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When you own a home, there’s always something to do. And for many homeowners time, family commitments and age can make it hard to keep up with those oh-so-necessary maintenance chores. And poor maintenance can affect not only your quality of life, but it can also affect the value of your most important asset — your home.
That’s where American Healthy Homes steps in. The East Longmeadow-based company specializes in home maintenance and home management projects.
According to owner Michael Sacenti, American Healthy Homes is committed to making homes “Safer, Healthier and More Efficient … Naturally!”
After a 34-year career in commercial real estate, Sacenti said he started his home maintenance business 16 years ago when he joined Green Home Solutions, a franchise offering an all-natural process to remove mold from basements and other areas of the home.
Sacenti said his experience with the impact of indoor air quality on the occupants in commercial buildings had prompted him to focus on the effect indoor air quality had on the well-being of individual homeowners, “I thought it would be welcomed by health-conscious people,” Sacenti said of the first iteration of his business, which assisted homeowners throughout the 413-area code with mold remediation and odor removal.
The all-natural, two-product treatment for mold and odor remediation proved to be a much-needed service by many area homeowners, especially as the coronavirus pandemic brought attention to indoor air quality. But over the years Sacenti said he found many of his mold remediation customers also had other needs — from junk removal to small and large home maintenance jobs.
In 2020 he founded American Healthy Homes, adding the services he found customers wanted and needed to his existing mold remediation business.
“Coming from a customer service background, I was getting requests from customers to do junk removal, and I decided, if I’m in the customer service business, I should start removing junk,” Sacenti said. “That has led us to providing our newest services, which are a preventative home maintenance program, handyman services and home management services, primarily for snowbirds and people who have second homes in Western Massachusetts.”
American Healthy Homes handyman services can include nearly any type of basic home repair or chore, from installing or changing out a smoke detector to repairing or replacing a faucet or electrical outlet to installing weatherstripping to deck and fence repairs. Outdoor services such as gutter cleaning, power washing homes and decks, and even furniture or playscape assembly, shelvingor picture installations and setting up exercise equipment are services American Healthy Homes can provide to homeowners.
American Healthy Homes preventative home maintenance services — a program that provides four seasonal visits a year — is designed to help busy families or elders aging in place make sure annual home maintenance chores are performed on a regular schedule to prevent damage and costly repairs.
“We are doing between six and 10 different things each visit,” Sacenti said. The chores are geared to the season — with checks on air conditioning, sprinkler systems, sump pumps and garage door inspections in the spring, checking gutters and drainage, changing smoke detector batteries and draining hot water heaters in the summer, draining and closing out outdoor water supplies, inspecting and repairing caulking and cleaning gutters in the fall, and inspecting and maintaining humidifier systems, checking for potential winter tree hazards, changing smoke detector batteries in the winter. Changing out HVAC filters and fogging areas of the home prone to mold and bacteria are also part of American Healthy Homes’ seasonal maintenance chores.
As part of the preventative home maintenance program, Sacenti’s team also makes sure that all shut-offs — water, electricity and so on — are clearly marked for the homeowner and they know what to do in the case of an emergency.
Sacenti said for elder homeowners, his handyman and home maintenance services can help relieve the burden on adult children who are trying to help parents age in place.
“Usually, it’s the son or daughter who gets a call … ‘Can you do this? Can you do that?’ … and time-strapped people may not be able to drop what they are doing and go to mom’s house and take care of things,” he said.
Certified as an aging-in-place specialist by the National Association of Homebuilders, Sacenti said his team can also make sure all the proper equipment is installed for safe aging-in-place. American Healthy Homes can “make sure the grab rails are there, make sure there is fall protection, make sure that if ramps are needed, they are installed — all of the things that people need so that they can stay in the family home for as long as possible.”
The newest service American Healthy Homes now offers is in the area of home management — something Sacenti said can give peace of mind to individuals who maintain second homes in the 413 area, and to “snowbird” homeowners who winter in warmer climes. Those services can be anything from routine property checks to snow removal throughout the winter season to emergency repairs following a storm, or a pipe break. He gave an example of a routine property management visit.
“When [clients] leave to go to their second home, we would take care of their residence here for them,” Sacenti explained. “When we go into the home, we will run all the water — faucets, toilets, dishwasher and the water in the refrigerator — because those plastic lines can freeze really easily — check the hot water tank, check the thermostat to make sure it’s set properly to conserve energy and do an inspection to see if any other damage has occurred.”
If the inspection uncovers a situation that needs attention, Sacenti said he has a list of skilled and trusted specialists he can send out to make the appropriate repairs.
“We have vendors we can refer out, like snow removal, major plumbing projects, major electrical projects, siding, roofing and emergency services,” he shared.
“We’re in the customer service business,” Sacenti said of the wide range of services American Healthy Homes now offers to homeowners throughout the 413-area code.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTHY HOMES, VISIT AMERICANHEALTHYHOMES.COM.