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How Drought Affects Your Home

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Why Gutter Cleanings are essential~ even in a drought.

When weather conditions run dry, more is affected than just your lawn and plants. The trouble runs deeper and broader, affecting wildlife, ecosystems, soil, and foundations.

Wikipedia defines drought as: “an event of prolonged shortages in the water supply, whether atmospheric (below-average precipitation), surface water or ground water. A drought can last for months or years, or as few as 15 days. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region and cause harm to the local economy.”

Global Warming and extreme weather patterns are increasing drought potential. Even areas which do not usually succumb to drought are beginning to feel the effects. Not only does this affect the soil and plants, but also the economy and ecosystem. Specifically, it affects you as a homeowner. Soils dry and shift with drought, causing settling as gravity naturally seeks to fill in the cracks left behind by shrinking soil. Your home’s foundation may shift and settle into these, leading to cracks in foundation, structural damage, sticky windows and doors, and uneven, sloping floors.

Conversely, when it rains, clay-rich soil becomes expansive soil, trapping rain water, essentially flooding the soil and contributing to excessive run-off and flooding. This can lead to an even greater hazard if cracks have formed in the foundation. Now your home is primed for water damage and moisture-related issues.

While this devastation may sound frightfully out of control, there are measures you can take to protect your home (and your paycheck).

  • The first thing you will want to do is inspect your home. Whether you choose to do this yourself, or hire a professional (many offer free inspection), taking a thoughtful stroll around your home may highlight hidden dangers.
  • The next most important step is to GENTLY water the soil around your home…(think misting, not torrent). As long as there are no restrictions on water usage, keeping the soil moist around your foundation prevents caving or collapsing.
  • Next, consider your landscaping. If there are large trees near your foundation, guess who is going to win…NOT YOU. Tree roots will absorb more moisture, which is bad for your foundation. However, planting shade plants and shrubs will contribute to the prevention of soil evaporation.
  • Finally, clean your Gutters! As previously mentioned, rain after a drought oversaturates the soil, causing structural damage to your foundation walls. By cleaning your gutters, you are preventing this torrent of rain water from pooling and puddling near your foundation. This will also help to prevent the spread of algae to other surfaces of your home.

Professional Gutter Cleanings are extremely affordable, especially if you consider all the money saved ($$$$$) by preventing further structural damage to your home. While Gutter Guards are a helpful preventative option, they are not infallible, and still must be maintained to have smoothly flowing gutters.

Protect your investment! Schedule your Professional Gutter Cleaning with The Grime Fighters.

Back to School: A Lifetime Endeavour

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As Summer stubbornly nears its end, September ushers in another year of school education. Young ones anxiously endeavour to expand their minds, growing and learning, shaping them into future adults.

As adults, we recognize that true education never ends. We constantly learn and grow from experiences, training, and life. Albert Einstein said:

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”

Education is important. It teaches us the necessities of how to live our best life. It helps us to make decisions, and improve our discernment, learning to establish values and ethics. As adults, we rely on these as we move forward and improve ourselves. Education is not limited to the classroom. It is only the foundation for learning as we grow older and wiser.

Einstein also said,

“I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn.”

At Grime Fighters, we echo those sentiments, providing conditions in which we train our crew, helping them to become skilled at their work. Each year we open the season with “Grime Fighter University”, whereby we train any new crew members, as well as improve the quality of our performance. All Grime Fighters benefit from this continuous training, as we consciously take strides to enhance our equipment, techniques, and cleaning agents, remaining as efficient, modern, and green-friendly as possible. We also make annual improvements to the rig. All of these upgrades mean education and training for our team, utilizing their individual skills and assets to help them grow as individuals, and as a team.

As a homeowner, all of this education benefits you. Using the latest technology, techniques, products, and training, gives you security in knowing that our team will treat you and your home well and with respect and professionalism, accurately employing these modern advances.

At Grime Fighters, we stand by the belief that you are never too old to learn something new.

Economizing is a Community Mentality (Buy Local, or Bye, Local)

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How you can economize by supporting local business.

The definition of economize is: to spend less; reduce one’s expenses. Economizing means: to practice economy; avoid waste or extravagance. Economizing is on everyone’s mind. When it comes to economizing around your home, reducing one’s expenses of home includes heating and cooling, as well as repair or replacement due to hastened degradation by elements or neglect.

A regularly maintained home by a local business supports economizing by keeping your home clean, therefore lowering potential for damage, degradation, and wasted energy. Instead it actually saves you money in the long run by reducing energy costs, repairs, allergens, accidents, and time and money spent endeavouring a more short-sighted plan of DIY. What is more, supporting your local business to clean and maintain your home means you have professionals trained to identify any potential problem areas around your home that might otherwise be missed.

Why support Local Businesses? Local businesses depend on community support to thrive. And these businesses take seriously the responsibility to care for the needs of their community. Such reciprocity feeds the community, keeping it strong and stable, providing jobs and personalized customer care.

Modern, but not Austere: For example, when my husband and I first married we lived across from a modest hardware store, owned and operated by two brothers. It was a delightful little store, the older gentlemen so eager to assist us with any question or issue we had. Sadly, that time came to an end. Replaced by warehouse style stores designed to save you a buck or two, what is gained in square-footage-supply and demand is lost in customer service and knowledge. Most queries for assistance end in blank stares and shrugged shoulders. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal in the midst of the information age, where a few google taps or alexa-proddings get you an instantaneous answer. But here is the tricky part: the broader knowledge of old school trade and service men has been denigrated to an inferiority to plastic and ones and zeros. Now, this requires extra time learning about the issue behind the DIY. If something goes wrong, its back to the drawing board (or google search). This is NOT the definition of economizing, or of avoiding waste.

If that sounds exhausting, we’re here for you. As a local business in the Lehigh Valley, we take pride in providing our customers community support by professional and friendly service, knowing that we, likewise, are supporting other local businesses of the Lehigh Valley. While we use modern equipment, tools, and practices, we won’t sacrifice the old-school-principles of kindness and professionalism. We are your neighbours, after all.

At Grime Fighters, we delight in giving back to our community. That’s why, for the month of August, we are offering our SUMMER BLOWOUT SPECIAL. Any service booked by August 31st but scheduled for September or October, will receive 15% OFF!

If you’ve already benefited from our services, you can still support our local business. In fact, according to signpost.com, “referrals count for 82% of new business growth and 92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.” So if you are not currently in need of our services, you are currently in the know.

Support our local business by:

  1. Referring us to friends and family
  2. Supporting us on social media and online, and
  3. Leave a positive review with google.

These small gestures go a long way in building up local business and that means more savings for our customers. Economizing is a community mentality.

Life In The Gutter

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Leaves, dirt, saplings, and other life in your gutter can mean the destruction of your home.

At first glance, an overflowing gutter may look a bit comical. Packed with leaves, twigs, dirt, and other life, the task of carrying water away from your home may just be too tall an order. Bending and bursting, clogged gutters spill gallons of water to areas of your home vulnerable to erosion or absorption. And that is no laughing matter.

Gutter Cleaning may seem a simple enough task to DIY, and yet is easily forgotten or procrastinated. Unfortunately, the reminder usually comes in the form of another issue. Problems such as stained siding, bowed gutters, water pooling at the foundation, or worse still, dampness or leaking into cracked foundations, walls, ceilings, and basements. What was a simple job has now cascaded into a major problem.

Gutter Cleaning actually bears a huge impact on the health and life span of your home. Meant for the purpose of keeping your home clean and dry, left unmanaged, clogged gutters can actually reduce the life span of your entire home. That is bad for your wallet and bad for the planet! Repair, replacement, and renovation costs due to neglect far outweigh the small cost of a regularly maintained Professional Gutter Cleaning.

Advantages of a Professional Gutter Cleaning:

  1. DIY is not always cut and dry. Consider all the factors: ladder safety, having a safety partner, having tools while on a ladder, reaching without proper ladder contact, airborne debris causing eye and nose allergens, not to mention the time to properly do the job once you have obtained all of your materials, as well as running water (hopefully) through your unclogged gutter. Any issues could turn an afternoon job into a weekend project, costing you your precious time and energy.
  2. Professional Technicians are trained to look for areas of your home that may have damage, and issues that could lead to bigger problems. Knowledge is Power.
  3. Regular Maintenance of Gutters means a longer life span not only for your gutters, but also your roof, siding, foundation, fascia, and even the interior of your home.
  4. Regular Gutter Cleaning means your Roof and Siding will also stay cleaner longer, as moisture, debris, and algae will not have a resting place, and therefore a breeding ground in which to propagate. This also means a longer life for your roof, as shingles are a common food source for roof algae known as Gloeocapsa Magma.
  5. Keeping pooled and stagnant water away from your home also means less possibility of mold and mildew entering into your home, causing allergies and health issues.
  6. Cleaned, empty gutters serve to protect your home during some of the volatilities of the seasons, including heavy rainstorms in spring and summer, falling leaves in autumn, and ice damming in winter.
  7. Protect your investment. Long term regular care means less waste for the environment, and more money in your pocket.

Annual Professional Roof and House Washing coupled with Semi-Annual Professional Gutter Cleanings will help to keep your house and home pristine, clean, and dry. Professional Gutter Cleaning can be scheduled any time, but is essential prior to Spring as well as prior to and post Autumn. Don’t procrastinate or rely on DIY. Trust the Grime Fighters to keep your life out of the gutter! Get your FREE QUOTE NOW and schedule your Autumn Gutter Cleaning.

Damage Control

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HOME HAZARDS: Preventing Damage Exploited by Services.

Damage Control is defined as: Action taken to limit the damaging effects of an accident or error. In this context, we are referencing the control of potential damage by the homeowner. Of what kind of hazards should the homeowner be aware? And how can damage be avoided altogether?

HOME HAZARDS:

ROOF:

  • Loose Shingles and Roof Damage. Cleaning a roof in disrepair can lead to Roof Rot, as well as interior mildew and mold growth.
  • Non-functioning (full, broken, unsecure) Gutters. Roof solution leaks lead to damaged landscaping. Grime Fighters reclaims ALL of our roof solution. Damaged gutters inhibit or prevent this process.

SIDING:

  • Gaps. Where siding is not properly overlapped, Powerwash solution can leak behind these areas.
  • Waterproof Outlet Covers. Deteriorating gaskets no longer seal the cover, protecting it from water. Outlet covers in disrepair can cause electrical damage.

FLATWORK:

  • Loose or Broken Concrete/Sidewalks. Deterioration or cracks can be accentuated by Flat Surface Cleaning.

WINDOWS:

  • Broken Seals/Gaskets cause leaking into windowsills and walls.
  • Damaged glass can create fogging.
  • Brittle screens may not hold up to cleaning, and could even become a safety hazard to technicians.

DAMAGE AVOIDANCE:

According to the website msba.org, there are “5 Rules for Damage Control.”

  1. TELL THE TRUTH. “…if you don’t tell the truth, you’ll lose credibility…”
  2. TELL IT FIRST. “If you don’t, someone else will.”
  3. TELL IT ALL. “The more you can tell of your story, the more you’ll control it.”
  4. TELL IT FAST. “The world moves at the speed of Twitter…to protect your reputation, you must move with it.”
  5. TELL IT TO THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER MOST. “A person…should care most about the people who really care.”

In short, if you are aware of any neglect or damage to your home, honesty is the best policy. Better still, would be to TAKE ACTION and address an area of neglect or damage BEFORE scheduling a service. This gives the homeowner peace of mind by doing their part, giving a service company peace of mind, so they can do theirs.

As a last resort, our Grime Fighter Technicians are trained to recognize and point out these areas of potential hazard prior to the service. It is the homeowner’s responsibility to have the house in good repair before we come. As listed in Grime Fighters Terms & Conditions, we are NOT RESPONSIBLE for any damage to the home due to disrepair. Our 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE comes from within the quality of our work, not damage from neglect.

Grime Fighters takes great care when it comes to your home. When kindness is coupled with honesty, it reaps a far better outcome for all.

COMMON MISTAKES HOMEOWNERS MAKE WHEN SCHEDULING WORK

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“Time is Money”…

Spring has arrived and outdoor maintenance is in full swing. Budding plants and trees renew our spirit with eagerness to clean and beautify our homes. With so many things to be done, each homeowner decides which tasks to do themselves, and which to hire out to a professional. Keenly anticipating outdoor cookouts and gatherings after what feels like the longest two years spent isolating, we may think that it would be most efficient to schedule all such work at once. To a homeowner, it would seem ideal to have everything done in one day, so that tasks do not linger, or go undone. However, it is exactly this “efficiency” which actually proves contradictory, counterproductive, costly, and in many cases, unsafe. Why the problem?

Landscapers, Painters, and House Cleaners do not mix with Pressure Washing and Window Cleaning Services.

Most professional services use large trucks from which they obtain their equipment. Some of this equipment requires long hoses which must be reeled out onto your property, proving a trip hazard. Many professionals use long ladders which must be carefully carried so as not to prove a hazard to other humans, plants, or property. Solvents may be used which may be harmful to new landscaping, or be hazardous to other workers. Heavy trucks may roll over hoses of other companies, causing damage or breakage, costing time and money. In many areas, parking multiple professional service vehicles presents a logistic problem, preventing work to be done. Not to mention the fact that it is counterproductive to schedule moisture (humidity) creating jobs with jobs which require dry conditions, such as mulching and painting. Also, there is the matter of safety, not just in the amount of people working on or in your home, many of which will be focused on their own work, not on the potential hazards around them, including COVID.

From a homeowner’s perspective, this may all seem very convenient, to have a ‘one and done’ mentality. However, it is not convenient for ANYONE, especially the homeowner, when jobs must be rescheduled due to conflict of time, space, efficiency, or safety, or worse still, to be cancelled altogether. All it takes is a little consideration and communication so that each homeowner’s needs may be met in a safe and efficient manner.

Very often, when these principles are ignored, the homeowner is the one who loses out, being unable to be rescheduled in a timely fashion. It is also frustrating for workers, attempting to do their job, having to spend many hours negotiating between the homeowner and the other contractors, instead of efficiently working. This costs companies time and money, when such could be avoided by honest disclosure from the homeowner.

What can you do?

Benjamin Franklin said, “Time is Money”. At Grime Fighters, we respect both your time and your money. We appreciate when our customers reciprocate that respect. When scheduling your Pressure Washing and Window Cleaning Services, it is important to communicate with our Office Manager what other services you may have scheduled the same day, and what time frame they will occupy. This positive, pro-active communication enables us to meet your needs and dynamically function so as to build a stronger community relationship.

The Grime Fighter Team looks forward to rejuvenating your home this Spring!