Clean Your Windows, See Life... Clearly
Imagine yourself sitting in your favorite chair, a good book in your hands, steam from a fresh cup of tea curling up through rays of sunshine streaming into your house. Life is good. The sunlight illuminates and enlivens your living space like no electric light ever could. According to the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, a system of interior design to optimize energy flow, the sun is one of the most powerful sources of chi, or lifeforce, and the sunlight streaming through your clear and unobstructed windows brings chi into home.
Dirty windows can block up to 40% of sunlight, choking off energy into your home. What your life might be like with 40% more energy flowing into it?
Feng Shui is built on the principle of universal self-similarity, and each part of your house has it’s corresponding part of the body. The windows, for example, represent the eyes and mouth of its inhabitants: the passageways energy comes into and out of the house. In life, this can translate to the clarity with which you see and communicate in the world. In the same way that deep cleaning your refrigerator or bathroom can somehow leave you feeling energized and lighter, cleaning your windows can help your ability to communicate with others, and clarify your perception of situations and decisions, and clear the way for your inspiration to shine forth.
It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul, and according to feng shui the windows of your house are the eyes of your house. Keep them bright and shining!
The Simple Maintenance That Could Save Your House and Your Bills
There’s a joke that all the parts of the body were having a discussion over who was the most important. The mouth speaks up first (naturally) “Clearly I am the most important! Without me, none of you would get any food to keep working!”
The heart jumps into the conversation “Well, without me, you’d all be dead in 5 minutes!”
And then the brain with an air of evolutionary self-importance, “I am certainly the most important, without me none of you would know what or when to do anything!”
And the all the parts of the body start arguing and bickering back and forth until finally, in the midst of the din, one small voice pipes up. They all pause and look. It’s the colon! “Um… um.. Excuse me, but I’m the most important”
All the rest of the body parts laugh and laugh and continue their argument. And the colon just shuts itself right up. And slowly, it starts to get a little stinky. And it gets a little worse. And Worse. All the nasty garbage and waste start piling up everywhere until finally all the parts of the body can no longer stand it and finally come to the unanimous agreement that yes indeed the Colon is certainly the most important part of the body, now would you please open up and let us all breathe!
Which just goes to show, you don’t’ need to be smart or loud to get what you want… just an ass.
Why are we at clear skies telling you stupid jokes?
Because there is a deeper moral of the story:
Keep Your Exhaust Pipes Clean.
What does this mean for your house? A clogged toilet is unlikely destroy your house. A clogged DRYER VENT, however….
Over 15,600 house fires are caused by dryers. 15,600!!!! The primary source of the fire? You probably guessed it, clogged dryer vents. Lint and debris can build up in the exhaust pipe, heat up from the air discharged by the dryer and eventually ignite into house fire. The lint trap is easy, you can pop it open and see for yourself. If it’s full of lint, you take it out. But really, how often have you gone to the outside of your house, climbed over that bush or up a ladder, pulled off the screen to your dryer exhaust and swabbed out the dryer vent? Probably not too often. Maybe it’s worth checking.
Fortunately there’s a few signs that can help clue you in to the inner workings of your dryer’s bowels. The best clue is if it begins taking longer and longer to dry your clothes. Clothes outside the dryer might be getting hot. Or you may notice a burning smell.
And really, you should get it cleaned out at least once a year as part of your basic house maintenance.
AND, not only do you easily mitigate a potentially catastrophic fire hazard, you improve the efficiency of your home. You lower the stress put on the dryer and increase it’s service life. You lower your power bill. You lessen the dryer time. All with one simple service!
And it’s easy to add this valuable service to your window cleaning or pressure washing! Call Today for a free estimate!
The Moral Impetus of a Clean Gutter
Here at Clear Skies, we spend a lot of time around a lot of different gutters, and, well, the mind wanders…
Ever stop and really consider the phrase “keep your mind out of the gutter?” Why do we have such a phrase in our language? What is this linguistic connection we make between gutters and unsavory thoughts?
The answer? Well, obviously, it’s because gutters can be pretty gross, not a really great place to hang out, and filled with all sorts of half-rotten debris of a dubious nature. Once your mind starts sloshing around in the muck, one thing leads to another, and suddenly may find yourself nowhere your mother would approve of, covered in slime of one form or another, or even living with rats in a nest of twigs and moldy leaves. <shudder>
Now what are these crazy Clear Skies guys rambling about, you may be asking?
Let’s take this back to it’s source, to the gutter itself, and what it means for your house. Really, gutters are only nasty if they aren’t properly cleaned and maintained. If they’re smoothly channeling water to the proper places, there’s no problem. It’s the CLOGGING that makes gutters notorious. And just like a mind in a gutter can lead to all sorts of who-knows-what-kind-of-consequences, a clogged gutter on your house can equally lead to some very distressing and expensive consequences, especially in a wet climate like we have here in the Pacific Northwest. For example:
Rotting Wood - The trapped water can begin rotting wood at the edge of the roof and slowly work it’s way up. Yikes! Check roofing rates lately?
Mold and Mildew - If the water can’t be channeled away, it can create a haven for mold and mildew to gain a foothold under your roof and then spread into your house and render entire rooms uninhabitable. Mold is notoriously difficult to get rid of!
Sagging Gutters - The weight of debris and water can stress the fasteners and pull the gutters right off the house!
Water Stains - Water may overflow down the sides of the house, creating brownish stains down the side of the house, requiring special cleaning or repainting.
Overflow Damage - No longer being channeled down to drains, the water can spill over to the base of the house, drowning gardens, destroying landscaping, or even getting into your foundation (now there’s an EXPENSIVE consequence!)
Just like mindfulness of your thoughts is critical for leading a healthy life, mindfulness of your gutters is CRUCIAL for the health of your house. Waiting for something to go wrong before cleaning is a bit like waiting for a heart attack to start eating well. Be pro-active and keep your house happy! Attentive, regular cleaning could save you THOUSANDS of dollars in unintentional consequences.
Schedule a cleaning today!
Spring Is Here!
Time to open the windows, clean the carpets, take care of the pile in the garage, get back out in the garden! The change of seasons from Winter to Spring carries with it such an energizing, revitalizing feeling, along with a strange, almost genetic impulse to clean out the stuffiness of the winter spent indoors.
But some kinds of scuziness just can’t be tidied up and reorganized. Some kinds of dirt are are tough, weather hardened, and no amount of elbow grease can get it out. That slimy film on your deck? Moss and grime built up in your driveway while you were cozy and indoors? Patio furniture looking like the leftovers from a musty garage sale?
What to do with this difficult outdoor grime?
This is clearly a job for….
Pressure Washing!
Our special high pressure cleaning system blasts these tough guys as easy as dusting off a shelf, leaving the clean, original beauty of your outdoors to shining out into our glorious spring weather! Call today for a free estimate!
Clean Your Clean Energy
If you’ve made the investment in Solar Panels, you’re already a HERO. Sustainability and Clean Energy are core values to us here at Clear Skies, and we want to help you get the most out of your investment. And we can help you help the planet with our special solar panel cleaning service. A build up of dirt, mildew, pollen, and plant debris can reduce your panel efficiency up to 25%! It’s like driving a car with 3 wheels. Keep your solar panels at optimal performance and get a cleaning today!