New Year, New Batteries, New Water Filters

New year, new batteries, new water filters.

There are lots of things you can do on New Year’s day.   Consider going for a nature walk, starting (or finishing) a project, park in front of the TV and watch football, etc.  I started a tradition a few years ago that I wanted to share with everyone else.

Do things that are time sensitive. What kind of things?  How about changing water filters and batteries?  How many of these need to be changed depends on your circumstances.  Do you have any or all of these?

  • whole house water filter
  • a reverse osmosis system
  • a filtered water pitcher
  • smoke detectors
  • CO2 detectors
  • others?

How often are changes required? That depends on the item.  Some only require a change once a year, some may need a change monthly, bimonthly or on some other schedule.  For example, most reverse osmosis filters only need to be changed once a year, but the filter in my water pitcher needs to be changed bimonthly.

Smoke detector batteries need to be changed annually. The conventional advice has been to change smoke detector batteries twice a year.  I don’t believe it’s necessary to do it that often.  Modern batteries have a very long shelf life.  In fact, I could never bring my self to schedule it for twice a year, so it never used to get done on a schedule at all.

Startled from sleep by a shrieking smoke detector at 3:00 am is not the best time to deal with maintenance! I didn’t need to learn that lesson too many times before I decided to get it on a schedule.

The easiest schedule to remember is January 1. New year, new batteries, new water filters.  Give it a try.  You may decide to make this your tradition too.  Let me know how it works out for you.

4 thoughts on “New Year, New Batteries, New Water Filters

  1. When I first read the comment, I thought “that’s silly.” A quick Google search shows it’s true. So radioactive smoke detector parts are just something else to watch out for. Thanks Sophie!

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