Periodic inspection and the occasional cleaning of your HVAC Evaporator Coil are critical home maintenance tasks to ensure optimal indoor air quality. No matter when you use your central A/C and heating system (for summer cooling and also winter heating), the air pushed through all the rooms of your house will flow through and over […]
Maintenance
Spider Mite Arborvitae Decimation
July 2026 Update – Last spring and summer were brutal for landscaping in New Jersey… almost zero rain and non-stop heat in the nineties. I had a line of emerald green arborvitaes that had been growing beautifully for about 8-9 years. These got hit really hard, and I frankly never saw it coming. I thought […]
How to Repair a Leaky Basement Wall
2026 Update… My basement wall started leaking water into my office – right by my guitars. Fortunately, I spotted it quickly and it was a very slow leak. One that I could easily patch myself with hydraulic cement. But no matter how small the leak, it’s ‘a leak’ and it has to be dealt with […]
Refreshing a Swimming Pool Landscape
2025 Update — Last spring, my wife and I came up with a dream landscape and hardscape design to complement our in ground swimming pool – and we partnered with a number of local contractors to help bring that vision to life. It was a huge undertaking. In the end, though (photo below), we were […]
Phantom Dinnertime Doorbell Ringing
2025 Update – Every few days, right around dinnertime – my doorbell was ringing. And nobody was there. It wasn’t a repetitive ring, or a ring followed by the sound of laughter and kids running away; it was a very sensible single ring – beckoning for an answer. But nobody. While I wasn’t really sure […]
How to Replace a Ceiling Fan
2025 Update… Sometimes, you just need something new – and for me, it was my bedroom ceiling fan. A 52-inch, LED light replacement for the Hunter ceiling fan I had installed when we first moved in almost 20 years ago. That’s a pretty impressive lifespan, and while I probably could have fixed the Hunter – as […]
Quick & Easy LED Light Fixture Installation
It took me about 25 minutes to install a new LED light fixture in my bedroom walk-in closet. I’ve been converting each of the fixtures in my house to LED lighting over the past few months. Lower electricity bills. Less maintenance. And crisp, clean light. This closet, though? This closet had the original fixture from […]


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