Thinking about how to prepare home for winter! Well, then this blog is definitely for you and worth considering. After all, there is a lot to look forward to during the winter season when it’s about maintaining your home. We all know that winters can be fun, however, extreme temperatures make staying safe and warm indoors quite difficult. In short, it’s absolutely indispensable to prepare your home for winter vagaries.
Potential power outages, loss of communication and icy conditions compel homeowners to be ready for winter weather well in advance. In fact, those who take notice of this and are conscious to make some adjustments undoubtedly protect themselves and their property from hazards. So, let us try to elucidate how you can do this and what important measures you need to take.
Understand How To Prepare Home For Winter
Meteorologists are well aware of the changing climate patterns and understand how unpredictable they can be! Meanwhile, there are innumerable ways and methods homeowners can adopt to protect themselves and their homes for winter. For this reason, we are sharing the best eight tips you can consider for dealing with the cold months on the way.
1. Insulating Your Home
For optimal comfort and energy efficiency, insulating your home can help keep things in balance. This will ensure that you maintain an ideal hot and cold temperature inside your place. On the other hand, re-insulating your attic, crawl space, walls and old floors is another good option. It can help you decrease the outdoor noise, reduce allergens, pests as well as control humidity.
2. Installing Weather-Strip Doors And Windows
It’s not possible to stay warm during winter if chilly winds keep entering your place. Therefore, sealing these air leaks around the windows and doors can surely help. It further ensures that the cold air keeps out of your living spaces and warm air doesn’t escape. To point out, there are a number of options you can consider like stripping tape, nail-on, adhesives or foam. These can fill the gaps and stop the cold wind from entering your home.
3. Winterizing Your Plumbing
A broken pipe in the winters is the last thing you want. In fact, these can be quite dangerous as they can engender structural damage in a matter of time. Therefore, it’s always good to winterize the water lines in order to prepare for the winter season. Make sure you turn off the main water valve before you shut down the water heater and pump. That’s because it’s possible for water to get trapped inside the pipes and freeze at the same time. Besides that, you can also use compressors, hot tanks, tub drains and toilet tanks. If you apply antifreeze to these items, it can ultimately prevent water from freezing and cracking the pipeline.
4. Repairing The Roof
Another important thing to take notice of is a damaged roof. That is to say, check if your roof has any leaks in the fall before the winter storm arrives. After all, water or cold air seeping in from the roof is the last thing you want to worry about. They can prove extremely detrimental to the walls and ceilings of your home. It must be remembered that different roof types have varying lifespans. If your roof has already reached half its lifetime, you should think about professional maintenance services. Likewise, inspecting the gutters is equally important. Make sure you clear all the debris from your roof gutters as it can weigh down the roof.
5. Setting Your Thermostat
If you want to cut down your heating and cooling costs, investing in a smart thermostat for your home is the right thing to do. Thermostats are efficient in learning your household’s patterns and ideal temperature preferences. Thus they automatically adjust to your home’s occupancy. If you roll back the temperature by 7 Degree to 10 degree Fahrenheit, you can easily save up to 10% annually. Remember, these are some ingenious tips to consider when you are planning about how to prepare home for Winter.
6. Trimming Away The Branches
Remember, a single major winter storm can make big branches of a tree fall on your house. Therefore, you should take serious precautions and do the necessary to prevent any damage. Pruning your trees is the best way to avoid damaging your property. Another important thing to remember is that you should hire an arborist for the job. A professional will help you remove all the dead or hazardous tree branches hanging over your roof. Moreover, you should never try to remove a tree from your property yourself. This can indeed result in various forms of injuries and can be quite dangerous.
7. Inspecting Your Chimneys
Houses that have fireplaces must take precautions in order to prepare their chimneys for winters. According to a report, fireplaces and chimneys can cause 29% of house fires in a year. In fact, most of these fires are caused by the creosote build-up in the chimneys. It’s flammable and a byproduct of burning logs. It’s also recommended that you should inspect the chimneys and fireplaces at your home before the winters. Cleaning out any residual soot is equally important from the fireplace.
8. Creating An Emergency Kit
Another wise thing to do is creating an emergency kit at your home. In other words, you should keep some essential items around the house that can be used whenever needed. It’s hard to ascertain how long a power outage would last! So these are essential as they will help you keep safe indoors.
These include:
- Extra blankets, socks, mittens and gloves.
- Radio for winter weather updates (Battery powered).
- Portable phone charger.
- Extra batteries.
- First aid kit.
- A generator.
- A shovel.
- Water jugs.
Takeaway
It’s always necessary to prepare your home for winters and make all the necessary repairs. After all, winter weather can surely be unpredictable. Heavy snowfall is very much likely to put life out of gear for anyone. Hence, it’s imperative that you make every possible effort to endure these harsh winter conditions. To summarize, we can say that it will also prevent any damage and costly repairs in the future.
ProEdge Property offers comprehensive property management services in Auckland, NZ. You can get in touch with us to know more about how we can help you in such conditions. We have a team of experienced and reliable professionals who can fix each and every kind of maintenance issue at your home. You can also visit us directly to get a detailed plan for your property management at 9c Sharkey Street, Manukau, Auckland.
