Loading... 31 view(s)
Getting your home prepared for winter is essential to ensure your comfort and optimize your energy efficiency during the winter months. Here are 10 tips to help you get your home ready this cold weather season.
- Inspect your heating systems: Have your heating system (furnace, boiler, heat pump) professionally inspected and serviced. Make sure to change your air filters and ensure they are functioning properly to keep your home warm efficiently.
- Seal drafts and insulate: Check your windows and doors for any potential drafts. You can seal gaps with weatherproof stripping, caulking or draft stoppers.
- Clean gutters and downspouts: Make sure you don’t have any leaves or other types of debris blocking your gutters. If not properly cleaned ice and snow have a better chance of getting built up which can cause ice dams, potentially causing damage to your roof.
- Check your roof: Make sure your roof is in good condition. Look for missing shingles and replace them to help prevent leaks and further damage. If your roof is in good shape a good preventative measure to keep it that way is roof and gutter heat trace. Installed before winter hits these kits can help prevent ice dams.
- Trim outside trees and shrubs: Heavy snow and ice can damage trees and break the limbs. If these limbs happen to be close to your house, they can cause some major damage. So, make sure to trim those trees that overhang your home to prevent this from happening.
- Winterize your pipes: Silver-Series and INSUL-LOCK pipe insulation are a good preventative measure to keep those pipes from freezing up and bursting. Pipes that are exposed in unheated areas like basements, crawl spaces and attics are more susceptible to freezing.
- Test smoke detectors: Make sure your smoke detector is working properly, change the batteries if needed.
- Reverse your ceiling fans: Switch your ceiling fans to rotate clockwise to help distribute warm air that naturally rises to the ceiling. This will help keep your rooms warmer.
- Prepare your fireplace or wood stove: If you have a fireplace or a wood stove, make sure it has been clean and inspected. Have extra firewood handy.
- Have emergency supplies on the ready: There is nothing worse than a power outage in the winter. Have a kit ready with supplies such as, flashlight, batteries, blankets, radio, water, and nonperishable food items. Another great item to keep around is a portable heater, check out our series of Mr. Heater products. They don’t need electricity to run, just small propane containers.
Taking these steps will help you be better prepared for any challenges this winter season, and help you maintain a comfortable and energy efficient home.
