4 Ways To Winterize Your Home This Year

Good homeowners always take steps to make sure their home is protected. They lock the doors when they leave, hide spare keys in extremely secret places, and never leave the stove on while they’re gone. While these are all good things, protecting a home from winter weather is something that all homeowners need to focus on as well. Freezing cold temperatures can do a lot of damage to a home, not a good thing if the home is for sale. But a lot of it is avoidable with the proper preparation. Here are some of the different ways homeowners can winterize their home and prepare it for the worst.

1. Let the Faucets Drip

When it comes to damage done by cold, bursting pipes is easily one of the worst things that can happen. Pipes burst when water freezes in them and expands, putting pressure on the pipes. However, ensuring that the water is always moving can be a good way of helping prevent the water from freezing, and this can be done by turning on the faucets just enough that they drip or trickle. If wasting water is a concern, put a pot or bucket beneath the faucet and use the water for other things like watering houseplants or washing vegetables.

2. Change the Furnace Filter

Attentive homeowners already change their furnace’s filter every few months. Changing the filter has quite a few benefits such as cleaner air and prolonging the furnace’s lifespan, but when preparing for the winter, it’s especially helpful to change the furnace’s filter. Having a clean filter helps the furnace run more smoothly and reduces the risk of breaking down, which could be devastating during cold weather. It can be handy to keep a few spare clean filters in the home and ready to go for when a replacement is needed, and having them on hand already removes the need to venture out into the cold to get one from the hardware store.

3. Run Ceiling Fans in Reverse

It can cost quite a bit of money to heat a home during the winter, and many homeowners want a way to stay warm without facing a giant energy bill at the end of the month. For rooms with ceiling fans, homeowners are in luck. Ceiling fans have a switch or button that changes the direction that the blades turn, and making them spin in reverse sucks air up to the ceiling, where warm air naturally rises, and forces it back down into the room. This can help homeowners reduce reliance on their furnace to heat the home and get the most out of the heat that it does produce by making sure it doesn’t all just rise up to the ceiling.

4. Cut Off Drafts

When cold air can sneak through cracks and get into a home, it can mean discomfort for everyone inside, and a tougher job for the furnace. Drafts can come from quite a few different places including:

• Doors
• Windows
• Chimneys
• Attics
• Basements
• Electrical outlets

In order to cut off drafts and protect the home, there are quite a few strategies homeowners can use. For doors and windows, the weather-stripping can be replaced, and caulk can be used on windows that don’t open. Homeowners can install a door in front of the fireplace to cut off the flow of air, and hardware stores sell draft-proof gaskets for electrical outlets. Identifying and closing off drafts can be a big help for keeping homes warm during the winter.

Taking the time to winterize a Victoria West home early on can help protect it from the cold once winter does arrive. Doing some or all of these things can make the home more comfortable to live in and help ensure that the home makes it to spring safely.