Five Home Maintenance Tasks You Should Perform Before Thanksgiving to Make Your Life Easier This Winter and Next Spring

I’ve been seeing leaves changing colors and beginning to fall. Now is the right time to do these five maintenance tasks to help your home function better during the winter:

1. Look at the vegetation around your home. If you have bushes or trees that have grown to the point they are touching, or nearly touching your home, now is the time to trim. This vegetation so close to your home creates a shelter for bugs and rodents. Additionally, if you don’t, you’ll be way behind in the spring when the vegetation starts growing again.
2. Clean your roof and gutters. Our roofs tend to collect dirt during the summer months. The dirt gets washed into the gutters and can create clog spots. Getting the gutters clean before the fall of the leaves will make cleaning the gutters after the leaf fall much easier.
3. Fire up the heating system before it gets cold to be sure it is working properly. Most heating system problems seem to pop up when the heating system is fired up after being off for several months. If you wait until the first cold snap to try out your heating system and have a problem, it will be compounded with trying to get an HVAC technician out during one of the two busiest times of year for them (the other is on the first hot day of the year when all the air conditioners get turned on). Consider having your HVAC technician come out now, while things are slower for them, to give your heat system a service call to ensure you are ready to go when old man winter blows in.
4. Look your fireplace over. Look at the bricks on the outside for cracks in the mortar or bricks. Fireplaces are very heavy and prone to cracking. The cracks aren’t an immediate concern, but if left unattended, they will get worse and start to absorb moisture. This will cause the chimney to fail more quickly. If there are a bunch of cracks, they should be cleaned, filled with mortar, and then the entire chimney surface should be sealed.
5. Weather strip your doors. Most doors come with weather stripping, but after a few years of service and house shifting, they quit being effective. Try this experiment:  At night, have someone shine a light around the perimeter of the doors while you are observing from the inside. I think you will be surprised how much light comes through. In the winter, that’s money going out the door. Installing weather stripping is inexpensive and easy to do.

Here are some resources to help you get these maintenance tasks completed:

For cutting vegetation back and getting your yard shaped up for winter, call Jeff Wolf Lawn and Landscaping, 817-459-1750, or visit Jeff’s website.

For roof and gutter cleaning, or weather stripping your doors, call us!  We are happy to help you with your home maintenance tasks, and it helps keep our guys busy during the winter months. 817-446-0368  www.remodelmm.com

For HVAC work, call Mike Morphis, 817-690-3502, or visit his website

If your fireplace needs some attention, call Master Brick Mason James Slayton, 817-797-2401, http://jamesslaytonmasonry.com.

Please let us know if we can help with any of your home improvement needs this fall and winter.

Thanks,

Mike