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Tyler Jensen

About Tyler Jensen

Posts by Tyler Jensen:

roofing solutions technician on a ladder doing a roof inspection for a brick house

Introducing Ideal Roofing Solutions

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Ideal Partners is proud to announce the addition of Ideal Roofing Solutions to our family of services just in time for spring. You know you can expect warmer weather, more rain, plus hail and even tornadoes this time of year, so this is an important time to inspect your roof. Homeowners should be looking out for leaks, cracks, moss or other unusual spots, missing shingles, and water spots in the attic. You should also consider a more thorough inspection to prepare for the spring and summer seasons. The easiest way to get that peace of mind is by calling a professional to come and inspect your home’s roof.

When you call the pros at Ideal Roofing Solutions for a comprehensive inspection, our experienced team will check for all the items above plus hidden damage, daylight peaking through the attic, and much more. We’ll also look for small problems that can be patched up now to prevent large problems later.

If your roof is getting old, Ideal can give you a free estimate to replace it too.

Ideal Partners is excited to add roofing to our growing list of services. If you’re in need of a roofing inspection this spring, contact Ideal Partners today.

Termites Swarming in the corner of concrete

What Should I Do? Termite Swarms!

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Springtime in Texas can mean a few things: the flowers are going to bloom, you can wear short sleeves again and termites are sure to be on the move. Springtime is also the time when termite hives produce swarmers, adults that fly out from the nest and repopulate the colony. Termite swarmers aren’t very good flyers, so if you see them around, it likely means there is an infestation in a nearby tree or potentially in your home. The best way to keep these pests out of your home is to treat your home regularly, as you likely won’t notice an active infestation until significant damage has been done to your home’s interior and framework.

What to Do

If you’re seeing termite swarms outdoors, that’s okay. Termites are pretty common around North Texas and Fort Worth, so it doesn’t necessarily spell disaster. Inspect your home for termites by looking for swarmers inside your home. You can also look for wings and dirt in odd places indoors, like on doorjambs or the walls. If you’re seeing any of these signs, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with an active infestation and should seek a termite inspection and termite treatment from professional exterminators, like the experts at Ideal Partners, immediately.

Other tips include keeping outside lights off at night, removing untreated wood like firewood from around the house, and eliminating areas where standing water persists near the house to keep a swarm from being attracted to your home. Of course, nothing works as well as a professional termite treatment done on a regular basis.

Ideal Partners specializes in the extermination of termites in the home and in treatments that keep termites from moving in to begin with. If you’re noticing some of the early signs of infestation, don’t wait for more damage to be done. If you sign up for termite treatment with Ideal Partners, we offer treatment warranties starting at $199 annually and full damage warranties starting at $299 annually. Contact Ideal Partners to receive a free quote for termite treatment and termite inspection.

a pest control technician mosquito misting the yard

How did the Mosquitoes Find Me so Quickly?

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Here in Fort Worth, pest control is a necessity, not a luxury. As you’ve probably noticed, Spring is in full swing, and with that comes mosquitoes. You may be wondering: How did they find me so quickly?

It comes back to biology. Mosquitoes have evolved to be able to sense the carbon dioxide that we exhale from over 30 feet away. Even in the absence of carbon dioxide, they are still attracted to human skin, according to the National Institutes of Health.

If mosquitoes were just a nuisance, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but they’re much more than that. Mosquitoes can carry Malaria, West Nile Virus, Zika, and plenty of other dangerous diseases. This is why mosquito prevention is so important. If you’re dealing with insects, Ideal Partners has the fix for your mosquito problem.

Ideal Partners offers the best pest control Fort Worth has to offer. Ideal can eliminate the mosquitoes allowing you to enjoy your yard this summer. Our Mosquito Control Program sends a professional pest control associate to your residence to mist your yard every three weeks during peak mosquito season. These pros can also install top-of-the-line traps that keep female mosquitoes from reproducing or an automatic misting system that works even when Ideal isn’t there.

We’re here to warn you that spring is coming, and with it, Fort Worth is going to need some pest control. If you want to prevent mosquitoes from taking over your backyard, give Ideal a call. You can talk to a professional about which services are right for you and receive a free estimate.

A house roof on fire

Making a Fire Plan for Your House

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Fire safety is the name of the game in 2023, and it starts in your home. Every house should be equipped with some basic fire protection equipment like smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. While the equipment is important to have, it’s only half of the battle when it comes to being prepared for a fire. Having a plan ready in the case of a fire will help your family escape as quickly as possible and will make it easier for officials to do a headcount. Here are some quick steps you can take to make sure your family’s plan is up to the task:

Plan the Route

The National Fire Protection Association recommends that households prepare by having two possible escape routes from every room in the house. Adults in the house should know where all of the smoke detectors in the house are to be better aware of where a fire could potentially be in the house. If you aren’t sure if your fire detectors are in the optimal spots in your home, the professionals at Ideal Partners can give you a free estimate and inspect your home.

Households with children should consider drawing out the escape routes to help the children memorize the plan. Review this government checklist with your kids to make sure they know to stay low and move fast when escaping a fire. If there are infants or adults that have limited mobility, there should be someone assigned to assist them out of the house. The last, and perhaps most important, part of a good plan is to have one meeting point a safe distance from the house where someone can do a headcount.

Know Your Equipment

The NFPA does not recommend teaching children how to use a fire extinguisher. Teaching a child to use a fire extinguisher contradicts the primary objective for children in the case of a fire, which is to get out of the house immediately. Additionally, children oftentimes may not be capable of handling a fire extinguisher or determining whether a fire is small enough to be fought with an extinguisher or not. For adults, knowing how to use a fire extinguisher could be the difference between a scary situation and a full-on catastrophe. The NFPA shares a simple acronym to teach how to use a fire extinguisher:

P: Pull the pin
A: Aim low
S: Squeeze the lever
S: Sweep the nozzle from side to side

If you aren’t sure if you have the right fire extinguishing equipment in your home, or if your extinguisher hasn’t been inspected in over a year, give the professionals at Ideal a call to have your equipment inspected or replaced.

Conclusions

Planning for fire safety doesn’t have to take a long time. If you take the time to plan escape routes for everyone and learn how to fight a small fire with your home’s fire extinguisher, you can rest assured that you and your family are prepared in case of a fire. If you’re not sure if your house is ready or if you need professional advice, give the experts at Ideal a call for a free estimate.

 

2 security camera outside of a building

Is it time to upgrade your security system?

Residential Security | Commercial Security

If you’ve ever gone a few years between getting a phone and upgrading to a new one, you know just how fast technology can advance and leave older tech solutions outdated and obsolete. When it comes to security systems for your home or business, outdated technology can present your building as an easy target, rather than repelling would-be intruders.

What to look for:

There are a few things you should look for when deciding whether your security system is obsolete in the year 2023.

  1. Transition your system from hardwired devices to wireless. In the past, wires were the way that we connected security devices to a central security system. This was because it was the only way to do it, not because it was the best way. These wires can easily be cut or disabled, leaving your security system offline and in the dark as to what is going on. Switching to wireless cameras and sensors is a necessity for modern-age security systems.
  1. Do you have 24/7 accessibility? If your outdated alarm system DOES detect a problem at your home or business, typically you will receive a call from your security company to see if authorities need to be sent. If you aren’t able to monitor your property remotely, you may not know whether or not authorities are needed. With up to date security systems, you should be able to view live feed from your cameras through your smartphone and be able to control features like door locks, access control as well as live feed. With a security system like Brivo, Ideal Partners will ensure that you have access to all these features, giving you a robust and effective security response to any threat.
  1. Are your cameras even useful? How many times have you seen a picture of a suspect on the news from a grainy security camera? You can never tell anything from these videos and pictures, so what are they really helping with? If your cameras are grainy or lack night vision, they are failing your security system and should be replaced. Ideal Partners works with industry leaders like Eagle Eye Networks to supply clients with premium camera hardware with features like night vision, high resolutions, remote monitoring and AI support to detect interference like tampering.

Who to call:

If any of the above descriptions sound like your security system, you’re in luck. Call Ideal Partners today to talk with security experts about the right security upgrades and solutions for your home or business, and for a free estimate. Let the experts at Ideal make security as simple as it can be.

a technician squatted down checking the air conditioner ,measuring equipment for filling air conditioner units

Don’t Miss out on Maintenance

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As you’re getting ready for your Spring to-do list, make sure not to leave off getting your HVAC system serviced. While many homeowners don’t realize it, annual service is vital to maintaining an HVAC system and can save you money and prevent early degradation in your unit.

Is this really a big deal?

Absolutely, yes! Forgetting to get your HVAC unit can result in all sorts of things happening to your system including loss of warranty, higher electricity bills, earlier repair costs, and lower comfort in your home. Let’s dive deeper into what some of these mean for you.

Loss of warranty: Most HVAC systems come with a warranty when you purchase them. These warranties are extremely helpful when it comes to replacing parts and having repairs done on the units. However, most warranties are voided if regular maintenance is not done on the units, leaving you on the hook for expensive repairs when things eventually wear out.

Higher Bills: When you skip on maintenance, you’ll save a buck or two in the short term, but one of the biggest reasons for annual maintenance is to keep your unit running efficiently. Without routine inspections, your unit will slowly degrade and will require more electricity to do the same amount of cooling and heating. This means a higher bill at the end of the month for you.

Earlier Wear and Tear: As we mentioned earlier, skipping maintenance can lead to inefficiencies in your HVAC system. When your unit must use more electricity to heat and cool your home, it’s also having to work much harder. This means quicker wear and tear. This can be a double whammy because you haven’t had a serviceperson inspect the unit to catch any problems early, and you may have voided your warranty, leaving you to pay the difference.

Lower Comfort Levels: This may be the most important one of all of these. If you continue to skip on maintenance, eventually your unit will degrade to the point where it won’t be able to maintain your desired temperature as well as it used to. This could mean higher temperatures in the summer and colder ones in the winter, lowering your levels of comfort in your home.

The moral of this story is that HVAC maintenance is critically important to keeping your home comfortable and for increasing the lifespan of your unit. Here’s where the good news is: it’s not hard to do. If you’re interested in keeping your HVAC system going stronger for longer, give Ideal Partners a call to receive a free estimate and schedule a time for your HVAC system’s annual maintenance.

Ideal-088-B1-Carpenter-Ants-Blog

Carpenter Ants: A Home Inside Your Home

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Typically, when someone finds small, winged insects in their home, alarm bells start going off in their head, and rightfully so, but maybe not for the right reasons. Carpenter ants are commonly mistaken for termites, which can lead to time delays in professionals getting to the root of the problem.

What are they?

Let’s go ahead and clear up one thing: carpenter ants don’t eat wood. They use it to build their homes, like a carpenter would, by excavating the framing in your house and living in “galleries,” carved into the grain of the wood. You can differentiate between termites and carpenter ants in a few different ways. The biggest differences are their wings and antennae. Carpenter ants are larger than termites, and have antennae bent at a 90-degree angle, as opposed to termites’ straight antennae. Additionally, although both carpenter ants and termites have a 2nd pair of wings, they have a small difference. Both pairs of wings on a termite are the same size, however, on a carpenter ant, the second pair of wings are a smaller size.

If you don’t see many ants but are still worried about your home harboring these unwanted pests, then there are some signs you can look for. When carpenter ants are building their galleries, they kick out the wood shavings and sawdust from their new homes. An accumulation of sawdust near points of entry like windowsills, baseboards, and doorjambs can be an indication of carpenter ants at work. These areas are most attractive to them because of the likelihood of the wood there being damp.

What can I do?

If you’re thinking that your home could be host to a carpenter ant colony, it is almost always best to go ahead and call a professional. When eliminating a carpenter ant colony, it is important to kill all of them, as even just a few surviving ants can go on to rebuild and reproduce into a brand new colony.

Call Ideal Partners for a free estimate on extermination services and an inspection for a potential home hiding inside your home, or to set up an interval pest control program that will eliminate the insects before they ever have the chance to set up shop in your home.

A dirty air filter

Clearing the Air on HVAC Filtration

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Air quality is directly linked to your day-to-day health and general well-being. It is also in a literal sense directly linked to your HVAC system. Air quality is one of those things where companies will scream out their “MERV ratings” and terms like “HEPA filter,” but what does any of that mean for you, and does it actually matter?

What are the key terms?

The big one here is MERV ratings. The higher the MERV rating, the smaller the particles the filter can remove at a higher efficiency. This buying guide from HVAC Training Shop runs through some more details about MERV ratings. Ratings between 1-4 are very basic and remove basic lint and carpet fibers, but not much else. Typical residential and commercial air filters fall in the 5-8 range and block out some common pollens and dust. These are adequate, but if you suffer from allergies or have respiratory issues, it can become a problem. MERV ratings above 9 block out pet dander, mold spores, fine dust particles, and the highest ratings can even block out viruses and bacteria. Home Depot uses its own system to rate filters called FPR, which scores from 1-10 instead of 1-20.

HEPA filters are filters that are higher grade than the MERV rating system, blocking over 99.97% of particles larger than .3 microns, including bacteria and viruses. Even if installing high MERV filters in your home isn’t a feasible option, contact Ideal Partners to receive a free estimate and learn about some of the other air quality solutions they can offer. Ideal Partners serves some of the best products from companies like Trane and Active to utilize top of the line UV light technology from Active and premium filtration technology from Trane that exceeds both the MERV and HEPA qualifications.

Why is it important?

Even the White House agrees that air quality plays a huge role in overall health, and your air filter could be selling you short. Different homes and businesses have different air filtration needs, depending on what they’re filtering out. If you have pets in your home, a higher MERV rated filter is necessary to remove pet dander from the indoor air.

Higher filter settings are good for the immunocompromised and can help reduce the spread of bacterial infections and in some cases viral infections as well.

If you’re concerned about air quality in your home due to your home’s HVAC filtration system, call Ideal Partners to receive a free estimate and talk to a professional about what the best solution is for you.

smoke surrounding a smoke detector

Fifteen-Minute Fire Safety Checklist

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It takes no time at all for a fire to grow from the size of your hand to filling a room. This video shows just how a housefire can become an uncontrollable blaze. While housefires can be a terrifying thing to have to think about, Ideal Partners has a fifteen-minute checklist that you can use to identify and eliminate dangerous situations in your home where fires are most likely to occur.

Smoke Alarms

These lifesavers are hiding in plain sight, but if you don’t maintain them, they may not be there for you when you need them. Take a couple minutes to test your smoke alarms and change out the batteries in them. The batteries in smoke alarms need to be changed twice a year, so try to change them when you must change your clocks for daylight savings. The Department of Homeland Security gives recommendations on smoke alarm maintenance and more in this article.

Check your Fire Extinguishers

This one only takes minutes. Fire extinguishers need to be maintained and check at regular intervals. Check out this helpful explanation on how to inspect a fire extinguisher quickly and effectively. If you’re still not sold, check out our article on why it is important to check fire extinguishers regularly. Ideal Partners makes it easy. You can pick up a fire extinguisher from the office or schedule to have one delivered to your home.

Make a Plan

Every family or household should have a fire escape plan in place if a housefire prevents everyone from escaping together. Start by ensuring that every room has a viable rapid escape option other than the door entering the room. This could mean attaching a rope ladder to an upstairs window or replacing a closed window with one that opens fully. Next, have a place far enough away from the home to be safe to have everyone meet after escaping. This allows for an easy headcount so you can tell firefighters who is still inside and where they may be.

Mind your Appliances

Nine out of ten appliance fires start with the dryer. Check your dryer to make sure that lint isn’t built up in the filter screen and be sure to remove lint between every use. Also check your dryer to make sure that you know how many screens there are. Some newer dryers come with two lint filters, so be sure to know about your dryer.

Cooking fires are the most common types of housefires. Always be aware of what you have in cooking appliances like a microwave, oven or air fryer. Additionally, never leave something cooking on the stove while you leave the room to do other things. When cooking on an open stovetop, oil and other flammable ingredients can splash onto the cook surface and ignite, starting a fire.

Lastly, be mindful of heating appliances like space heaters. If you need to use a space heater, be sure to place it on a stable, flat and nonflammable surface like a ceramic tile and away from things like rugs, carpet and curtains.

Ideal Partners can help you be prepared for fires by installing and maintaining fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, and even residential fire sprinkler systems. If you want to ensure your home is protected, call Ideal Partners for a free estimate.

A man wrapped in a warm beige blanket drinking coffee

HVAC Struggling to Keep Up with the Cold?

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It seems like the North Texas winters keep getting colder and colder every year. Many residents are facing a common problem: their HVAC systems simply can’t keep up with the cold weather to keep their homes warm. We’ve listed some of the most common reasons a heating system can be inadequate and what can be done to fix that.

Older Systems

Older systems can come with an entire host of problems. Old systems that rely on a mechanical thermostat rely on a spring that expands and contracts depending on the temperature, which sends signals to your heating unit. These springs are more prone to fail than a modern digital thermostat.

Another issue with aged systems is that they may not be big enough. As homes age, they tend to be less efficient. More drafts from leaky windows, doors, and heat loss from insufficient insulation could all be placing more stress on your heating system than it was originally designed for.

Dirty Air Filters

Maintenance is a key component to keeping your HVAC system running at its best. Replacing dirty air filters is a vital piece of maintenance because your HVAC system is only as good as its vents. If the vents are clogged, none of the warm air generated by your HVAC system will make it into the house and this will instead place heavy stress on your system.

Another possibility related to blockages is that your air ducts need to be cleared. Over time, dust and debris can build up in your air ducts. If you can hear your system running but cannot feel air coming out of the vents despite a clean filter, call a professional to come inspect your air ducts and clear any blockages.

Leaks and Drafts

This one is related to having an older HVAC system installed. The older the home itself, the more heat loss is typically felt by the residents. Older homes tend to be less insulated, have drafts around doorways and windows, and other general gaps in the home. Getting your home reinsulated or having an AC professional come and inspect your home for drafts that can be sealed could be the key to staying warm. It’s also a great way to increase your home’s efficiency and keep your electric bill low through the winter.

If your HVAC unit is having trouble keeping up with the cold this year, call Ideal Partners for a free estimate to either replace your current unit, or have it inspected to find the source of your problem.

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