Taking the time to do regular home maintenance adds up to a greener lifestyle. By doing a little more research every time you need to replace, repair, redecorate, remodel, or renovate, you can make a difference. All of that is a part of maintenance, which is super important around our homes. Maintaining your home is one of the greenest things that you can do. Maintenance preserves the life of things, so the more routine maintenance you do around the home, the longer things will last. And the longer things last, the fewer things end up in the trash or the recycling bin.  I’m Marla, the Green Home Coach, and today, I would like to talk to you about spring maintenance.  My friend, Tina Gleisner, from Home Tips for Women, is my maintenance go-to. She collaborated with me on the chapter about maintenance in my book, Living Green Effortlessly- Simple Choices for a Better Home. For today, I pulled an episode out of the archives where Tina and I talk about spring maintenance.  Tina knows how to rock out maintenance with her three-tiered approach, so be sure to listen in today and get ready for some super home maintenance! Enjoy the episode! The most important point The most important point to remember about taking care of your home is that you are the chief home organizer. That means that you do not have to do everything yourself. Your number one priority is to see that all the important things get done. Critical jobs Some critical jobs need to get done in a home that we do not have the tools or the experience to do. So we should not even attempt to do these things. Spring maintenance The focus of this podcast is on spring maintenance because spring is a great time to do several things outside of your home. Many of those things will require the assistance of an expert. Organizing your checklist It is always best to start by inspecting things around your home. Then, make a list of all the things that need to be maintained or repaired.  Planning Planning what you intend to do and who you will hire to help you can minimize the costs of your ongoing home maintenance and repairs in the long run. Checking the roof If you are uncomfortable on a ladder or if there is a chance that you could fall, do not go up onto the roof yourself. To check your roof, stand back and take some photos of it with your phone. Then, go to your computer and blow the pics up to see all the details. You can save them so that you can use them again the next year to see if anything on the roof has changed.  New roofs If you do some spot-checking every year, for the first ten years, without actually going up there, that will be sufficient for most new roofs. If you live on the coast or in an area with harsh weather all the time, your roof will not last as long as it would in an inland area with mild weather. National Women In Roofing An organization called National Women In Roofing will help you better understand all the different classes of roof shingles, explain what your roofing insurance will and will not cover, and answer any questions that you might have. Hidden damage If you need a new roof, it is never a good idea to put a second layer of roofing shingles on top of what you already have because there may be hidden damage to the plywood underneath the shingles. A tip for recycling old roof shingles Many communities have a Roof to Roads program where they recycle asphalt shingles to use for building roads. So, if you are removing an old roof, look into recycling the old shingles. Protecting the wood and checking for wood-rot If you can catch a problem early, it could save you a lot of money and effort in the future. So check the wood around your windows and doors, and any decking or other wooden trim around the house, for signs of wood rot that might be starting. If you find anything, it can quite easily be sanded and painted to protect the wood and prevent any deterioration. The two biggest problem areas The two biggest problem areas for wood-rot are the window-