By Brianna Siciliano
Humans and cars have needs for annual checkups and tune ups in order to keep in the best shape possible, and unsurprisingly, homes need annual checkups too! Proper up-keep of households can protect your home from expensive afflictions, ensure safety, enhance curb appeal, and maintain your home’s value. Spending a little bit of time and money each year on home repairs and maintenance is definitely worth it: you will make more money when you sell your home one day, and your home will have no chances of falling apart on you.
1. The winter is the perfect time to thoroughly clean and care for your home’s exterior and interior health. If you would like to keep your home in tip top shape, it would be a great idea to follow this home maintenance checklist as best as you can:
2. Before snow and ice start to form and fall, it would be a great idea to make sure all of your home’s windows and doors are properly caulked, so that water, snow, and ice have no chances of ruining—and possibly causing rotting and molding—in your home. If gaps between siding and window (or door) frames are bigger than the width of a nickel, you must reapply exterior caulk.
3. Clean your gutters. If your gutters are full, water can build up in the gutters and cause damage to your siding, wood trim, roof, and possibly cause leaks and ice dams. Do your best to keep your gutters clean to prevent any hazardous damage to your home’s health.
4. Turn off exterior faucets. Undrained water in pipes can freeze, causing pipes to burst (which is something you definitely do not want!). By disconnecting all garden hoses and draining the water that remains in faucets, you will save yourself from a lot of stress and financial worries.
5. Make sure that all crawl space vents are closed. Walk around your home’s exterior and throughly check the home’s crawl space vents, which are located at your home’s foundation. Closing these vents will ensure your home’s safety from unwanted visitors, like water damage and animals looking for shelter.
6. Call a chimney sweep. Winter is the time to enjoy the heat that your fireplace will provide, therefore it would be a great investment to make sure your chimney and vents are clean and in great shape.
7. Clean laundry vents. Cleaning your dryer vents will lower your risk of having a fire, lower your energy costs, improve efficiency of your dryer, and guarantee that your clothes will be dried in one efficient cycle of laundry.