The harsh cold months of wintertime have an uncanny knack for creeping up out of nowhere. One moment you’re sitting comfortably inside your cozy cave, and the next moment you’re suddenly fighting what can feel like an uphill battle to keep your home heated. Fortunately, homeowners have a wealth of helpful resources available at their disposal to ensure that we’re able to effectively stay warm and comfortable regardless of how cold those temperatures decide to dip outside our front doors. So, let’s take a look at some surefire ways to successfully winterize your home for the colder months. After all, you want to have full confidence that you’re making the appropriate home renovations for wintertime and are prepared for any cold weather.
Assess your doors, windows, and outlets.
This first step toward properly winterizing your home is absolutely crucial. Cold weather can get really sneaky. It’s on you to go around your home with some sticky notes and mark where you’ve observed cold air creeping in. From there you have some options before you have to call a professional. If you’re dealing with a faulty outlet or switch plate, you can deploy some canned spray foam insulation, which will fill in the area inside the wall around the electrical box. If you ended up discovering a drafty window, you can make use of one of those aesthetically pleasing transparent window films that actually keep the cool air out. If you’re not feeling like taking that route, you can use weatherstrip tape or removable caulking cord to fill in those unwanted cracks.
If you can’t remedy the problem yourself, you can reach out to a professional service like All-Weather Seal Inc. to think about installing new windows. The best time to prepare for wintertime is in the warmer months, so if you’re considering a home improvement project for the colder months, contact contractors when warmer weather still abounds. These contractors have been in business for 40 years, offer a potential $1,000 off qualifying window purchases, and even have a system set up where customers can sometimes not have to make payments until 2022 with good enough credit. If you contact them during the summer months you’re likely to get a good price due to the offseason, too.
Prepare your plumbing.
As you’ve likely been told at one point in your life, water expands when it freezes. Thus, if you have frozen water expanding inside your home’s pipes, you’re looking at a potentially disastrously expensive scene of destruction. You’ve got to get that water out of your home’s external pipes before the temperatures dip below freezing. Additionally, it’s important to shut down and drain your sprinkler systems. You’ll also want to make sure that you wrap any exposed pipes that you might have in an unheated attic, basement, or crawl space with foam or fiberglass sleeves.
Perform an exterior inspection
Especially after you’ve addressed inspecting the interior of your home, it’s time to take things outside and closely inspect any cracks or damage. You’ll want to take photos and notes of anything sketchy that you observe. From there, you can start up with sealing any minor cracks. Caulk will be your ultimate tool for dealing with all of these minor cracks and window leaks. You don’t want any mice that are trying to escape the cold to end up taking shelter in your home. After you’ve dealt with any minor cracks, you can repair or replace any damaged brick or siding that you find on your home. If this ends up being too much for you to tackle yourself, you can easily hire a handyman or contractor to come through and fix the mess.
There you have it‚Äîa quick and comprehensive rundown on how you can effectively winterize your home for the bitter colder months of the holiday season. There’s no reason why you can’t comfortably enjoy the scenery of a winter wonderland from inside your lovely home without having to worry about cold air creeping in through all the sneaky cracks around your home. So, take the initiative and follow this simple guide, and you’ll be set.
