Clutter & Critters & Circuit Boards, Oh my!
Warning- this month’s appliance advice has a bit of tough love in it!
Clutter and messes can be a problem, especially for your appliances.
Most of us are guilty of this in one form or another.
Laundry can get backed up,
Empty detergent containers aren’t thrown away in a timely fashion,
Artwork from our kids and grandkids decorates our refrigerators,
Spills aren’t promptly wiped up and
Many cookbooks and cooking utensils surround our stove area.
As much as some of those things warm up a home, the truth is appliances need to breathe to stay cool. When we surround our appliances with a bunch of “stuff,” well…picture what it would be like to wear a winter coat in the hot, hot, HOT Eastern North Carolina summer!
We have found articles of clothing caught in drive belts, pet toys or kids toys jamming fan blades for refrigerators and numerous cooking utensils behind stoves potentially shorting out wires.
Almost every modern appliance involves a circuit board and circuit boards, by nature, do not like heat. When things get piled up around our washers, dryers, refrigerators, at the base of our dishwashers and around the edges of our stoves, our appliances can overheat causing costly repairs, many of which can be avoided by trying to keep those areas clear.
Bugs like circuit boards. They like the warmth, they like the sound, and they may even like how much money you have to spend replacing them when they make them their home. Even the cleanest homes, especially in wooded areas, are going to have bugs that families have to deal with, especially here in the south.
Over-the-counter bug treatment chemicals are often too mild to keep them out of the inside of your appliance. Exterminating companies use chemicals that require a license to purchase. Those chemicals are much much stronger than those you can buy in the store, and they do the trick. They do have to come back on a schedule to maintain the barrier. The long-term cost of an exterminator is less than having to replace several control boards on various appliances. Worse, sometimes we can’t even get the control board anymore due to the parts shortages we are having and customers have to replace appliances much too soon.
So, stay on top of that clutter and those critters and save yourself the cost of repairing or replacing your appliances!
Remember, we are always here to answer your questions if you do need to replace something. We’ll give you the same guidance we would give our family.
Enjoy the rest of your summer and stay cool!
~Joseph