7 Tips To Prepare Your Home For Winter
Although the season's cool temps and colorful leaves are nice, they also mean that winter will be arriving soon. Are you ready for it? By completing these Fall tasks, you can guard your home against cold-weather issues as well as even make spring maintenance a lot easier as well.
1 - CLEAR GUTTERS
While fall leaves can be beautiful, they can also build-up in your gutters quickly making good drainage difficult as well as the possibility of more problems when winter arrives. To clear your gutters, remove any buildup you see, then use a garden hose to flush the gutter or a bucket of water to check the flow. Taking time to clear your gutters now can help prevent overflow from happening, which gives you one less potential problem to worry about during the winter.
2 - INSPECT YOUR FURNACE
You know winter is on its way, so we suggest looking at your furnace before you actually need heat. Many experts recommend the filter in your furnace to be replaced every few months. You can also include checking the pilot light and thermostat, as well as opening heating vents to make sure everything is working safely. If you don’t feel comfortable doing these things yourself, contact a licensed and certified HVAC professional to come inspect your furnace.
3 - CHANGE SMOKE ALARM BATTERIES
Don't wait for the low-battery chirp to tell you to check the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your home. It's recommended that you test smoke detectors once a month as well as replacing the batteries every six months. Add this task to your Fall (and Spring) checklist to ensure your home and family's safety. One idea is to do this twice a year at the same time you change your clocks for daylight savings.
4 - CAULK WINDOWS
To prevent heat from escaping, you can caulk around windows and doorframes in your home.Caulking and sealing openings is one of the least expensive maintenance jobs you can do and it can make a difference on your heating bill too!
5 - DISCONNECT OUTSIDE HOSES
This is an easy task that is often overlooked, but it can cause major problems once freezing temps take hold. Make sure to disconnect hoses from all the outside faucets on your home, drain them and then store away to prevent them from being harmed by the cold winter weather. If you don’t disconnect the hoses, it could not only damage the hose, but even worse, it can damage the water line connection to your house and make for repairs or replacement to be done.
6 - INSPECT THE ROOF
Make sure the roof is in good shape by checking for loose or missing shingles. Snow, wind, rain and ice along with temperatures rapidly can wreak havoc on roofs. Being proactive and dealing with roof upkeep and repair in the Fall is a lot better than discovering your roof is leaking during a snowstorm.
7 - REVERSE CEILING FANS
By changing the direction of a ceiling fan it creates an upward draft that redistributes warm air from the ceiling.
Nov 11th 2016
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