9 Steps to Prepare Your Home for Winter

Fall is upon us and it’s time to start gearing up for winter. We caught up with our local expert, Amy Grisak, to get some tips and tricks to get ready for colder weather. Check out the video or read on:

One of the first things out of the gate when we're taking a look at our house is ways to save energy and keep warm because it is no fun when that wind is howling and you can feel it coming right through the windows. One way to figure out, if you don't already know, whether your windows are allowing air to come in is to go up and feel them. One little trick is to take a candle and put it near the window, especially at the bottom and at the sides, and if you see that flame flickering, you know that there’s air coming through and you really should do something to stop it before it gets cold.

One of the easiest things to use is weather stripping. If you're having issues with air coming through your windows, bring this out and seal that around the window because over time as the house settles and shrinks, sometimes window frames shrink, there's space, and this helps to take up that space and keep air from coming into your home.

Another option, particularly if you have older windows that aren't double paned or aren't as efficient as they once were, a really easy and less expensive trick than to replace everything is to use this window sealer. You just stick it along the window and then tighten it up with a hairdryer. It's very simple and it really does help.

Another thing that you also want to do is when you're looking at your windows, see if there's any of the caulking that has failed and that’s allowing air to come in because you can address a lot of these issues from the outside as well. So, make sure everything is nice and sealed. Use caulk, or also, depending on how old it is, sometimes putty in the windows is the best way to go.

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   DAP 100% Silicone Window & Door Sealant - 9.8 oz

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It doesn't make sense to do spring cleaning because once spring hits, we just all want to be outside. So fall is actually the perfect time. One of the great projects to do since you'll be inside watching the blizzards pass by the window, is to clean all your windows when you have a nice day in the fall. You can use a nice window cleaner product and paper towels if you have them or go the old-fashioned way with a little vinegar in the water and use the squeegee and a cloth to make them sparkling clean.

One of the things that we all want to avoid are frozen pipes. There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning, going to get a shower and having no water at all, because then it's like a big Easter egg hunt trying to find the frozen pipe. Unless you know that there's a spot where it freezes a lot, you need to figure out where it's frozen, go get the hair dryer or go call the plumber to get it thawed before you can get on with your day. So now is the time to insulate those pipes and to help give a little protection, so when it does drop below zero, because we know it will, then your pipes aren't going to freeze. These are super easy to use. They're just foam cut up in the middle. Put these around your pipes to keep the warm in and keep that cold from finding their way to your water.

Now, when the nights start freezing, you want to be sure to unhook your hoses, so the faucets don't freeze. As everything starts freezing consistently, just drain all the water out of them, coil them up and put them in the garden shed or somewhere where you know they are, so they're ready to go in the spring.

You can pick up faucet covers to help insulate and keep water in the pipes from freezing up.

If you have trees around your house, you want to take a look at the gutters before the snow starts flying. Go through and if there's any leaves in there, clean that out, because you want everything to be able to flow readily. As the winter goes and the snow melts off, you want water to be able to come out and through the gutters. Also, you want to check your drains to make sure that even though the gutters are clean, the drains are looking good too, so you get all that water away from your house.

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Now, for those who have crawl spaces and you have the vent for this crawl space, you don't want all this cold air coming during the winter. Usually about October or so, when the nights are starting to freeze pretty consistently, just take your little vent and close it up so you're preventing the ice and the cold from coming in and potentially freezing pipes. Now, don't forget though, in the spring, you want to open it back up because you don't want the moisture to build underneath. But for now, keep it shut and keep it warm.

Another issue when we're talking about heat is the furnace. Now the furnace is going to start clicking on here pretty soon, and we want to make sure that we have everything filtered correctly. It's so much easier to do it in the fall. A lot of times, we'll think about it in the middle of winter. You pull out the filter that was from the previous year and you're horrified. So, we want to be able to change these early, and change them every month or so for the best air circulation because we're going to be inside and we're breathing the same air, so we want to make sure it's as clean as possible. You'll really be surprised at how dirty these can get.

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Something else you want to do in the fall before the winter comes is to take a look at your dryer vent. A lot of times, depending on how far it has to travel from the dryer, lint can build up and it can be a fire hazard. So just get in here with something or take this apart and be able to pull out any lint that's in there and just make sure the whole run is clean.

Another thing to think about; most everybody has the furnace, but a lot of us have fireplaces too, fireplaces or wood stoves, which are wonderful to get that nice and toasty bone warming in the wintertime when it's really, really cold outside. You have the stove inside, but you also have to take care of it. So, inspect your stove now. Look for any cracks or any places where you need to reseal it. Especially around the door. If it's not closing correctly, see what the issue is. If you need to add anything to make the gasket tighter so it closes properly, you want to do that now versus when you have those fires going in it.

This is also a good time to schedule a chimney cleaning. Nothing beats a good physical chimney cleaning. But in the meantime, if you just can't get one done in time, use Creosote Control. You just pop these in the fire and it helps keep that creosote clean on the inside of the stovepipe so you don't have a chimney fire down the road, which is dangerous and destructive and can be costly in so many ways. So you should use this periodically. Always be sure to get that physical cleaning too, though.

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   Meeco's Red Devil Hi - Temp Silicone

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Thanks again to our expert, Amy, for helping prepare us for winter. If you have any more questions about winterizing your home, stop by one of our 12 locations or reach out to our customer support team.