Ensure Your House Is Ready for Winter

Even though it may not seem urgent or important to start thinking about winter preparations right now, doing so will help you ensure that your house is ready for fall and winter. Create a plan for securing your property and prepping your home if your region has hard winters so you can relax when the first unexpected freeze occurs.

You can take certain actions that might minimize your energy costs by improving the seal against freezing temperatures. In order to save your home from getting damaged, you might also need to perform some fireplace and Local Chimney Cleaning San Lorenzo maintenance. Hire an HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) contractor before winter arrives to check that your boiler or furnace is running safely. If you use your wood-burning fireplace more than six times a year, you should have a licensed chimney sweep professionally clean and check it once a year. Otherwise, soot and creosote buildup could catch fire. A three-year checkup is adequate if your fireplace uses gas, which burns cleaner than wood and is nearly never used.

Check your property for branches that are growing over any power lines, the garage, the driveway, or the home. Those could fall during a storm and do significant damage. Branches rubbing against one another may also break. Additionally, keep an eye out for evidence of dead limbs, such as dead leaves that hold on even after the rest of the tree has shed its leaves, smooth patches where the bark has fallen off, or regions where mushrooms have developed.

There are steps you may take to prevent these things from happening if ice dams caused a backup of meltwater in your home last year or if you had a lot of icicles around your property. A difference in temperature between the roof and the eaves, brought on by air leaking out of the house, is what leads to ice dams and icicles. It may be necessary to seal the chimney flashing or add more attic insulation.

When leaves clog gutters, the waste can freeze into a large, ice mass that could penetrate shingles and harm the roof. Grab a sturdy ladder and a pair of work gloves, then clear the debris so that water can drain. Make careful to clean up the leaves from your gutters this fall and fix any damage you uncover. The gutter’s fit against the house may need to be tightened. Although a leaf blower helps speed up the process, you might still need to use your hands to complete it.

Remove any remaining water from an outside sprinkler system before the first freeze to prevent it from expanding and cracking the pipes. The water should be blown out using compressed air by an irrigation contractor, which is your best option.

Consult the manufacturer’s website if you’d rather give it a try yourself. Generally, the procedure entails turning off the water supply before opening the drain valves at the lowest point of the irrigation system, which is typically in the basement, to let the water drain.

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