r/HomeMaintenance101

For years I left the hose attached all winter and never thought twice about it. Then a neighbor told me trapped water in the faucet can freeze and split the pipe inside the wall, where you won’t notice until spring. Now I disconnect the hose and drain it before the first freeze, which takes about two minutes.

Is this something you do every year, or did you only start after a close call? And has anyone dealt with a burst pipe from skipping it?

I used to ignore the caulk in my bathroom until it turned gray and started peeling, and then I found out water had been getting behind it for a while. Redoing it properly meant scraping out all the old stuff first, which was more work than I expected, but it made the room look newer and stopped the mildew from returning. Do you replace it on a schedule or only when it starts looking bad? Also curious whether anyone has a brand they swear by...

I have a Nutone exhaust/heater/light fixture in the ceiling of my bathrooms. Last week, my wife used the heater (like she always does) after getting out of the shower. It worked fine. The next morning, we went to use it and nothing. So I ordered a new fan/heater assembly (the heater and exhaust fans are separate units with separate switches controlling them) but in the meantime I took the heater out of one of the other identical units in another bathroom. I worked once, no problem, the didn't work this morning. The new one came in, but I don't want to install it without figuring out why the previous two worked once, then not again. Also, neither died during use... they were fine. They just didn't work the next day.

Last note: they all plug into their own 110vac outlets within the fan unit. I plugged the exhaust fan into the heater outlet and it worked, so the outlet is fine. It's definitely the heater / fan assembly.
Thanks for any help!

Had a neighbor mention offhand that they flush their water heater once a year, something I'd genuinely never heard of before and definitely wasn't doing. Small comment that ended up changing something I do regularly now. Curious what tip you picked up the same way, just from a conversation rather than actually researching it yourself.

I only learned dryer vents need regular cleaning after my clothes started taking two full cycles to dry. I assumed the dryer was dying. A technician pulled out a shocking amount of lint from the duct, and I found out a clogged vent is a real fire risk, not just an efficiency problem. Cleaning the lint trap after every load clearly isn’t enough on its own. Curious how often everyone else does the full vent, and whether anyone else found out the hard way

Trying to figure out where most people land on this. I used to be fully reactive, fix it when it breaks, and have slowly been trying to shift toward doing things on a schedule instead, but it's a hard habit to build since nothing feels urgent until it suddenly is. What's actually helped me stick with it is keeping a running list on my phone instead of trying to remember everything, and honestly just booking recurring stuff like gutter cleaning or HVAC checks ahead of time through an app like InstaService so it's already scheduled instead of something I have to remember to initiate. Doesn't solve everything, but it's cut down on the "oh I meant to do that three months ago" problem a lot. Curious if anyone's actually stuck to a real schedule long-term, and if it's made a noticeable difference versus just dealing with things as they come up.

We've been renovating our kitchen for like four months now and I still can't make up my mind about the hood, we've got an exterior wall right behind where the range would go, so ducting outside seems doable, but then I started looking at island layouts and now I'm second-guessing that too

If you went ducted, are you happy with it? I like the idea of sending the cooking air outside, I'm just hung up on planning a duct route before we're completely sure where everything belongs

Ductless sounds more flexible, but then we've got filters to think about and I don't know whether we'd be happy with it for the way we cook, did anyone regret their choice once they were living with it?