Family

4 Steps You Can Take To Make Home Maintenance A Little Easier 

4 Steps You Can Take To Make Home Maintenance A Little Easier 

Pexels – CC0 License

While our homes are places where we should feel the safest and most comfortable, it’s true to say that even they need a little maintenance once in a while. Even the most experienced homeowner can be taken unaware by issues that crop up from time to time, and will be able to tell you that good housekeeping means paying attention, and often, keeping up with the little tasks so that they don’t turn into major problems.

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Driving

Simple Steps to Keep Your Car & Tyres Roadworthy During Lockdown

Taking car of your car and tyres
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

After impatiently waiting for lock down to get over , the UK government has prolonged the lockdown again. We know it’s a hard time to wait and is making many of us lose our patience. This is not a punishment but the government only wants our lives to be safe and that we do not get attacked by the virus.

Living in Yorkshire you might have realised that it is not doable sitting home for months. Many of us need to get out of our houses to do essential grocery or even getting medicines. To go out for such chores during this time is very risky but we can still do it with less risk by taking all precautionary and safety measures like wearing proper masks and keeping our distance.

We just not only have to make sure that we are safe but also the cars we sit in to reach our destinations are also safe and secure during this time.

No one wants to go through the hassle of car breakdown if he/she is on the street to get grocery or important medicine right now. There  are few things listed below to keep your car fit to drive in this lockdown.

Take proper care of battery

Pandemic has made all of us use our vehicles as little as possible. This eventually causes few components that give power to the car , getting corrosive or losing their power. One such component installed in the car is its battery.

At times when you are trying to start your car it shows glitches while starting. This can be due to your battery getting flat. If you are less frequently using your vehicle there is a high probability that proper electric current is not reaching the battery hence causing it to lose its power overall. To overcome such a situation you need to give your car a start twice every week for as less as 10 minutes. In this way your car battery will be getting enough charging to avoid it getting flat.

Take tyre pressures levels into account

Letting your vehicle stand for a longer period of time in the garage can cause the balanced amount of air pressure in tyres to go loose and resultantly showing signs of tyre puncture. To avoid such a situation at this point in time , you should regularly check the pressure in your tyres with proper measuring gauges.  In case you feel it has under inflated, you can use tyre pressure gauges to insert ample air pressure in them to make them roadworthy or if you think that your tyres have completely deteriorated you can replace it with quality tyre by contacting tyre garages near your location. If you are looking for a tyre replacement you can buy tyres at Ossett Tyre House website & avail branch fitting or mobile fitting on friendly prices. You can call them here too  (01924271081)

Cleaning your car inside out

At this time many of you have nothing to do and want to kill this time by doing something productive, well we have a solution for that too! You can use your free time in making sure that your vehicle is clean from any unnecessary dirt or dust particles by washing it using clean water and antibacterial detergents. This will not only make your vehicle look visually clean and spotless but also will keep it safe from entering of unwanted viruses. Check out Good Car Keeping on the step by step to deep cleaning your car

We hope that you utilise your time in making sure you follow the above precautionary steps to keep your vehicle safe. The next time you go out to get groceries you won’t be facing any car breakdowns after following the above steps.

Life

Car Maintenance You Can Do Yourself

Car Maintenance You Can Do YourselfAnyone who knows me knows that I’m quite headstrong, which means that I don’t like deferring to other people if there’s something I can do myself. Sure, I ask for help with the bigger things which are beyond my skill-set but there’s plenty of things I do by myself, including certain areas of car maintenance. Youtube is a great source for videos on how to do things yourself and I thought I’d give you an insight into things I do myself, especially before an MOT!

Keeping Tyres Properly Inflated

If your tyres are under-inflated it can have various knock-on effects and can even have an effect on the fuel consumption of your car. Making sure they’re fully pumped up is something that can be done at home and it’s wise to get an air compressor bundle to make the whole process easier.

Changing Your Wiper Blades

Ensuring that your wiper blades fully clear your windscreen is really important from a safety point of view and is something they’re hot on during an MOT. Changing them yourself is surprisingly easy and most models of car have blades with just clip off and on. It’s very simple to do and will save you a labour cost if you take them to a garage.

Changing Bulbs

Bulbs are another area where you can possibly fail an MOT so checking them before you take your car in can save you money. Buying from a local autoparts store, bulbs will set you back under a couple of quid each but more unscrupulous garages will charge four or fives times what they pay for them wholesale.

Topping Up Fluids

Checking your oil is something that most people remember to do, but it’s important to keep your radiator, screen wash, brake fluid and power steering fluid topped up too. They’re all available to buy quite cheaply and checking a diagram of what’s going on under your bonnet will show you where each of them is supposed to go – just don’t get them mixed up!

Valeting

Believe me, as a mum to two messy kids who spends a lot of time in the car, I know how messy things can get and it’s always tempting to drop it off at a valeting centre and take yourself off for a cup of coffee, but doing it yourself can save you a bunch of money. Get the kids involved with washing and hoovering the interior and they might think twice before messing it all up again!

Do you do your own car maintenance or is this something that you’ll happily pay a little extra for someone else to do? Leave me a comment below!

Family · Feminism · Home

Pink Jobs/Blue Jobs?

pinks jobs blue jobsOne of the things on which I pride myself is my willingness to give things a go. I come from a family of do-ers, choosing to mend cars, decorate houses and generally fend for themselves, rather than hiring someone in, and Husband’s family is like this even more so than my own. Husband has an aunty of whom I’m constantly in awe, who’s a true role model for my girls. She’s genuinely one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to cars that I’ve ever met and she’s never fazed by a building project or getting her hands dirty in a multitude of ways.

I know that in a lot of houses, there are jobs which are characterised as ‘pink jobs’ and ‘blue jobs’, with domestic chores such as cleaning and child-rearing falling firmly in the female camp, whilst the men do the heavy lifting, car maintenance and rubbish-taking-out. This isn’t the case in our house. Husband is just as at home changing a nappy as changing a tyre, and I’m certainly not shy when it comes to getting involved in DIY.

A few months ago, I was talking to some friends at Sausage’s school when one of the Grandads who regularly does the school run approached me. He mentioned that he’d noticed that my break light was out and suggested that I “get the Husband to look at it” for me. I had to laugh. Yes, Husband would be more than capable of changing a bulb, but as it happens, I’m the only driver in the house and actually deal with car maintenance myself. When our car needed a new battery, I bought one from BuyCarparts.co.uk and fitted it myself, with no more than a YouTube video to give me confidence that I was doing it correctly and it never even occurred to me to think that I wouldn’t be able to do it myself.

For me, I’ve always tried to be as independent as I can be. Husband and I are a team and pitch in together with everything that needs doing, but I still like to know that I can do things myself. It’s also hugely important to me that the girls see Mummy as a capable human being; I remember, as a kid, seeing my Nan and Grandad living an oddly symbiotic life; he’d NEVER set foot in the kitchen and conversely, she never used a cash point, set the video and rarely even changed the TV channel. It worked for them, as it so often does in marriages from a bygone era, but I also remember worrying about how they’d cope if the other wasn’t around. I had visions of Grandad living on fish and chips every night, or my Nan only ever watching one TV channel!

A few years ago, my Uncle kindly gave us his old Honda Civic as we were without a car at the time and although he didn’t need it anymore, it was far too good to scrap. It really invigorated my thirst for independence and I relished taking care of the car myself, doing the vital maintenance as well as the non-vital things like fitting a new stereo, something I’ve done myself in almost every car I’ve owned.

I’ll definitely be encouraging Sausage and Burrito Baby to learn these kinds of self-sufficiencies, so that they’re both able to take care of things for themselves, as well as having the comfort of knowing they’re capable enough to do so. Having that confidence can be the making of a young woman and I can only hope that by seeing other family members doing things themselves rather than always deferring to someone else, they’ll see that there are so many things that you can do at home, without spending huge amounts on labour.