A DIY Guide to Winter Home Repairs
Have you cleaned your chimney yet? That will need to be cleaned and the integrity of the chimney checked before firing up that wood stove. You can either do this yourself by purchasing a chimney cleaning brush at Mr. Fireplace of Union Ave Laconia NH. However, I would recommend letting the pros at Mr. Fireplace do it for you. With all of the wind damage, lightening damage, snow damage and rain damage you should have your cap and mortar checked for damages. More then just a cleaning issue, damage to the chimney could lead to fires and dangerous smoke entering your home. If you do decide to opt for the do it yourself option make sure you purchase enough extension rods to allow the brush to reach the entire length of the chimney. Just push the rod into the chimney cavity and pull up and down to loosen the soot inside.
Now that you have a good clean chimney it is time to check your gutters. Make sure you do this before the first snow fall to avoid risk of injury. A dental mirror works great to allow you to view the inside of the gutters without going all the way up the ladder. Just duct tape the mirror to a long pole and hold it up to the gutter. You can use a standard mirror for this as well. If you find blockages you can purchase a gutter cleaner at the local hardware store to remove the blockages. You will also want to repair any loose or broken gutter hangers busted from last winters unusually large snow falls. Any un-repaired gutter hangers will cause the gutters to snap off if we get another winter like this past one. Any leaf blockages will cause water from spring melting to back up into your home.
While you are outside you will want to remove any summer toys, ornaments, solar lighting or any other items that could get lost under the snow and destroyed by the plow trucks. Just the shear weight of the snow can damage some fragile items such as canvas roof tops on play set club houses or the bouncing surface on trampolines.
Before you finish up your exterior buttoning down you will want to check the fa�§ade of the house for loose roofing and loose shingles. If you find any of these then tack them back into place. For roofing use galvanized roofing nails to reattach loose shingles. This is highly important as water can penetrate under loose roofing or siding and freeze causing damage to the structure as well as internal water damage.
The final outdoor winter DIY fix up you will want to accomplish is to put away and drain all hose lines and close down all water spickets and sprinklers. This is extremely important as a frozen spicket or sprinkler can in turn freeze interior water pipes as these are attached directly into your main water supply to the home. Usually you can find the turn off valve in the basement just below where the sprinkler or spicket line comes into your home. If it is too hard to turn try using a spray of WD40 or pour some hydrogen peroxide on it and wait a few minutes before trying once again to turn the valve.
Now let’s move inside. If you were unfortunate enough to live in the Central NH area during the past three years then you probably have severe interior damage to your home. Let’s start with your drywall. If you had any ice damming or roof leaking then you will want to remove the sheet rock in the areas of the water penetration. Even if it looks like just an annoying yellow stain it could be more then that. You will need to remove the damaged area for the sake of safety. Lurking just behind that stain can be black mold which will send you to the hospital or worse, to the morgue! The loose shingles on our old roof allowed an ice back up to penetrate our home. We waited until spring to repair the damage because we didn’t want to let the extreme cold by opening up all the walls. Spring came and we got busy so we decided to wait until summer. Suddenly I became ill and ended up in the hospital. After months of antibiotics I helped my builder rip down the stained sheet rock. Behind the seemingly non-threatening stains was black mold like I have never seen before. So learn from my mistake and get that sheetrock down. Make sure you wear a protective mask, seal off the area you are working in with plastic painter’s plastic over the doors, wear rubber gloves and keep a window open. Once you have all of the mess sealed into heavy duty contractor’s
Bags use straight up bleach to remove any mold from studs and to clean the floor. Now you can safely put up new sheetrock, tape, mud and paint. Just make sure you use mold resistant sheetrock and mold resistant paint to reduce the risk of any stray mold spores from growing back. Also invest in a good quality air filter that is guaranteed to kill mold and mildew spores in the air. I ran mine in the sealed off room for two days before starting my sheet rocking.
Now you need to take a good look around the interior of your home for all those little things you have been putting off for so long. Now that it is too cold out to have fun why not fix them up? Is the faucet leaking? Then put in a new gasket by removing the little screen where the water comes out. These screens usually screw off. Inside you will find a little rubber ring. That is the gasket and just pulls out. A new one pops in and the screen screws back on. No more drips!!
Is the toilet running? Go catch it!! Just kidding!! But seriously, all you need is either a new chain on your flapper or you need to bend the ball a bit. The flapper chain is the only chain in the toilet so it is found easily. The flapper chain just clips onto the flapper at one end and the flush handle at the other. If the chain is broken remove the chain from both ends and reattach a new one. If the chain has simply come off of one end or the other just reattach it. If the chain is fine then gently bend the ball downwards until it touches the water but doesn’t break. Since most balls come on a soft metal stick this is relatively easy to do. Once the ball is down the water should stop up instantaneously.
Did you forgo spring cleaning? Well, winter is the perfect time to clear out all that excess stuff that has collected over the past year. Best yet is that you can put all of that unwanted stuff in the shed or garage and in the spring you will be the first on your block to have a yard sale. Hardened yard salers are just itching for a good yard sale in the early spring so you will be sure to draw a crowd and make some much needed cash for all of those fix ups you need to do.
Feeling a bit stuffy and shut in? Well freshen up a bit!! Clean out the house top to bottom, burn some scented candles and/or add a fresh coat of paint to all those rooms you have been meaning to spruce up. If your furniture has you down you can repaint it, re-stain it or re-upholster it. Just make sure you don’t paint an authentic antique. Even though you think you are fixing it up, restoring an antique can actually devaluate it. If you can’t afford to hire someone to re-upholster your furniture or you don’t know how to do it yourself then purchase some furniture covers. They can be purchased cheap at such places as Ocean State Job Lots. For a custom upholstered look take thin long pieces of rubber foam and jam it down into the back of the cover just out of view below the cushions. This foam can be bought at places like JoAnne’s Fabrics and when placed correctly tightens and holds the cover in place making the cover look as if it is in fact fine upholstery.
Good luck to all of my readers in the coming winter season. May you all remain safe and well
