March in Polk County

Detectors are the one system in your house where "it looks fine" means nothing — the sensor inside degrades on its own schedule regardless of how clean the outside is.

Every tank water heater dies the same way eventually: the tank rusts through from the inside and lets go — sometimes a seep, sometimes 50 gallons at once with the cold supply cheerfully refilling behind it.

Water heaters ship set by a factory that has never met your household.

Every bedroom is required to have an escape-sized window for one reason: in a fire, the hallway you'd normally use is where the smoke goes first.

GFCI outlets — the ones with TEST and RESET buttons — protect every spot where electricity and water share a room: kitchen, bathrooms, garage, outside, and anything near a sink.

Every valve in your plumbing has one job: close when you need it to.

Your gutters can be spotless and still ruin your foundation if the downspouts fire all that roof water straight down at the base of the wall.

Mulch is great for plants and terrible pressed against a house: it holds moisture against the foundation and it IS food, piled where the diners live.

Your sump pump is the appliance version of a smoke detector: it does nothing 360 days a year, and then one night it's the only thing standing between your basement and the water table.

Your house exhales through a handful of holes in its walls — dryer vent, bathroom fans, range hood, gable and soffit vents — and every one ships with a cheap plastic door that's supposed to swing shut when the air stops.

Your garage door is the heaviest moving object in the house and likely its real front door.

First, the honest gate: if your fridge has no water dispenser and no ice maker, close this card — it's not for your house, and no appliance tech should ever sell you otherwise.