In general, it is important for us to start winterizing our house. Here are things we could do to stay warmer, reduce the bills and stay safe during the cold winter months.
- Clean the gutter: If we skip on doing this during the fall, the clogged gutter could end up biting us in the behind. Accumulated leaves could stop the water from flowing smoothly. This will cause ice to form in the gutter and when it is damaged due to the extra load, water could get inside our house. We should regularly clean the leaves, because we will never know when the snow starts to fall. After cleaning it, we should check for signs of leakage and misalignment.
- Check doors and windows: There’s a possibility that our house will be attacked by severe blizzard during this winter. In this case, it is important that our windows and doors are properly reinforced. They are also the likely places where heat escapes or cold draft enters. Winterizing our windows and doors could make a big difference in electricity bills. It could also be a life-saving task, because we could prevent the nasty winter from blowing shards of glass and bits of woods inside the house.
- Check roof: Roof is our primary protection against falling snow. It should be checked for holes and cracks. It won’t be practical to fix the roof when it is covered with a foot of snow.
- Trims trees near the house: Snow can be quite heavy when it accumulates on the branches and they could break. In this case, we should trim trees and check whether there are dead branches that we can cut. Under the weight of the snow, it is possible that a big branch will come crashing down through our upper floor windows.
- Check driveway: We should check driveway for cracks. Winter could literally obliterate our driveway if we don’t fix any crack. Water could accumulate inside the cracks and it expands when freeze. It is not too uncommon to see parts of driveway that comes loose, if we don’t repair cracks.
- Winterize AC units and insulate their pipes: We won’t use AC units during cold winter months. So, we should winterize them by draining them of leftover water from the unit and pipes. Insulating material should be cheap enough and it will protect our AC units from damage. During a hot summer, the AC unit will work perfectly to cool down the interior.
- Check for holes: After performing the above steps, the last thing we do is to check for any hole on the wall, windows, doors and roof. These holes literally steal our money, because we need to keep the heater running at higher temperature longer. Sealing these holes should be easy to do. If some windows and doors seem to let cold air in regardless of what we do, the last thing we do is to seal them with plastic and then cover them with thick, old blankets.