Do you have a sump pump installed in your home’s basement? We recommend most homes in the area have one, since it’s the best plan to prevent damage from flooding due to weather or a burst pipe. A sump pump activates automatically to remove the excess water from the lowest part of a house and transport it out to the wastewater system, a well, or an outside drainage ditch leading to the storm drains.
You already have a sump pump? That’s great. But do you know if you can depend on it to come on and work in case of flooding? A back-up emergency system isn’t much good if it won’t work when it’s supposed to. This is why you always test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors—and it’s why you should check your sump pump in spring and have it maintained.

You’ve got trouble with the plumbing in your kitchen. It’s going to happen—there’s a lot of piping and appliances in this space, and it gets an enormous amount of work. But what do you do when you have a kitchen plumbing problem? Your first answer may be, “Get out the toolbox and that belt of special wrenches.” This is fine if you’re dealing with something like adjusting a loose washer in a leaky faucet. But for anything else, such as fixing a leaking drainpipe to removing a broken garbage disposal, we recommend you always call on a plumber. Not an amateur or “handyman.” No, a licensed professional plumber.
The weather is still cool-to-cold here, and who knows what sudden shifts may occur through the rest of April and even in to May? You are probably still running your furnace during the evenings and sometimes the days as well. If you think your furnace is showing signs that something is wrong, like a loss of heating power or strange sounds from the cabinets, make sure you call a professional to repair the system right away.
“Spring hasn’t even arrived yet, and yet I should be thinking about replacing my furnace?”
Are you getting tired of the winter weather, and even looking at the calendar to see how many days until spring puts you in a deep funk? We understand. Cabin fever can be a serious problem during our cold winters.
February is a strange time when it comes to HVAC work for homes. Winter is still here, but now that we’ve moved into the second half of the season, people feel less willing to make big changes to their heating systems. They’ll call for repairs if they need them (at least, they should!), but heating upgrades or new system installations won’t be a priority when warm weather is coming closer.
The middle of the winter is the point when you may have concerns about the performance of your home’s furnace. It’s wise to be on the lookout for potential problems. It’s not only the coldest time of the year, but the furnace has done a half season of work and has another half ahead of it.
A boiler is a great way to provide warmth during a stormy and cold winter—and we’re in the middle of one of those right now! The heat coming from radiators and baseboard heaters is cozy and spreads evenly through a room, without having to blow around any dust from ductwork. A boiler also has a great advantage over a furnace, which is that it usually needs fewer repairs over its lifetime. A boiler contains fewer moving mechanical parts that can break down. As long as you remember to schedule heating maintenance for your boiler each year (
There’s a good reason natural gas furnaces are common for
