Silly Mistakes That Can Damage Your Appliances Permanently

By Victoria Baeker

Updated: July 25th, 2019

Electronics and appliances in our household are vulnerable just like us. They too decline in efficiency over time and they also grow old and suffer from wear and tear.

Just like how we must practice good hygiene and health, appliances need to be running like a well-oiled machine.

Silly mistakes that damage

Often though, we as users aren’t unaware of the small ways we might be damaging our appliances, and then wonder what happened when they finally stop working. Here are a few ways users damage certain appliances without their knowledge:

HVAC

Your Heater, Ventilation, Air Conditioner is almost a necessity when dealing with the extreme weather. A heater is essential in winter, and an air conditioner is a lifesaver in the blistering summers. Imagine a life without these two facilities? Impossible right? Well, many homeowners have been left in such a predicament due to neglecting to check on the filters.

Filters are an integral part of your heating and ventilation system. They prevent dirt, dust, smog, and bacteria from pushed into your home. Often these filters get clogged, making the rest of the conditioner work harder to push out cleaner air. A completely clogged filter will result in your air conditioner overheating and overworking itself to a point where it is simply unable to generate hot or cold air.

The same goes for your heater as well. Clogged filters will lead to your heater working overtime to push out hot air. However, the scenario is worse with a heater because compressed heat because of a block filter will lead to burning of its internal wiring. This will lead you to buy a completely new heater as burnt appliances are much much harder to repair.

Washing Machine

washing machine damage

A washing machine is one appliance in your home that you cannot live without when you lead a life with a busy schedule. Just dump in your dirty laundry and add the soaps and suds and you are set! Or so you might think. Many homeowners have had to shell out a lot of money to repair their washing machines all because of simple negligence.

When putting your laundry into your washing machine, do check your trousers and pockets for lint, coins. Because the machine churns water at a high rate, coins can fly across the insides of your washing machine, and damage it. The same applies to zippers as well. Clothing with zippers needs to be zipped all the way to its top before it is put for a wash. This is because

Overloading your machine can also damage your machine. Adding in too many heavy clothes can severely affect the suspension and coils of the washing machine especially on front load washing machines. There could be considerable clothes damage as well.

Another misconception that people have about washing machines is that it doesn’t need maintenance because it probably cleans itself during a wash. That is however far from the truth, seeing as a lot of hair, strands of cloth and dirt clog up the motors of your washing machine. A stuck motor will render your washing machine useless, as that’s the main device that initiates the cleaning process. Without it, you’d just have a lump of clothes soaked in water.

Another common mistake homeowners make when it comes to washing machines is leaving their wet clothes in their washing machines. That leads to two consequences, firstly your clothes will smell horrible, and secondly, mold starts to develop on your clothes and machine. Mold once set in your machine will start to grow and spread and jam the internal electronics of your washing machine. And if that happens, you’ll need to start checking shopping catalogs for a replacement.

Refrigerator

Many things can go wrong when it comes to a refrigerator. Learn what can damage a refrigerator. Your freezer may stop working and all the ice melts and drips down to your food and floor. The most integral and expensive part of your refrigerator is the compressor. It’s usually located at the back of your fridge. Now the way that it works is, the compressor encases the condenser coils, which are vital for cooling. Most homeowners land up with faulty refrigeration because the compressor has been bogged down by accumulated dust.

Accumulation of dust leads to the compressor working harder than ever without having access to open air to supply for the condenser coils. If there’s too much build up of dust, your compressor will fail and that would mean no more cooling for your food. This would lead to eventual food loss unless you are able to eat it before it goes bad!

Another tip would be to never overload your refrigerator. And never stack all your food items all the way to the back of the fridge. Doing so blocks out the air vents of your refrigerator, making it extremely hard to cool all the items in the fridge. This could also lead to the condenser coils working overtime and overheating. Burnt coils are extremely difficult to replace and hence the only option would be to buy another refrigerator.

There have been many cases where homeowners complain that their freezers and refrigerators aren’t cooling at all. This is usually because they tend to leave their fridge door open for long periods of time. What this results in, the refrigerator adapting to the room temperature and tries to cool the outside as well. This results in the strain on the refrigerator and eventually becoming inefficient.

Ovens

Ovens serve the main purpose of heating, cooking and baking your food. There are many who use it for different purposes under the pretense of it being a multipurpose tool or a lifehack. A lot of people leave their oven doors open in order to heat up their homes in the winter. While doing this, one might save expenses through not using their HVAC, but they also ruin a perfectly good oven. You see, doing this could risk you and your home from suffering dangerous burns while wearing and tearing up of the internal machinery of your oven.

Another common negligence that leads to a broken oven is not cleaning up of spills. Food dripping and seeping onto the surfaces of an oven is a common occurrence. But often homeowners forget to clean the spills that happen while cooking. These substances if left for a long time, block out the heating rods and prevent your food from being cooked properly. The longer spills are left in your oven, the more difficult it becomes to remove them.

All large appliances in your home, in general, need to be placed in open areas. Be it your washing machine or refrigerator/dryer all need air around them for venting and keeping the internal machinery cool and running smoothly. Placing such devices in closed places will lead to a lack of ventilation, which causes overheating due to lack of fresh air.

Dishwasher

A dishwasher is an essential appliance that helps you knock off one of the more tedious chores on your to-do list. Just by simply placing all your stained and dirty dishes onto the dishwasher tray, you are ensured clean dishes with just a press of a button. Still, a dishwasher can also get damaged due to silly mistakes. Placing your dishes rashly or hastily could lead to nicks on the vinyl coat of your dishwasher rack. These nicks remove the vinyl layer that protects the metal. Soon, these knicks begin to rust and affect the dishwashing process. The rust will continue to spread unless you replace either the rack or the dishwasher machine entirely.

Another minor mistake which leads to damaging your dishwasher is adding too much soap to your dishwasher. Firstly you’d be wasting excess soap, but more importantly, the high amount of soap suds can seep into the electronics and wiring of your dishwasher, that could lead it to short-circuiting.

Prevention Better Than Cure

silly mistakes prevention

There are many ways that the devices in your home can stop working. This is can be due to constant use and regular wear and tear. Or maybe something unforeseen such as a wiring issue or a broken fuse. Instead of staying helpless when your device has broken down, you could

Go it alone and hire a contractor to come and repair your appliance, albeit pay exorbitant amounts of money in order to get a single appliance replaced.
Invest in a home warranty. A home warranty involves you paying a small premium amount of money in order to have repair and replacement service for most of the utilities in your home. This service would cover all the necessary repairs for a given year.

If you prefer to go it alone and like to monitor all your appliances on your own, you’d probably be spending a lot on individual repairs whenever one of your devices breaks down. You can always use this home maintenance calculator to see how much you would be spending on repairs on all your appliances for the year. What’s more, you can gauge and see how much you would be spending on repairs on your current home appliances for the next 25 years.

But if you’re one to think ahead, a home warranty just might be what you’re looking for. But how would you know what’s best for you?

You find a home warranty service provider, opt and pay upfront for one of their various home warranty plans, and et voila you’re secured! You already know it’s not as easy as you think. You as a consumer always strive to get the best, so obviously, your first instinct would be to research what’s the best or value for money home warranty service. Let us be of assistance, with our ratings’ timeline, reviews, and awards in one place, HomeWarrantyReviews.com

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HomeWarrantyReviews.com intends to provide you accurate information on the best home warranty options possible. If you’re unhappy with how your current home warranty has been of service to you, you could always be a part of our company resolution program. This program gives the defaulting home warranty company a chance to resolve issues faced by its consumer. Failing to do so will allow the negative review written by the consumer to be published into the public space.