You can’t swing a tool belt without hitting a website or TV network offering tips on taking care of your digs. Save money by watering your lawn at night! No, water it in the morning! No, dig it up and replace it with a drought-hardy meadow!
Throw in the info you pick up from well-meaning friends and there’s a sea of home care truisms out there, some of which can sink your budget.
Stone Countertops Are Indestructible
Marble, quartz, travertine, soapstone, and limestone can all be stained. Regular household cleaners can dull their surfaces over time. And marble is maddeningly fragile — it’s the prima donna of stone.
It’s easy to scratch. It’s easy to stain. Here’s the worst part: Mildly acidic substances like soda, coffee, lemon juice, even hard water will eat into marble, creating a cloudy, dull spot in a process known as etching.
Spill a glass of wine on a marble counter and go to bed without cleaning it, the next morning you’ll have a problem. And while stone counters won’t crack under a hot pot, such direct heat can discolor quartz or marble. So be nice to your counters, no matter what they’re made of. And note that the best rock for your buck is granite. It doesn’t stain or scratch. It’s tough because it’s volcanic rock. Which means it can stand up to all the merlot and barbecue sauce you can spill on it.
Your Smoke Detector's Test Button Is Foolproof
The test button doesn’t tell you what you really need to know. Yes, check your smoke detector twice a year. But all that test button will tell you is whether the alarm sound is working, not if the sensor that detects smoke is working. Pretty key difference there.
The best way to check your device is with real smoke. Light a long, wooden kitchen match, blow it out, and hold it near the unit. If the smoke sets off the alarm, it’s working. If not, replace the batteries. If it still doesn’t work, you need a new smoke detector. And replace those batteries once a year anyway, because dead batteries are the No. 1 reason smoke detectors fail.
A Lemon Is a Great Way to Clean a Disposal
While wanting to use natural cleaners is admirable, all of them will damage your disposal and pipes over time.
The lemon’s acidic juice will corrode the metal parts of your disposal. The mixture of salt and ice contains metal-eating acid, too. The coffee grounds are abrasive enough to clean the gunk off the blades and make it smell like a cup of americano, but they’ll accumulate in pipes and clog them.
The best natural cleaner for your disposal is good old baking soda. It’s mildly abrasive so it will clean the blades, but it’s a base, not an acid, and won’t damage the metal. Best of all, a box with enough baking soda big enough to clean your disposal twice costs less than a buck.
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