Home appliances help wash clothes, cook meals, heat and cool homes, and make coffee.

As much as you depend on your appliances to help with daily tasks around the house, you need to give them a little TLC every now and then to ensure they keep functioning optimally.

How do you do this?

Here are tricks given by appliance repair professionals:

Don’t overload your washing machine

With just a few simple maintenance tips, your washing machine will keep your clothes clean for years. First, don’t load it up too much because that will make the motor work harder.

At the same time, please don’t use the washer with only a few items in it. This is because this can throw the machine off balance and put stress on its drive, increasing the chances of it getting damaged.

You should load your appliance with just the right amount of clothes.

While at it, ensure you use the right type and amount of detergent. Don’t use too much detergent because too many suds can make the washer work too hard, which increases its chances of getting damaged.

Keep the refrigerator coils clean.

Even though keeping a refrigerator neat is important to make sure it cools its contents evenly, if you want to make it last longer, all you have to do is clean its condenser coils.

The refrigerant is cooled and condensed by coils found under the fridge behind a plastic grate or on the back of the refrigerator.

When these coils are full of dust, hair, and other junk, they also can’t release heat. This makes the condenser work harder to cool the inside of the fridge.

To avoid this, clean the coils in your fridge at least once a year. The best way to do this is by using a soft brush attachment on your vacuum.

Clean the dishwasher filter.

Did you know your dishwasher has a filter at the bottom that should be cleaned about once every six months?

Yes, it has, and you need to clean it. If you don’t want your dishwasher to smell bad. Failing to clean the filter also means that your glasses will be cloudy, and you don’t want this, do you?

To access the filter, you need to slide the bottom rack out and then turn it counterclockwise to take it out. Wash it in the sink and put it back together.

To reduce the gunk that gets to the filter, make it a habit to rinse the dishes before putting them in and only run the dishwasher when it’s full.

Delint your dryer

Even if cleaning a dryer vent of a year’s worth of lint isn’t your idea of a fun afternoon, you shouldn’t skip this once-a-year job.

If your dryer’s exhaust vent is clogged, the dryer has to work harder to dry your clothes. This puts stress on the motor and shortens the dryer’s life. Also, a buildup of dryer lint makes a fire more likely to start.

To keep the dryer in top shape, move the dryer away from the wall and remove the vent. Remove any lint that might have built up in the dryer vent and hose, and then put it back together.

Remove spills from your oven.

The range/oven is the workhorse of your kitchen. It gets a lot of use and gets beat up by spills, heavy cookware, and high heat. The best thing you can do for your kitchen’s heart is to keep it clean.

Whenever spills happen, clean them right away because they may be hard to get off the cooktop once they have burned. If your oven can clean itself, use it every few months to keep burned food from sticking to the walls.

Dedust the dehumidifier

Like other appliances that heat or cool air, ensuring good airflow around your dehumidifier means not blocking its intake or outlet.

If you use the filter often, you should change or clean it every few months.

Since dust, hair, and other things can get stuck in the coils, you should clean them once a year to ensure the dehumidifier works right.

You can do the cleaning yourself or let an experienced commercial appliance repair Alexandria professional do it.