Winter checklist for your home

How to prepare your home for winter. And what additional steps you might want to take in a pandemic

 

What are some good things to do?

1) Make sure your furnace is in good working order. Contact a furnace professional for a furnace cleaning and tune-up. This will give you peace of mind and improve the efficiency of the furnace. In other words, save you money! Also, make sure you change your filter every month.

2) Remove your outside hoses and bleed your values to your outside faucets. There will be a bleed valve in your basement but first turn off the water to the faucet and leave the faucet outside in the open position. Then bleed the line by opening the valve and have a small bucket to catch the water.

3) Clean your gutter once all the leaves have fallen. This will help prevent ice dams and protect your roof and landscaping from water overflowing the gutters.

4) Check to make sure your fireplaces are in working order. Turn on the pilot and test your gas fireplaces. For wood burners check your flue to make sure it is open, and it would not hurt to have your chimney cleaned if it has not been done for a while. Also make sure your chimney cap is in good repair and positioned properly.

5) Clean the outside of your windows…it will soon be too cold to do it again until next spring.

6) Put a covering on your AC unit, but just on the top and halfway down the side. Turn off breaker to your AC unit.

7) Good time to organize your garage and make sure your snowblower is tested and ready to go. Also check the condition of your shovels and buy safe salt for your sidewalk and driveway. Good to do before the first storm when everyone is trying to buy it.

8) Do the last fertilization of your lawn. This will help give you a better-looking law in the spring. Fertilizing in the spring puts extra stress on the grass.

9) This year we will not be going out like we normally do because of the pandemic. So, stock up on water and food staples. Since we are now starting to see the second wave have masks, hand sanitizer and hand wipes in reserve.

10) We are all spending more time at home during the pandemic and are using more electricity. Good time to buy LED lights for throughout the house to save you money. The expense could be paid back in one winter season.

11) Check out your water heater to see that it is not leaking. They have a habit of failing at the worst times, like Christmas for me! In some cases, you only must replace a heater element in them, like the Marathon brand, and not the entire water heater.

Hope you found the winter checklist for your home helpful. Call with any questions you might have on the items I have mentioned. Look for more articles and videos in the future on different aspects of real estate.

Real estate is a wonderful investment in, so we are wise to properly maintain our home!

Jeff Anderson The Anderson Team RE/MAX Results

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