Vital Winter Checklist Items that Might Slip Your Mind
When it comes to getting your home ready for another long, cold winter, there are some aspects of fall maintenance that are more obvious. For instance, most homeowners know by now that it is quite important to schedule a regular visit from a licensed HVAC professional every autumn.
This is the time to have your air ducts cleaned, make sure your ignition and heat blower work well and have filters replaced in your furnace and dryer. Most people also know the changing of the seasons is also the time to have their thermostat checked to see if it is accurate and to test the batteries of smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors to make sure that they are completely functional.
However, there are some things that you should be doing to prepare your home for winter that might not be as obvious, simply because they are hidden sources of potential flooding, accidents or other problems.
5 Winter Checklist Things to Remember
Here are 5 simple things to add to your current winter checklist, that are a bit harder for most people to remember, but quite important to complete if you want to feel safe and secure.
1 - Don’t forget to empty your garden hoses and shut off the valves to your outside taps. This is not a simple matter of turning off the outside tap and walking away. You must shut off the water from the inside of your home and then turn on the outside tap, letting it flow until it is empty.
This is important because the pipes leading to the outside tap can freeze, burst and cause flooding. It is also important to empty any hoses of water and then coil them up, as they could also freeze, swell and burst. Never forget about your house plumbing!
2 - Fill your home with houseplants to humidify and oxygenate the air in your home. Your indoor air can become very dry in the winter, so it is a good idea to fill your home with large tropical plants, which help to hold the moisture in the air.
Moist air holds the heat in the atmosphere longer, thus helping you save on energy costs. It is also easier to breathe than hot dry air.
3 -Make sure you are stocked with several bags of de-icing salt. This type of salt melts the ice immediately and it is also your best friend when it comes to diminishing big heaps of snow that you otherwise might end up shoveling. It also gives sidewalks and driveways that are glassy with ice more traction.
4 - Be sure to clean your pond and pool drains of leaves and debris. Although most people know to clean their gutters and street drains of obstructions, they forget that the drain in the bottom of their swimming pool can also clog up and leak water into your basement. The same is true of decorative fountain drains or drains on your patio.
5 - If you have radiators in your home, don’t forget to “bleed” them. People sometimes forget that in order for radiators to work, you need to open a valve and let excess air out so that the piping can fill with water and warm your room. You know that you have sufficiently bled a radiator when after you open the valve, the hissing sound stops.
Whether you own your home or condo or are just renting, it is important for all residents of Green Bay, WI to take note of the list of the above to make sure that you have not missed some of the more obvious things you should be doing to prepare your place for winter.
Even if doing some of these chores is technically the responsibility of a landlord who might not be doing them because they are not part of a mandatory upkeep, you should make sure that they get done for your own safety and peace of mind.
