For years, you’ve likely heard all about the importance of spring cleaning. In fact, It’s estimated that nearly 91% of Americans participate in some form of spring cleaning. But as the calendar flips from May to June and then July, there’s never been a better time to do summer cleaning.
Whether you’re ready to crank up the air conditioning, get your pool ready for dips on hot days or maybe just clean your messy garage, there are no shortage of summer cleaning tasks to do and no shortage of summer cleaning tips that will help them get done.
Cleaning the garage
Let’s face it: garages are very important to homeowners. They store cars, bikes, grills, lawn equipment, and just about anything else you can think of. But on the flip side, they’re used to store a lot of stuff, so chances are good your garage can use some cleaning.
When summertime rolls around, you want to pull out the grill, take the bikes off the racks, and put out the lawn furniture. But what you don’t want is to have to pull out half of your garage trying to get to all those summer essentials. With simple summer cleaning tips, you can clean up your garage, get to things much easier, and maybe even give yourself some more space.
Make A Plan
Before you dig in and really get going on the cleaning, it’s best to come up with a plan of action. Your plan might be determined by what’s stored in your garage and what your interests are. For example, if you’re a sports enthusiast, you might clean with the goal of making all your equipment easier to get to. If you love gardening, you might clean for the purpose of setting everything up for planting season. Having a goal will help improve the overall functionality of your garage.
Be Honest About Cleaning
If you’ve cleaned a closet recently, you might have had to make some tough decisions about parting with clothes you don’t wear or items you’ve outgrown. In the process of cleaning the garage, the same logic must be applied.
One of the best things you can do is ask yourself how often you really use certain things in your garage. If the answer is seldom or never, it’s probably time to get rid of those things. If you’ve got seldom-used items you want to get rid of, consider donating them. If you’ve got worn or broken tools or equipment or even just trash, check into local dumpster rentals to dispose of your items properly. Dumpster rentals can also be useful if you’ve got debris after doing landscaping work.
Think About Storage
When it comes to summer cleaning tips, you can’t go wrong with finding better ways to store your stuff. Cleaning the garage is the perfect time to rearrange things and store them with containers, shelves, and even hooks to make everything look orderly. Having a label maker nearby to label everything will make it even easier to find things when you need them.
Get Creative
If you’re an avid gardener, you’ve probably got all manner of tools and soil and planters you use during planting season. Rather than storing all of those things off in the corner, you can use a wheelbarrow to store all those items. This makes them easy to find and puts all your planting materials in one convenient spot.
Essential Summer Landscaping
When you think of summer landscaping, you may picture pulling up weeds and planting flowers and clearing brush. These are all important duties, but summer landscaping also involves taking care of other aspects of your property.
Fixing Broken Siding
If you notice cracks or patches in your siding, you can enlist the help of professional siding services, who can repair your siding, get rid of chips and dents, and get your home looking good as new.
If you’re handy, you can also repair siding yourself. If you notice chips and cracks, dry rot or mold and mildew, it’s time to get to work. You can repair holes in vinyl siding with caulk and then paint over the repair if need be. You can also repair cracked siding with a cut-out patch and some caulk.
If you need to install a new siding panel, you can use a zip tool to separate the old panel. Once you remove any fasteners, you can cut a replacement piece of vinyl, fasten it, and secure it to the existing adjacent panels.
Drain Line Cleaning
An often overlooked part of spring and summertime cleaning is drain line cleaning. Failure to keep them clean can result in a whole mess of problems inside your home, but it can also wreak havoc on the outside of your home, especially if you have leaks.
To keep your drains functioning and flowing properly, you can use easy DIY summer cleaning tips. You can use baking soda to clean your drains. You can also use baking soda and then white vinegar to get rid of drain clogs. You can keep drains cleaner proper drain screens and by keeping an eye on what’s being sent down the drain—try to keep oil and grease to a minimum.
Repairing Your Driveway
Over the course of a year, it’s natural for your driveway to go through a certain amount of wear and wear. If you live in an area with harsh winters, for example, your driveway may get worn down over time if it’s salted to melt ice.
If your driveway is in need of repair, local concrete paving services can lay down new layers of asphalt, repair cracks, and seal it so that’s back in ship shape. Concrete paving services can also provide other helpful services like creating walkways to connect different points of your property and even laying down concrete for a brand-new basketball court.
If you simply need to make some small repairs to your driveway, you can do so with an asphalt patch liquid, which will set quickly. With a pickaxe or a sledgehammer, you’ll need to remove the old driveway first and then use the liquid solution to fill cracks and holes.
Getting Your A/C In Order
The list of summer cleaning tips you can use to get your home and property for summer is long and varied. But getting your air conditioning unit in order is always near the top of the list. Who doesn’t like the cool blast of air that an air conditioning unit provides on a hot summer day?
Before cranking up the air, you’re going to need to do some needed maintenance first and that includes some duct cleaning. Having clean HVAC ducts ensures that you’ve got clean air inside your home. It isn’t the easiest job, but duct cleaning is crucial and can be done with the right tools and know-how.
Duct Cleaning
There are many useful summer cleaning tips for cleaning ducts and the most useful among might be to be prepared for anything. In the process of cleaning, you might find dust, mold, and even animal waste. As such, you’ll need gloves, goggles, plenty of paper towels, a vacuum, and a good brush in order to do a thorough cleaning.
Once you’ve unscrewed the duct covers, cover the registers with towels and turn the fan on to help loosen up dust. You can also use a brush to loosen buildup. Use towels and your vacuum on all of the registers and reattach the covers. You’ll also want to remove and replace dirty filters.
Saving Money On Air Conditioning
Everyone loves blasting air conditioning during the heat of summer, but one of the best summer cleaning tips you can use is finding ways to save money on your summer energy bills. Your HVAC system may keep you cool, but cranking it up for three or four months can be a gut punch to your wallet.
So how can you save money?
- Install a smart thermostat, which can regular temperature adjustments in your house.
- Make use of ceiling fans, which can circulate air and create a wind-chill effect in the house.
- Invest in energy efficient windows, which help keep your home cooler and significantly reduce energy bills.
- Seal cracks in windows and doors, which cause air to slip out and make your HVAC system work harder.
- Invest in LED bulbs, which are energy efficient and give off very little heat.
- Set your thermostat to reasonable temperatures, especially when no one is home.
Getting Your Pool Ready
If you’re looking for useful summer cleaning tips, nowhere do they come in handy more than when you’re getting your pool ready.
- Clean your pool: The first tip you’ll need is to clean your pool. Take the cover off the pool and use your skimmer to get rid of debris.
- Add water and chemicals: Fill your whole pool with a hose and then add chemicals to begin the cleaning process. You’ll want to turn on the filter and the pump and let it run.
- Balance your pool: Once your pool water and chlorine have had time to mix, you’ll need to test the levels of each. Pool cleaning services can help you get a proper balance and even offer pool test kits for home use. Pool cleaning services can help you find the proper levels of chlorine, calcium, the right pH and the proper alkalinity levels.
- Monitor your pool: Before anyone swims, you’ll need to monitor your pool’s water color as well as the filter. You’ll want to keep the filter free of debris and ultimately get your water color crystal clear.
- Vacuum and scrub your pool: The last of the summer cleaning tips for your pool you’ll want to use is to scrub and vacuum and get your pool ready for use. Once you’ve done all that, your pool should be ready to enjoy.
Dealing With Bugs
As much as you enjoy summer, so do the bugs. Fortunately, there are many easy hacks you can use to keep bugs at bay.
If you’ve got a mosquito problem in your home or in a garden shed, a mosquito exterminator can eliminate the problem and make sure the bugs stay away. You can also use DIY traps for ants, mosquitoes and fruit flies.
- For mosquitoes, fill a bucket with water and add two or three drops of laundry detergent.
- For ants, mix Borax with sugar and then dissolve in water. Soak paper towels in the solution and put them in a shallow container.
- For fruit flies, throw warm apple cider vinegar and dish soap in a jar. Make a paper funnel and tape it in place so the flies have somewhere to go.
Disinfecting Your Home
As of April 25, 2020, the United States had more than 928,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. If you’ve been quarantined at home after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and you’re wondering how best to clean your home, summer cleaning tips can also be helpful for disinfecting your home. If you use coronavirus cleaning services to disinfect your home, the Center for Disease Control has recommended these tips:
- Disinfecting common areas and items in your house. That means everything from doorknobs to chairs to remotes to electronics to tables and countertops.
- For hard surfaces like tables, using disinfectants like Lysol and Clorox are encouraged.
- For soft surfaces like rugs and carpets, laundering them is encouraged.
- For electronics, considered using approved electronic wipes.
- Gloves should be worn when handling dirty laundry and should be washed according to manufacturer instructions. Warm washing is also encouraged.
- Washing your hands frequently is also encouraged.
As you can see, summer cleaning tips aren’t just for outside. Thoroughly cleaning your home will help you stay healthy and make it easier to go ahead with any home remodeling projects you might have in mind for the summer.
Staying Safe
Summertime cleaning can be enjoyable and much needed to open up space in your garage, around your property, and inside your home. But while your cleaning, be sure to do so safely. Personal injury lawyers and healthcare professionals alike recommend the following summer cleaning tips to keep you safe:
- Taking periodic breaks
- Drinking plenty of fluids
- Taking your time, especially when working with machines or gas-powered equipment
- Consulting professionals if a job is too risky or too difficult to undertake yourself
- Wearing proper safety equipment
By staying safe and staying focused on the task at hand, you never know how just how much you might accomplish with a thorough summertime cleaning.