Winter Maintenance Checklist For Your Home

Winter storms and cold snaps cause billions in damage every year. On top of that, you also take on extra costs if your home isn’t properly winterized.

There’s little you can do to avoid disaster damage, except lay in the right supplies. However, there’s a lot of winter maintenance that you can do to avoid expensive repairs and keep costs down.

Our checklist will help you get ahead of problems. Let’s jump in!

Heating System Checkup

Furnaces and heating systems often last for decades. What you may not realize is that the projected working life of most furnaces is 20 years.

As heating systems age, they lose efficiency and become prone to mechanical failures. You can increase the working life of your furnace by getting an annual heating system checkup.

A heating system checkup will often catch parts that are near failure. You can ask the technician to check for and repair leaks in your duct-work. They’ll even change the filters if you ask them.

Update Weatherstripping

Drafts are a major source of heat loss and higher heating bills. Aging houses get drafts around window and door frames as settling causes gaps or cracks.

Weather stripping helps seal up those gaps and prevent drafts. Weatherstripping comes in several materials, including:

• foam
• metal
• plastic

Avoid aluminum if you do opt for metal weatherstripping. It’s a soft metal that won’t maintain a good seal over time.

Winterize Your Plumbing

Since plumbing carries water, it’s particularly vulnerable to cold weather damage. If you let your pipes drop below freezing, expanding ice will rip them apart.

One way to protect your pipes is to cover them with foam sleeves. The sleeves look like foam tubes with a slit down one side. You just slip them over pipes.

You can also put the sleeves on hot water pipes to cut down on heat loss.

Clean Those Gutters

Make sure to clear out any leaves, small branches or other debris from your gutters. Clogged gutters collect water from rain or runoff from melting snow. When the temperature drops, the water freezes.

This leads to an ice buildup along the bottom edge of your roof called an ice dam. Water collects behind the dam on a warmer part of the roof. This damages the roof and leads to leaks.

Those leaks can destroy insulation and drywall.

Check the Roof for Damage

You’ll want to give your roof a once over or hire a professional to do it. Wind, falling tree limbs, and even stray basketballs can tear or rip away shingles. the upside is that you can often replace lone damaged shingles.

If the damage goes deeper into the roofing felt or water shield, you might need a partial roof replacement. Roofing felt and the water shield play a crucial role in preventing leaks.

Winter Maintenance Parting Thoughts

Good winter maintenance is about taking practical actions. Most people can DIY with installing weatherstripping, cleaning the gutters and putting foam sleeves on pipes.

On the whole, it’s best to leave roof work and especially heating systems to professionals. Working on a roof is dangerous unless you know what you’re doing. Heating systems require technical expertise to repair.

Enhanced Heating and Air specializes in heating and air conditioning systems. If you need a heating system tune-up in the Kent or New Castle County, DE area, contact us today to schedule an appointment.