Part Three: Ten Projects to Get Your Home Ready for Autumn & Winter
Balsam Realty’s Late Summer Home Project Series: How to Maintain a Beautiful, Safe and Cozy Home
Part Three: Ten Projects to Get Your Home Ready for Autumn & Winter
As summer winds down in Maine, if you take a few hours a week to perform these projects now, you can have the benefit of warm weather - and be finished before the madness of life in the autumn.
When selling a home or prior to home inspections, we advise clients to do many of the projects we will suggest in this series- but when done regularly they can save you thousands of dollars, an untold amount of stress down the road, and a better life in your home each day.
This is the third part of Balsam’s Six Part Series, Best Late Summer Home Projects.
Here are Ten Key Things to Get Your Home Ready for Autumn & Winter:
Check mats for doorways, consider your entryways for snowy arrivals. Are you ready to come in from the cold? Handle a snowy set of boots or a dog? Place to hang wet coats, hats and gloves? Check your mats to see if they need replacing and consider some fancy and practical boot trays for inside or outside your entryways to dry snowy items.
Install weather stripping on windows and doors. Is there daylight coming through your doors? While the weather is still warm, consider weather stripping and other easy insulation projects to keep your home cozy when the winds get chilly. According to this video about weatherizing your home, a ⅛ inch gap in your outside door threshold can be like having a two square inch wide hole in your wall. Sealing these door & window cracks could save you up to 15% on your heating bill.
Clean out the garage & organize the work bench.
Organize your tools so they are easy to access when you need them - consider having just the ones you use most often in your “tool drawer” in the house and all the others organized in the garage - a simple nail will allow you to hang most tools on the wall.
Check the garage door - is it functioning well? Does it stop properly and is the eye working? Does it need repair or is it leaking? We have great garage door experts if you need them - reach out to us.
Remove stains from the garage floor. Any oil or other stains on the floor? Remove them before winter to keep your garage space clean and free of chemicals.
Hang all other items on the walls. Items sitting on the floor of the garage can be damaged by weather and water - and make it more challenging to clean the garage floor. Take out all unused items, store summer items elsewhere if possible and hang everything you can on the walls.
Store Wood safely. Have wood stacked in your garage or around your home? Stack it safely so as to avoid damaging your buildings or attracting pests.
Check smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. Before you button up for winter, light the woodstove or run the generator - it’s a good time to do your periodic check to make sure your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are functioning properly.
Check blinds are working properly and clean/replace if needed. Window blinds can be a great insulator in the winter (especially insulated cellular/honeycomb shades or thermal lined drapes). These also work remarkably well to keep your home cool in the summer by blocking sunlight that can heat up your rooms.
Paint touch-up and wall spackle. Have some holes in your wall driving you crazy? Consider patching them and touching up the paint - or repainting trim and stair backs before you are forced to look at them inside everyday.
Check the pool or hot-tub for winter preparation and safety. Have a pool, hot tub or other water feature? Put it to bed for the winter properly with cleaning and service.
Change or clean filters around the house. Have filters around your home - air purifiers, furnace, humidifier, water filters (think refrigerator also), HVAC, dryer, even coffee maker and vacuum filters. Check your dryer filter for holes and replace if there are any. Calendar common filter changes to make sure they are cleaned or replaced when necessary.
Consider a Radon Test. When you button up your house, it's a good time to make sure your home is free from radon gas, a common hazard in Maine homes. You can even buy an at home test kit online or at your local hardware store. Experts are always the best people to make sure you are safe from radon gas. Reach out to us for recommendations.
Bonus item: Get ready for driveway and sidewalk snow:
Check for shovels (hang on the wall!);
Car snow removal tools in the garage and in your vehicles (don’t let this happen to you) but this looks fun;
Sand/Salt organized for ease of application;
Kitty litter for stuck vehicles; and
A winter kit for your vehicles.
Next week: put your home projects aside for these Tips to Catch the Last of Our Maine Summer.