What Do You Need to Prepare Your Home for the Winter Season

In order to enjoy the winter season, you should keep in mind the following simple ideas to keep your house comfortable and smoothly:

First, start indoors where there are potential safety hazards. Check the heater and the boiler. The inspection of these devices is critical to the safety of homeowners; boilers and heaters that aren’t properly installed or maintained could produce carbon monoxide.

Sealing the window frames and doors with silicone would prevent the cold air from coming in. We don’t recommend sealing the front door because it would be a waste of money; instead buy a door draft stopper. You could also change the curtains to make your home more welcoming during the winter season and to maintain room temperature; tick fabric curtains will cover the windows and prevent the heat from escaping the room.

How to have higher level of illumination throughout the house during the winter season? During the winter we use more artificial lighting, so it is advisable to homeowners to spend a day cleaning the light bulbs to have more light. Also, you can install energy saving light bulbs: you will notice a huge difference on your electric bill this winter season.

Steps to Be Taken Outdoors to Ready a House for Winter Weather

Cleaning the roof gutters. Removing leaves, twigs, and other debris accumulated on the gutters that may slow the drainage of the melting snow. This will prevent the water from accumulating, to freeze and accumulate ice and snow on the roof and walls of the house.

Everyone needs to prune the trees close to the house. Weak tree branches or very leafy trees are more likely to fall with the weight of snow and ice, and can cause severe damage if the branches or the trees fall on your roof or on your car.

Steps and handrails of the stairs need to be repaired. Let’s not forget that stairs covered with snow can be very dangerous for pedestrians and family members.

Seal cracks and holes in the outer walls of your house and on the bases. Be sure to use cement or cement sealers to fill gaps.

Adding extra insulation in the attic and in the basement would help to prevent losing heat, and it would also prevent pipes from freezing and bursting.

The Do’s and Don’ts to Keep in Mind While Using This Guide

• Your boiler manual or troubleshooting guide cannot help you diagnose and repair a faulty boiler, which is why only a professional technician should inspect boilers, heaters, etc.
• Never store cans, food cans, solvents or aerosols inside the heater closet.
• When cleaning your light bulbs do not use a wet rag without turning the lights off first.
• We don’t recommend using silicone to seal windows because is hard to paint over silicone and sometimes it retains moisture; however, if you want to use silicone, we recommend that you make sure the silicone you are buying is for windows and not for baths, showers, or sinks.
• If you don’t want to buy a door draft, you can buy cheap towels at the local dollar store or use your socks to make your own door draft.
• Avoid contact with skin when using cement to fill gaps or holes in the outer walls. Cement may irritate your skin.