Home Maintenance to Keep Your Home Cozy During the Winter

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Winter for most people means hot chocolate, warm family gatherings, and staying nice and cozy during the cold winter weather. However, if you haven’t done the proper home maintenance, you may not be as warm as you think. Doing some routine maintenance before the winter months arrive will help you stay safe and not standing out in the cold waiting for repairs to get done.

1. Before the cold hits, you may want to make sure your home is properly sealed. You can do this by taking out any old caulking around the windows outside and applying new caulking. This will give you a water tight seal around your windows, as well as keep the cold air out and the warm air in. You can also change out the weather stripping around doors, including the door to your attic and garage. This is a very inexpensive and quick way to keep your home sealed against the cool weather.
2. Something else you can do to get a perfect seal on your home is to seal up any light switches and electrical outlets. Light switches and outlets that are on outside walls can easily let cool air seep into your home. An easy way to fix this is by taking off the face plate and using a low-flow foam to seal the edges and then replace the cover. Having the proper seal to your home not only keeps you nice and toasty, but it also helps make your home more energy efficient and saves you money on your bills.
3. If you are in an area that regularly gets snow or at least has temperatures below freezing, checking on your pipes before the harsh weather comes will help prevent you having to deal with a busted pipe in the middle of the season. Make sure that any exposed pipes, including ones in the attic are properly covered. You can buy pipe jackets, covers, or insulation to help keep your pipes from low temperatures. If you forget to do this before the season, wrapping them even with a towel, blanket or sheet before the temperatures get too low can help save you from a busted pipe.
4. When you do have temperatures at or below freezing, drip your faucets. Dripping your faucets helps keep water moving in the pipe and prevents stagnant water from freezing, which results in a busted pipe. You can also wrap your water heater if it is exposed in your garage or attic.
5. Wrapping your water heater helps reduce the time it takes to heat the water and keeps it well insulated. If you have an old water heater, you may look into replacing it before the winter months. There are many types of water heaters that you can install so you won’t run out of warm water for any baths, showers, or anything else over the holiday season.
6. Just as you would check your AC unit before the summer months, you want to check your heater before the winter months. Checking your heater means more than just turning it on to make sure it works. Hiring an inspector is the best way to make sure that your heater is working properly and is safe for daily use. Most inspectors will check to make sure your system is clean, examine fuel connections and filters, and even check for carbon-monoxide. Carbon-Monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is toxic to human and animals that can kill you if you inhale enough of it. This simple check can help save you and your family from deadly gases, and help you prevent costly repairs in the middle of the season. If you want extra protection from carbon monoxide, you can install a carbon monoxide detector which will alert you when there are high levels.
7. To help circulate the hot air throughout your home, reverse the direction of your ceiling fans. This will help create an updraft to push warm air down into the room, which can be helpful if you have very high ceilings.
8. Whether you have a wood or gas burning fireplace, there are a couple things you may want to do before lighting the fire for the family. First, you will want to inspect your chimney. Most chimneys have chimney caps that have wire mesh sides on it, this helps keep out rain, animals and small birds. If you notice any holes in the siding, you will want to repair it or even replace it so you don’t have things going down your chimney, unless it’s Santa. While you are looking at the chimney, you will want to examine the mortar between the bricks on the inside and outside of it. If any of it looks as though it is crumbling, cracked, or missing, you will need to replace the mortar before it is considered safe to snuggle by the fire. For wood burning fire places, you will want to do a thorough inspection to see if there is any creosote present in the fireplace or chimney. This is a hard, dark substance that is highly flammable and can cause chimney fires if it isn’t cleaned out regularly. You will also want to clean out any soot that may be left over from last winter. Of course, if you don’t want to clean or check for the repairs yourself, you can hire a chimney sweep to come out. Something else you need to check before you use your fireplace is to check the flume. Some people close the flume in the summer to keep the cool air in, but if you start a fire without it open, you will end up filling your home with smoke.

These are just a few things you can do before the winter weather arrives. Taking care of these few things yearly can help save you money in repairs and damages as well as make sure every winter season is a nice and cozy one. Don’t forget that there are other small things you may need to do during the winter. These are things like stocking up on firewood in case of a strong snow storm, and even covering up plants that will die in a hard freeze. This winter make sure you have the coziest home on the block by doing home maintenance on it now.