During the colder winter months, it’s easy to just hibernate – as much as possible – and wait, as patiently as you can, for the springtime to roll around. Seeing those green shoots and seeing a bit more daylight is always a good thing, and it does make a change in many people’s mental health, so it makes sense that a lot of people would want to wait until then to really get on with this. This time of year is more about sitting indoors under a blanket with the heating on, isn’t it? We don’t like to think about it, but now is the time to figure out what home repairs to do before spring.
Well, that might be how you feel, but is it really the right thing to do? Or would it be better if you used this time over the winter to get some important home repairs done before spring arrives, ensuring your home is as comfortable and safe as possible?
Of course, the answer is it’s the latter, even if that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. It’s fine, though; once you get started and have a plan in place to work through everything that needs to be done, you’ll find you can get through it quickly and still have time to snuggle under your blanket if you want to. With that in mind, keep reading to discover some of the most important home repairs to do before spring.
Seal Your Home
One of the easiest things to do in winter is to seal your home and prevent any nasty and disruptive drafts from coming in. No matter how new or old your property might be. The fact is that if you have windows and doors (which you will), there’s a risk that you’ll also have drafts. These areas are designed to open and close, and that means they won’t be able to shut as tightly as you need them to, to prevent drafts.
The good news is all you need to do is to go around your home with caulk or weatherstripping tape and seal up the gaps and cracks when you find them. Not only will this prevent cold air from getting inside and therefore make your home a lot warmer, but it will also help to reduce your energy bills. If you’ve got gaps in your home, the air you’re heating inside is escaping, so you’re losing it and losing money at the same time. Plus, the more energy you can save, the better it is for the environment. In other words, it’s a win-win, and it’s a job worth doing.
You can do this job at any time of the year, of course, but winter is a good option if you’re not sure where the drafts are coming from because you’ll be able to feel them more easily. Plus, you’ll instantly know if the job you’ve done was successful as you’ll feel warmer right away.
Have Your Furnace Serviced
Your furnace works hard to make sure your home is as warm and comfortable as possible and that you have hot water to enjoy whenever you want it. That’s the very reason why you might find it starts to break down over time – it’s always on and always working. So it’s inevitable that as the years go by, your furnace will become less and less reliable and your heating and hot water will get less and less hot.
You’ll probably start to combat this by turning your thermostat up, and that might work for a while, but in the end, you’ll be spending more than you need to on your energy bills, and the underlying furnace issue won’t be fixed.
Although it’s best to check your furnace well before winter sets in, sometimes that’s not possible and sometimes a breakdown will happen even if things seemed to be working fine just a few weeks before. So, if you didn’t manage to get the furnace serviced ahead of time or it seems to be less efficient now than it was, it’s time to call experts in furnace repair to take a look at it.
The professionals will come and take a look at your furnace and work out precisely what needs to be done, ensuring that it gets back to working normally sooner rather than later. If it can’t be repaired, you can get a quote for a replacement, so in either case, you’ll soon have an efficient furnace that does what it’s meant to do.
Don’t try to fix your furnace yourself unless you happen to be a professional in that field, as you might make things worse (and more expensive) or even dangerous for you and your family. This really is a job that’s best left to the professionals.
Fix Your Roof
Checking your roof before winter comes should definitely be on your to-do list – it’s a vulnerable area of your home, and if there’s a lot of snow, rain, or frost, it can lead to problems. For one thing, there might be leaks in your roof from the extra moisture. And for another, the weight of these weather conditions could cause tiles to break or holes to form – you might even lose sections of an old or poorly maintained roof altogether.
However, what you might not realize is that it’s also important to check your roof when winter starts to fade and springtime starts to appear. The reason is pretty much what we’ve said above – the winter weather and harsher, colder conditions can lead to issues with your roof that might not be obvious until the spring thaw sets in.
It’s wise to check your roof (or get a professional to do it) to make sure no holes have appeared over the last few weeks or months. The sooner you can get these things fixed, the more comfortable you’ll be indoors, and you’ll know everything is ready for next winter well ahead of time.
Clear Your Fireplace
Have you been using a real fire or wood-burning stove over the winter? Many people like this option as it saves on their heating bills, and it’s a nice, cozy touch to any living room – just imagine a crackling fire in the background while you get comfy reading a book, watching TV, or playing games with the family; it’s idyllic.
What’s not idyllic is the mess a fireplace can get into when you’ve been using it every day for months on end – you’ll find there’s a lot of coal dust or wood ash left behind, which can get all over the place, leaving your home much dustier than you’d probably like, so that’s the first place to start. Clean out the fireplace when you know you’re not going to use it anymore and dust around your home to remove all the excess ash, and you’ll find things are a lot more pleasant.
You can also get a professional chimney sweep to come and clean out the chimney to make things even cleaner. This is traditionally something you’ll do in the fall or perhaps the end of summer at the earliest as it ensures your fireplace is ready to be used when the temperatures dip. Still, if you do it after you’ve finished using it as well, you’ll prevent any debris from the chimney from falling into your home over the summer and making a big mess!
Gutter Cleaning
We all know how bad the weather can be in the winter – that’s why many people tend to spend most of their time indoors during the colder months. However, your guttering around your home has to be outdoors (it wouldn’t be any use if it weren’t), so it’s wise to check on it before springtime to make sure it’s still okay.
Guttering is a vital tool to help keep your home protected as it gathers up all the excess water from the roof and carries it away from the house, meaning your roof stays protected, but so do your walls and foundations that would otherwise get soaked and damaged. However, along with all that water, it also collects a lot of other debris, such as leaves, twigs, moss, and so on.
When that all builds up, it causes an issue because the water can’t drain past the blockage, and it starts to spill over, causing all the damage that we mentioned above.
So that’s why you’ll want to check on your guttering before springtime and regularly throughout winter (especially after a bad storm or when the snow starts to melt) to ensure there aren’t any blockages and that all is well. It will only take a few minutes, but it could save you a lot of trouble, not to mention money, later down the line.
Yard Preparation
If there’s one thing people know about spring, it’s that it’s green. It’s when the world comes alive again, and the flowers start to grow. If you want that to happen in your backyard, you’ll need to do some prep over the winter, and that includes your lawn.
Clear away any debris that might have landed on your grass and make a plan about when you’re going to get the lawnmower out for the first time – grass doesn’t grow all that much over winter, but it will quickly shoot up once spring arrives. You can also plant bulbs, prune trees, and fertilize your soil so you’re completely ready to make your garden look wonderful when the time comes.