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Your comprehensive home maintenance checklist

Written by Posted On Tuesday, 19 May 2020 15:38
Your comprehensive home maintenance checklist

At times, it can feel as if maintaining your home involves completing a never-ending checklist of projects. However, just because maintenance is a year-round activity doesn’t mean it has to be overwhelming. By dividing up the work into different seasons, you can establish a healthy and productive pattern to home upkeep that still allows you to enjoy your home and life inside of it.

Spring

As the world around your home begins to thaw out, you need to get ready to work. True to the tradition of “spring cleaning,” these warming months are tailor-made for indoor and outdoor maintenance projects. As ice thaws and snow melts, your yard emerges and will need work. Get on a ladder and take a look at your roof: you’ll want to see if there’s any damaged shingles, flashing, or gutters from winter storms and address issues before spring showers arrive. For the first time in months, you can open your windows to pleasant weather and start completing indoor projects again. 

For some of your springtime projects, you’ll want to bring in a professional. You’re probably no longer running your furnace, but you’re going to need your air conditioner in the summer ahead. Call an HVAC professional in your area and have them out to your home for a multipoint tune-up. Not only can AC maintenance help prevent breakdowns and problems, but this service can also help your AC unit run more efficiently. While they’re working on your air conditioner, test your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms to make sure they still have adequate battery life.

In essence, you’ll want to complete any outdoor upkeep before the heat of summer arrives.

Summer

When it comes to home maintenance, summer is typically the slowest season of the year. It’s hot and humid out, and you have that family vacation coming up. It’s time to take a well-deserved break and relax. Of course, the warm, yet tolerable, early days of summer are the ideal time to complete projects outside, so if your home needs to be repainted or you need to fix the sprinkler system, now’s the time. 

For obvious reasons, summer is when most homeowners need air conditioner repair. Hopefully, if you scheduled your spring tune-up, your AC unit will keep running efficiently and effectively throughout the months ahead. However, if you do encounter AC problems, call a local professional and have them out to take a closer look at your system.

Unfortunately, summer seems to be the season when pests are most active. If you didn’t already in the spring, you’ll want to schedule pest control and prevention services to ensure that pests and termites are kept outside. Some yard care—including removing large brush, cutting down grass, and keeping hedges trimmed—can also help deny pests hiding spots and shelter.

Fall

As the weather cools and leaves begin to turn, it’s time to kick things back into gear. Next to spring, fall is the busiest season for home maintenance. In most parts of the United States, homeowners need to get their home ready for a cold, icy winter ahead. That means scheduling a furnace tune-up, covering the air conditioner, and winterizing pool pumps and outdoor equipment. If you’re planning on having the family get cozy around the fireplace this winter, make sure you have a chimney sweep out to clean your chimney this fall.

In autumn, gutter and downspout care is essential. Your home’s gutters and downspouts play a vital role in the longevity and structural integrity of your home’s roof. By carrying rain and snowmelt off of the roof, both prevent pooled water and leaks. However, it’s during fall that gutters and downspouts can become filled with leaf matter and start to dam up. Regularly check and clean out the gutters—especially ahead of rain and snow.

Finally, fall is your last chance to complete projects inside your home that require any sort of ventilation. This includes painting your walls, deep cleaning your floors and carpets, or refinishing wood furniture in the garage. 

Winter

Between the cold, snowy weather outside and the warm, holiday cheer inside, you probably shouldn’t plan on getting too much done in the winter. Like summer, treat winter as an “off-season”: handle essential projects and sudden emergencies, but hold off on any maintenance until the spring. 

There are a few items you should take care of in the winter months. Every so often, take a walk around the perimeter of your house and inspect the roof line. If you’re noticing that your gutters have ice dams and that snow is trapped up top, clear the dams so that your gutters can carry snow melt off the roof. If you live in the Northeast or Midwest, you need to make sure your home is ready for a blizzard. Maintain your backup generator and make sure it’s working properly. Then, stock up on food, water, batteries, and medications—anything you might need if you’re stuck in your home for an extended period of time.

If you’re feeling like you want to complete a project or two this winter, stay inside and tackle a closet reorganization or deep clean your kitchen. Try to avoid any home projects, such as painting, that require ventilation, since you may not want to open your windows with how cold it is outside!

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Victoria Sanders

Victoria Sanders is the communications director and senior writer at Reimer Home Services, a Buffalo HVAC company and furnace repair servicing Western New York. She has been working within the home repair industry for almost 15 years and enjoys sharing her insights on home repairs with homeowners and real estate professionals.

https://www.reimerhvac.com/

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