The calendar
Five intervals cover almost everything in the house.
- Every month, press the test button on each smoke and carbon monoxide alarm, and hold the furnace filter up to the light.
- Every one to three months, replace a one-inch furnace filter, and wash the metal grease filter in the range hood in hot soapy water.
- Every six months, replace the water filter in the refrigerator.
- Every year, put fresh batteries in any alarm that takes them, and clean the dryer duct from the machine to the outside wall.
- Every ten years, replace the smoke alarms themselves.
Filters
The size of a furnace filter is printed on its cardboard edge, in a form such as 16x25x1. A pleated filter rated MERV 8 to 11 suits most homes. A higher rating catches finer particles but restricts airflow, and some older systems cannot push air through it. The arrow on the frame points toward the furnace, in the direction the air travels. Pets, smokers, renovation dust and wildfire season all shorten the interval to a month. The dryer's lint screen gets emptied before every load, but lint also builds up in the duct behind it, where it causes thousands of fires a year. The warning sign is clothes that take longer to dry.
Alarms
Building codes call for a smoke alarm in every bedroom, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home. A chirp every minute or so means the battery is low, and it tends to start at three in the morning because batteries weaken as the house cools. Newer alarms have sealed ten-year batteries, and the date of manufacture is printed on the back. Carbon monoxide alarms wear out sooner, typically in five to seven years, according to their labels.
Bulbs and batteries
Buy light bulbs by lumens rather than watts. About 800 lumens replaces an old 60-watt bulb, and 1,600 replaces a 100-watt one. The color is given in kelvins: 2700K is the warm light that suits living rooms and bedrooms, 3000K to 4000K suits kitchens and baths, and 5000K looks like an office. Check that the package says dimmable if the switch is a dimmer. Take the batteries out of anything going into storage, since alkaline cells leak and ruin the contacts. Rechargeable and lithium batteries start fires in garbage trucks, so take them to the drop-off bin at a hardware store.
Tip Write the installation date on every filter and alarm with a marker. Your memory of when you last changed it is always wrong by six months.
