Home Maintenance

Maintain Your AC Unit Saving You Money

Maintain your AC unit, which will run more efficiently, use less energy, and cost less money to run. A properly maintained system will also last longer before needing to be replaced. It should be noted that there are some tasks that can be done by the average homeowner, but others should not be performed by anyone who doesn’t have the proper training and a license.


Clean and/or Replace Air Filter

Replacing your air conditioner air filter (or cleaning it, if you have a reusable filter) is one of the most important regular AC maintenance chores. It should be done every month during high-use seasons (like summer and winter) and once during the fall and spring.


Check Wiring and Components

Before working on an air conditioner, ALWAYS start by turning off the power to the unit, which can be done at the service disconnect on your outdoor unit or at the main breaker panel of your home. Old wiring inside AC unit. Next, remove the access panel on your condensing unit and see if you see any signs of overheating – melted insulation on wires, blackened or burned-looking wires, and the like. If you see any of the above problems, call a local heating and air conditioning expert to do the work for you.


Examine Thermostat

Check your thermostat to make sure it’s working properly and keeps your home at the right temperature. If you have an older, mechanical type thermostat, you may want to consider upgrading to a programmable model.


Adjusting programmable thermostat.

A programmable thermostat allows you to set the temperature higher when no one is home (do not turn the AC off, just up), and cool the house down about 30 minutes before people arrive home for the evening. That way you’ll always have a comfortable home waiting for you, and you’ll save energy and money by not having your AC running all day when no one is at home.


Check Condenser

Unit FanTurn the power off to your air conditioner unit, and check the fan mounted on the top of the outside condenser unit to make sure it’s still in good condition. Replace the fan blades if there are any cracks or chips visible in one or more of the blades. If you have an older air conditioner unit, the fan motor bearings may need to be oiled regularly as well.


Clean Outside Unit

Over time leaves, dirt, grass clippings and the like will build up on the outside of the air conditioner unit, decreasing system capacity and reducing air flow. After shutting off the power to the unit, use a garden hose to gently wash out the debris, starting at the top with the hose at about a 45° angle. Do NOT use a power washer and take care not to bend or damage the delicate fins on the coil. Trim any shrubs around the unit giving at least 2 feet of space between the unit and any plants for good air flow.

Garden Pests, Lawns

June Bug

If you’ve ever been out on a summer evening outdoors only to be startled by an inch-long, slow-flying beetle crashing into you, then you’ve encountered a June bug (which is actually a beetle) of which I have been receiving many questions.
Adults which are hard to control so we need to control the grubs before they emerge into adults.


As adults, they feast on the leaves of trees and shrubs—roses are a particular favorite—leaving ragged holes in foliage but damage is not extensive. But their larval form, called a grub, does the most damage. White grubs live in soil and feed off the roots of plants, especially grass. The result is large brown patches of dead lawn that easily separate from the soil in chunks or mats of turf. You’ll typically see the damage during the late summer when the grubs are most active underground and it becomes drier. To ensure that June bugs are the culprit, simply lift up a section of dead grass: If you see the slightly curled white grubs in the soil underneath, you know who to blame!


To kill the larva which can cause a lot of damage, don’t mow too low: Female June bugs like to lay their eggs in short grass, so you can discourage them by not mowing your lawn too short. Keep the grass at least three inches tall during their early-to-mid-summer active season.

garden pests


Apply insecticide, apply these late in the summer, when the grubs are still close to the surface of the soil. Once winter arrives, the grubs will burrow deep underground, where a pesticide is unlikely to affect them.
There are many granular products you can spread on your lawn with a fertilizer spreader starting in July went the larva begins hatching from the eggs.

Container gardening

Planting Flower Containers

To provide visual interest to a flower container, follow the concept of planting flower pots “Thriller Spiller Filler”. In that, you have to combine plants of different heights and sprawling habit in each pot.

1. Thriller

Thrillers are tall, upright plants that add the height to the arrangement. Thrillers are the great way to add a vertical aspect to your containers.

Thriller Plant Options

Ornamental grasses

Alocasia

Canna lily

Yucca

Aster

Coleus

Cosmos

Dracaena

2. Fillers

Fillers are covering plants that spread to fill the gaps between the Thrillers and spillers.

Filler Plant Options

Geranium

Impatiens

Petunia

Pansy

Coleus

Dusty miller

Begonia

Pentas

Lantana

3. Spiller

Spiller plants are those that spill over the edges of the container and cascade down.

Spiller Plant Option

Allysum

Million bells

Fuchsia

Helichrysum

Sweet potato vine

Mandevilla

Nasturtium

Morning glory

Bacopa

String of pearl

How to arrange plants

Step 1.

In order to organize the arrangements of plants in a container consummately, start with the thriller-type plants. Plant them in the center of the pot, so that they will not cover other plants and can be viewed from all sides. Thriller plants must be the twice of the height of the container.

Step 2.

Surround thrillers with filler plants. You can flower fillers or foliage fillers or both if your container is big. Choose great fillers, they will connect both the thrillers and spillers and add interest to the arrangement.

Step 3.

At last, plant the spillers (trailing plants) near the edges of the container so that they’ll grow naturally across the sides of the container.

A Tip

When planting pots in thriller spiller filler style, care to grow plants with similar growing requirements. Choose plants that need a similar amount of growing conditions, location, sun, water, shade and climate to thrive.

For example, you can’t grow a moisture loving plant with the plant that needs dry soil in order to grow.