Caulking Your Vinyl Windows

Is there a room in your house that always seems to be a bit colder (or warmer, if it’s the summertime) than it ought to be? Do you see signs of moisture getting in around your windows when it rains? If so, it might be a good time to check the seals around your window. A good way to find out if you have a draft is to light a candle or incense stick and move it along the edge of a window you think might have a draft. If the smoke or the flame changes direction, you’ve found a draft.

If you have a draft, when was the last time you checked the caulking around your window? Caulking around windows can deteriorate over time and may need to be touched up every now and then. Fortunately, this is the sort of problem you can easily fix on your own without needing to hire a professional or having to pay for new vinyl replacement windows. Here’s how to do it!

Caulking your windows is a pretty simple task and all you need for the job is some caulk, a caulking gun, a wooden stick, and a razor blade, putty knife, or utility knife. Butyl, silicone, and multi-polymer caulks tend to work well around windows and doors.

If the existing caulk around the window only has some small gaps in it, you might be able to simply add a new layer of caulk. But if you’re dealing with larger gaps, you’ll need to remove the old caulk first to start fresh. To remove the old caulk, take your razor blade, putty knife, or utility knife and run it along the existing caulk to help break it up so you can remove it. Just be very careful that you don’t damage the vinyl window frame.

Before you start putting down new caulk, clean your window frame so that the new caulk will have a clean surface to adhere to. Make sure the window frame is completely dry before you start putting down new caulk. Once you’re ready to go, all you have to do is put the tip of the tube of caulk at one end of the edge, pull the trigger on the caulking gun, and move it along the edge until you reach the other end. Let go of the caulking gun’s trigger and set the caulking gun down.

Once you’ve finished caulking one edge, use your wooden stick to even out the caulk line. You can also use your finger if you aren’t able to find a wooden stick. Be sure to use a damp cloth to clean up any caulk that may have gotten on areas you didn’t intend it to get on. Now it’s time to repeat the process on another side of the window. The exact amount of time it will take for your caulk to dry can vary from brand to brand, so make sure you read the manufacturer’s instructions before you get started.

Replacing the caulk on your windows might sound a little intimidating, but as you can see, it’s really very simple. It’s also one of the most effective and least expensive ways to make sure your windows are staying as energy efficient as possible!

Avoid These Common Home Renovation Mistakes

Finally being able to start a home renovation project you’ve always dreamed of being able to do can be very exciting. Unfortunately, it’s very easy for these projects to spiral out of control. Since these aren’t projects most homeowners do very often, many homeowners end up making mistakes along the way that end up making renovations a lot more stressful and expensive. Learn from their mistakes and avoid these common errors:

Don’t Rush Into Things

A good home renovation project takes a lot of thorough planning. You’ll want to take time to plan out exactly what you want to get out of the project, find a great contractor, decide what types of materials you want to use, and so much more. Jumping into a project without taking the time to plan things out first often ends in frustration for everybody involved. If you change your mind about something once work has begun, even if it seems like a simple change, it might end up costing you extra money and cause extra work for the contractor.

Don’t Hire the First Contractor You Talk To

Talking to several different contractors takes time, but it’s time very well spent. Not all contractors will approach a job in the exact same way, so you’ll definitely want to get estimates from a few different contractors before making a final decision. Take the time to check references, look up reviews from past customers, and make sure they really are licensed and insured. By taking the time to get a few different quotes and do your homework, you’ll be making sure you hire the right contractor for the job.

Don’t Pick the Cheapest Options

There are many times in life where it’s perfectly fine to save some money and go with the least expensive option possible. Home renovations are not one of those things.  When it comes to home repairs, going with the cheapest possible route often ends up costing more in the long run.

Remember, there’s a fine line between “inexpensive” and “cheap” and sometimes it’s worth paying a little bit more. If you get a quote from a contractor that’s considerably lower than some of the others you got, there might be a very good reason for that: the contractor might not be licensed or insured, their bid might exclude something important like trash removal, they might not have a lot of experience, they might do shoddy work, or they might use low-quality building supplies.

Don’t Skip the Permits

Not all household repairs and renovations will require permits from your city, but if they’re required, don’t try to skip them and hope that nobody will notice. Ultimately, building permits exist to help protect you and your home. If someone finds out that you had work done on your home without getting a permit, they might report you and the city could force you to remove the work, which means you’d have to pay to have the job done all over again. Even if you go several years without anyone knowing you’ve had un-permitted work done on your home, it could be uncovered during an inspection when you decide to sell your home, which would require you to fix the problem before the home can be sold.

Spending a little extra time on your home renovation projects often pays off in spades. By learning from other homeowners’ mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to keeping your home renovation projects on track.

Building an Addition vs. Buying a New Home

When you first moved into your home, you probably felt like you had plenty of room. But now that you’ve lived there for a while, maybe your home isn’t quite as comfortable as it used to be. Perhaps your home was perfectly fine when it was just you and your spouse, but now it’s starting to get awfully crowded now that you have kids to think of.

After a certain point, your home can simply be too small and no amount of clever storage tricks are going to be able to help. If your home has truly reached maximum capacity, there are two ways you can solve the problem: you could move to a larger home or you could build an addition on your current house.

If you’ve lived in your home for a long time, you’re probably very fond of the location and your neighbors and you might not necessarily want to have to give them up to move to a new home. Moving to a new home isn’t always the best option if you live in an area where property values are on the rise. If property values have gone up significantly in your area, the real estate market is likely very competitive, which can make it extremely difficult to find another home in your area that you can afford.

When moving isn’t ideal, building an addition on your home might be a better option. The cost of a home addition depends on what kind of addition you’re interested in. Second story additions are pretty complex and can easily cost over $100,000, making them one of the most expensive home improvement projects you can undertake. Having an extra room or two added onto the ground level of the home is a lot less complicated, but many cities have building codes that regulate things like how close your home can be to property lines, so it’s entirely possible that building your home upward might be your only option.

However, adding on to your home can make a huge impact on the rest of your home in more ways than you may realize. Not only will it make a difference in how your home looks from the outside, you may also have to upgrade your home’s HVAC and electrical systems to be able to power and heat the space being created. If you’re adding a second story, an engineer will have to make sure your home is structurally sound enough to support the added weight and you’ll have to add a staircase, which will take up some floor space on the lower level. If the new part of your home has new vinyl windows and the windows in the rest of your home are older, you might want to have new vinyl replacement windows installed in the rest of your home to match the new part of your home.

Another very important thing to keep in mind before building an addition to your home is that it may impact the taxes you’ll have to pay on your home. You’ll also want to be sure that your addition won’t end up working against you if you later decide to sell your home. To get the most value out of home renovations, it’s important to be careful to not over-improve and make your home significantly more expensive or stand out too much from the other homes in your neighborhood. A home with a second story might stand out too much if the other homes in the neighborhood are all single stories.

Buying a new home and building an addition to your home are both ways to get the extra space you need. Neither option is necessarily better than the other and they both involve a good amount of upheaval on your part, so it’s very important to understand the pros and cons of both options.

Easy Home Improvement Projects You Can Do in a Weekend

Weekends are the perfect time to relax, have fun, and get some work done around the house. But you don’t necessarily have to spend an entire weekend hard at work to make a big difference around your house. There are lots of easy projects that make a big impact and can easily be done over the course of a weekend and without having to spend a small fortune. Best of all, you’ll still have plenty of time to relax and have some fun! Here are a few quick and easy project ideas to help you get started!

Paint or Wallpaper a Room

Sometimes, all a room needs is a fresh coat of paint to make it feel brand new again. Simply changing the colors on the wall can completely change the vibe of a room or make a small space seem more open. Not many home projects can have that level of impact for such a low price. Painting a larger room might take a whole weekend, but smaller rooms can easily be painted in a day or less.

You might not even necessarily have to paint your entire room to make a nice change. Turning one wall into an accent wall by painting it a different color is a great way to add a dramatic touch. Or rather than have an accent wall that’s simply a solid color, you could try wallpapering one wall instead.

Add Wainscoting or Crown Molding

If the walls in a room are a solid color, you might want to consider adding some crown molding or wainscoting to your walls. These help add a little dimension to solid-colored walls and can give a room a more polished look. Many people feel like wainscoting and crown molding on walls makes a room look more upscale, but it isn’t a terribly expensive or difficult project to do.

Change Up Your Doors

If you aren’t quite ready to replace your home’s exterior doors, giving them a new coat of paint can be an excellent way to boost your home’s curb appeal. A bright color can be very eye catching and help your home stand out from the other homes in the neighborhood. The color of your front door can also help accent the colors used on the exterior of your home and reflect the style of the rest of your home’s decor.

Don’t forget about your interior doors, either! Do you have a house full of plain, generic-looking doors? Painting them is a great way to make them look a little bit nicer. If you like the idea of adding some crown molding or wainscoting to a room in your house, you could buy a little extra and use it to liven up some of your doors. Between paint and crown molding, your visitors would be surprised to learn you didn’t actually buy new doors!

Update Your Hardware

Do you still have the original doorknobs and drawer pulls that came with your doors, cabinets, and drawers? Replacing your old hardware with a brand new style is a very easy way to change up the look of a room and keep it from looking dated. If you don’t want to change up your home’s decor without replacing your hardware, you could always simply spray paint them a new color instead! This is a particularly great project to undertake if you’re thinking of selling your home soon. Since hardware can often start to look dated, giving it an update can be an easy yet effective way to make your home more appealing to potential buyers.  

Benefits of Improving Your Home’s Energy Efficiency

Over the past few years, energy efficiency has become a hot topic among homeowners. Is your home energy efficient enough? What can you do to make it better? And, of course, why should you be concerned about energy efficiency?

Making your home more energy efficient has a lot of benefits that are not only great for you, but for the whole world around you. Here are just a few of the best reasons why you should take steps to make your home more energy efficient:

You’ll Help the Environment

By cutting down on the amount of energy your home consumes, you’re helping to reduce the amount of carbon generated by power plants and cut down on the amount of non-renewable sources of your home uses. When you keep these sorts of things to a minimum, you’re keeping pollution out of the air and making the world a healthier place to live.

You’ll Save Money

Who wouldn’t like to have a little extra money in their bank accounts? By reducing the amount of energy you consume in your home, you’ll be able to do just that! The average U.S. household often spends thousands of dollars on energy bills every year. The amount of money you can save depends on which specific steps you take, but any changes you make can really add up. For example, an Energy Star refrigerator can cost $165 less to run per year than a regular refrigerator. Using energy efficient CFL or LED lights can help you save between $50 and $100 on your energy bill every year.

You’ll Be More Comfortable

Old, worn out windows and drafty exterior doors are only good for two things: making your home more uncomfortable than it ought to be and driving up your energy bills. Nobody should feel uncomfortable in their own home. Having new vinyl replacement windows installed or getting a new front door requires a little bit of an upfront investment, but they will make your home so much more comfortable and the money they can help you save on energy bills will really add up over time. By making these sorts of changes, you’ll be better able to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer without having to rely so much on your furnace or air conditioner.

You’ll Improve Your Home’s Value

If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market soon, it’s important to know what sorts of things homebuyers are looking for in a new home. Energy efficient features are definitely very desirable right now thanks to the fact that many people are looking for ways to lead more environmentally friendly lifestyles and that people like the idea of being able to save money on their energy bills. If a potential buyer takes a look at your home and sees things like Energy Star appliances, vinyl replacement windows, and lots of insulation, they’ll be more inclined to pay a bit more for your home.