’ve used.

If you max out your HELOC, you can pay it down and charge again, just like with a credit card. Unlike a credit card, however, your home is being used as the security for this loan, so if you get in over your head, your home is at risk of foreclosure. So you must be very careful with this particular kind of credit line.

Wine Cellar Benefits

There are definite benefits to having a wine cellar, whether it’s a small rack or a large storage area. A well-built wine cellar controls the temperature and humidity around your wine bottles, keeping the bottles’ corks from breaking down and preventing the wine from spoiling in the bottle. Wine cellars also reduce the effect of vibrations on the bottles, keeping them secure and helping to prevent sediment from being disturbed and ruining the wine’s quality.

Wine cellars can also help with organizing a wine collection, especially if your collection is still growing. The racks in the cellar allow for organization and labeling, and many are designed so that you can easily view the labels of your best bottles if you want to show off your collection as well. Even if you don’t have any high-value wines to show off, just having that secure storage space will allow you to buy multiple bottles of your favorites at once so that you can keep them on hand while enjoying discounts for buying in bulk.

Organize and Automate

Many smart home hubs take the form of virtual assistant hardware, such as those with Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa. This can be a great benefit to seniors trying to stay sharp and keep up with various appointments and engagements as the digital assistant aids with keeping track of your calendar. Programmed routines during the day can provide prompts for meals, medicine, and any other recurring event, and appointment reminders make sure that important dates aren’t forgotten or overlooked.

Automation can also make sure that connected devices are ready when they’re needed and turned off when they aren’t. Routines for light controls, thermostat adjustments, and even appliances such as the coffee maker or air fryer can help to save on the electric bill while making life as convenient as possible. In many cases these devices can even be checked and controlled remotely to ensure that you never have to worry about whether something was left on.

Freshen Up the Whole Place

There’s nothing better for the value of a house that’s not had much regular care in a while than a general sprucing up. You’ll have to go room by room, as well as take a hard look at your exterior space, to decide which items are tired and in need of repair or replacement. You’d be surprised how much difference some careful clean-up and maintenance work can really make.

A few common exterior items that can really make a tired house look brand new include a new garage door (for houses with street-facing garages), exterior window dressing such as window boxes or updated shutters, tuckpointing for brick homes, or cleaning and resealing your driveway. Interior items that can make a huge impact house-wide include new floor coverings or refinished floors, updated room lighting and under cabinet lighting in kitchens and baths, and a fresh coat of interior paint.

Electric Mowers Versus Gas Mowers

As you might guess, an electric lawnmower functions similarly to a gas-powered mower but uses an electric motor instead of a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. There’s more of a difference between the two than just the engine that’s used, however. Due to weight and power differences, the architecture of an electric lawnmower differs from gas mowers in a few different ways.

One of the big differences is in the physical size of the mower. Electric mowers tend to be smaller physically, even when they feature similar cut sizes to gas mowers. This is because an electric mower’s motor is lighter than a gas motor engine, and can be secured with a less sturdy, lighter frame. The smaller size can also allow electric lawnmowers to fit into tighter spaces than bigger gas-powered mowers, especially if the electric mower is a chuteless mulching mower. The blade speed may be slower than that of a gas-powered mower as well, though it is still capable of cutting grass at the slightly slower rotation. This can lead to some smaller electric mowers having issues with thick grass, however.