5 Home Maintenance Tasks to Take Care of Before Winter Sets In
With winter just around the corner, it's the perfect time to take advantage of the few warm days that are left and complete some home maintenance tasks. Not only will you potentially save money and improve the look of your home, but you will guarantee your home is prepared to endure the harsh winter conditions while keeping you warm and comfortable.
Prepare Your Lawn
To ensure you have the best-looking lawn on the street come spring, you need to make sure your lawn is ready for the winter. Remove all leaves to prevent them from choking out and killing the grass, and keep mowing your lawn until growth has ceased. Additionally, you can apply fertilizer too, in a way, winterize the grass, as well as give it the nutrients it needs to start off strong when the weather becomes warmer.
Schedule HVAC Maintenance
When most people think HVAC maintenance before winter, they think of their furnace. While it is crucial to have your furnace cleaned and serviced, so you don't end up with no heat during the winter, it's also important to have a technician perform air conditioning maintenance. Winterizing your compressor will ensure it's ready to withstand the harsh weather it encounters while outside, while also being prepared to cool things off as soon as it's needed.
Clean Out Your Gutters
While there's typically not much debris that's falling in the winter that could clog up your gutters, you need to remove the debris that's already there. There's nothing quite as miserable as cleaning out cold, wet debris in the dead of winter, so do it while it's a least a little bit warm outside. This makes sure that any rain or melting snow continues to have a place to go, no matter what the calendar says.
Inspect Your Car
While not specifically a part of your home, overlooking pre-winter maintenance on your car will ensure you're miserable as soon as you leave your house, no matter how comfortable your home itself is. Have a mechanic check fluid levels, wiper blades, tires, and your battery, to make sure there are no surprises on a cold winter's day, leaving you stranded in a parking lot or on the side of the road.
Gather Necessary Supplies
There's nothing worse than having an icy driveway, but no ice melt to do anything about it. Buy your supplies early, so you aren't fighting hundreds of other people once a major winter storm is bearing down. Keep your ice melt, along with your snow shovel or snow blower and any other snow removal equipment in an easy-to-reach, accessible area in the event of a massive snowstorm.
You can't stop winter from coming, but you can prepare your home for it. Doing so before the temperature gets too uncomfortable will make the preparation easy and done right. Then, when winter does arrive, you can sit back and enjoy your warm escape, relaxing by the fireplace with those you love.
Resources
http://www.hgtv.com/design/outdoor-design/landscaping-and-hardscaping/lawns/how-to-prepare-your-lawn-for-winter
https://www.rainguardusa.com/prepare-downspout-extensions-for-winter/
http://classicacservice.com/
https://www.dmv.org/how-to-guides/winterize-car.php