Seasonal Home Maintenance Help!

You know you’re a grown up when:

1) Your tween-ager tells you not to you use the term “peeps” to describe his friends. This term has an age limit, apparently.

2) You thought the boy’s name was Beaver, not Bieber

3) It occurs to you that if you don’t turn on the pilot light in the furnace, no one else will.

Yep, the warmth, not to mention the actual survival of your family depends on you, the grown up. I know, I know…deep breaths…try not to think about it too much or you’ll lose it and they’ll all doubt your leadership. Instead, check out this handy article found on the CMHC website – it provides a fairly comprehensive list of seasonal home maintenance activities. Here’s the first five things on the Fall list to get you started:

1) Have furnace or heating system serviced by a qualified service company every two years for a gas furnace, and every year for an oil furnace, or as recommended by the manufacturer.

2) If you have central air conditioning, make sure the drain pan under the cooling coil mounted in the furnace plenum is draining properly and is clean.

3) Lubricate circulating pump on hot water heating system.

4) Bleed air from hot water radiators.

5) Disconnect the power to the furnace and examine the forced-air furnace fan belt, if installed, for wear, looseness or noise; clean fan blades of any dirt buildup.

And I’ll give you another tip – the first day of Fall is September 22, so this evening at dinner, you can announce in a very adult and knowing sort of way that the seasonal home maintenance will be need to be done this weekend given that it’s the first week of Autumn. Warn of several trips to the Home Depot and the possible use of a power tool of some kind. Tweens will roll their eyes ( this is a good thing – it means you are boring, a sure sign of responsible adulthood ), little ones will look at you with wonder as they imagine themselves working along side you, the big, knowing adult and the other grown ups at the table will give you a respectful, appreciative nod. You’re Alpha-ness will be intact for the season. Yep, I got your back, peeps.