It’s exciting when you get your brand new e-cigarette, and the first thing you want to do is rip open the packaging, tear out the contents, screw it all together and get puffing. However, before you start tearing into that box and starting your new adventure, there are a few things that you should be aware of.

E-cigarette maintenance is important to ensure that you get the longest possible life out of your new ecig. If you don’t take care of it properly, it’s going to break, burn out, or become faulty. To keep your new e-cig in tip-top condition, make sure that you do these:

1 - Charge your battery properly.

By this we mean charging it only when it is dead. Well, as much as you can anyway.

It can be tempting to plug your battery into the charger when it’s almost dead but the reality is that you could be shortening your battery’s life. When you plug it in when it still has 15-20% battery left each time, it’ll forget all about that little capacity it still has and you’ll start to only get 80-85% out of it. It works the same if you always plug it in when it is still 40% full - eventually, after repeated patterns, it will forget that it has 100% battery, and think it is fully charged at just 60%.

Try to make sure your battery is dead and it is flashing dead before you plug it in. Doing it once or twice won’t hurt, but if you do it all the time, you’ll be replacing your e-cig batteries unnecessarily.

2 - Keep it clean.

Occasionally you may need to give your e-cigarette a wipe down, and if you’re finding that your e-cig is starting to taste funny even though you’ve been using that liquid for ages and it’s never tasted like that before, you might need to give it a clean.

With a Q-Tip dipped in luke-warm water and shaken off, wipe around the threading where the cartridge would meet the battery. All sorts of gunk can get stuck here from dripped e-liquid to pocket fluff. You might find that you aren’t getting a consistent inhale if the threading has become clogged up, and this is because the connections of the battery can’t meet as they need to because of the gunk getting in the way.

With tanks, you can replace the central atomizer and if things are started to taste bad or you’re getting what appears to be a very ‘dirty’ inhale, ordering new ones isn’t a bad idea.

The tanks themselves can be carefully wiped out using a damp q-tip. Make sure that you clean down the mouthpiece and the threading too!

You might also want to check that the threading in the USB charger isn’t filled with gunk if you’re having charging-problems.

Whatever you do, don't submerge your e-cigarette in water. Think about it - the battery provides electricity. Electricity plus water is NEVER a good combination.

3 - Replace bits occasionally.

You can’t expect a battery to last forever. Even the best e-cigarette brands have said that their batteries can be charged a maximum of 300 times. Some batteries won’t even make it that far.

You can re-use a cartridge between 5-10 times before it needs to be replaced. Eventually the centre atomizer will burn out, or the filler material will become so brittle from the constant moistening and drying-out that you’re doing when you smoke with it, that it won’t be able to hold any liquid anymore. It will drip out the bottom and bubble up into your mouth. It needs to be replaced.

Very occasionally will you find that you need to replace a charger, but the personal charging cases have a shelf life too - remember that you are charging and using this just as you would your e-cigarette so after a while, this will need replacing too.

Of course, on top of this, new technology will come out so e-cigarette components will become new and improved. Thats what we love so most about the brands like V2 Cigs. They have evolved with the needs of the average e-cigarette user to provide a tank-style e-cigarette in a slimline, classic, two-piece style. The great new and innovative brand, Halo Cigs, have also solved suit with their G6 and Triton Tank models being interchangeable!

Remember that many of our discount codes can be used if you’re a repeat customer, so you can save money on all your e-cig necessities!

4 - Blow it out!

After you’ve refilled your tank or cartridge, give it a moment to settle down before you try and use it again. It’s also worth shaking out the e-cig or blowing it out before you try and use it too. If there’s any e-liquid stuck in the chamber, it won’t bubble up into your mouth or into the battery.

5 - Take care of it.

If you throw your e-cigarette around, chuck it in the bottom of your handbag, or kick it halfway down the street (Ooops! Totally by accident!), it’s going to break. If you mistreat it, it won’t last as long as you want it to. If you drop it, bump it, bang it, or smack it, it’s not going to work like you want it to.

An e-cigarette contains a delicate electrical system that turns a liquid into a vapor. Those delicate pieces won’t take much to move out of place and once it has done, it doesn’t work quite as well as it did before.

If you take care of your e-cigarette, your e-cigarette will take care of you. Because we review so many, we all have a few that we tend to rotate so one week I’ll be using the Halo Triton Tank and the G6 together, and the next week I’ll be using South Beach Smoke and Eversmoke. We all have our favorites that we come back to, time and time again.

We’ve had the same e-cigarette tanks, cartridges and batteries for as much as over a year later in some cases with the best rated brands. VaporFi is one that tends to last the different, for example.

It just goes to show how cheap these can be once you get your teeth into them!