Home Maintenance Checklist: 6 Ways To Prep Your Home For Winter
Winter is peaking its jolly little head around the corner. Luckily we live in Tucson, Arizona, so winters really aren’t too gnarly. However, it doesn’t hurt to prep certain areas of your home a bit before winter makes a full appearance.
Simple tasks like cleaning our gutters and winterizing your swamp coolers can go a long way, even in Tucson’s mild winters. Without further ado, here are 6 Ways To Prep Your Home For Winter!
1. Pampering The Yard
Fall is perhaps the best time of year to have your lawn pampered and pruned for the mild Tucson winters ahead. This is especially the best time to fertilize and overseed your lawn!
It may appear as though your grass stops growing in the fall, but in fact, it’s quite the opposite- the roots are actually growing deeper to prepare for winter. Spreading grass seed over your existing lawn will have your lawn growing in thick, lush, green for next Spring and Summer.
You may also want to prune your trees and shrubs after the leaves turn to encourage healthy growth. Take off all of those little limbs growing in, or any “scruffy” looking areas of the trees and shrubs, so that come Spring, your trees and shrubs can grow taller, rather than outward.
If you’re feeling up to the task, these yard maintenance tips can be done by your own two hands. If not, you can always call a professional to manicure and fertilize your lawn!
2. Fix Driveway Cracks
#2 on our 6 Ways To Prep Your Home For Winter might seem a bit tedious, but trust us, it’s one of those things we all don’t normally think of right?
When water gets into those driveway cracks it’s possible it could freeze, expand, and make that pesky crack get even bigger (and more expensive to fix later on). Even small cracks, when in large numbers, can turn into much larger, more stress causing cracks, and can even cause the concrete to crumble.
And we’re sure you would probably prefer a nice smooth driveway, rather than one riddled with potholes, huh? Go ahead and grab a bottle of concrete crack filler at your local home repair store and “winterize” that driveway!
3. Have Your Carpet's Cleaned!
Perhaps the thought of having to deep cleaning your tile, carpets, and even rugs, right before winter is simply too much to bear. You have enough to worry about and clean before the holidays arrive!
Winter and holidays mean lots of warm food and warm bellies. From homemade apple cider, red wines, pumpkin bread, and turkey and gravy, you have lots of dark, saucy things coming your way this season. It’s a good idea to have your carpets and tile cleaned, and then sealed, to better protect them when the holiday madness begins.
No need to worry, you live in the Tucson area, which means you have access to the best floor cleaning peeps around!
4. Check The Furnace
Let’s be frank- we all haven’t touched our home heaters/furnaces in pretty much a year here in Tucson. So it goes without saying that this little furnace-who-can may need a bit of a check up, don’t you think?
You’ll want to replace the filter in your furnace, and clean your ducts to better your heating system’s efficiency, lower the cost of heating your home, and reduce some household dust.
You may even want to have a HVAC professional come out to inspect your heating system to ensure optimal performance and repair or replace any minor problems before they turn into headaches and holes-in-pockets! Yikes!
5. Winterize Your Coolers
Did you know you even had to store your swamp cooler in the winter months? It’s okay, wee didn’t either- we’re carpet people, so this isn’t exactly our area of expertise.
So yes, if your home runs on a swamp cooler, you’ll want to make sure that you store the unit properly during the winter. Before you store your swamp cooler for the winter, make sure to winterize it first.
Drain the unit, remove the pads, and clean the tank. Then store your swamp cooler in a covered, dry area until temperatures begin to rise again in the summer! Of course, if that seems like too much work, you can always call a professional to winterize your swamp cooler for you!
6. Change The Air Filters
Last but not least on our 6 Ways To Prep Your Home For Winter is something that should be done typically every quarter, depending on your household. Did you know that not changing your air filters regularly actually costs you more money?
When your air filters are full, they cause quite a bit of strain on your home heating and cooling system. This in turn works your system harder, using more power to keep your home at temp, which significantly increases your utility bill.
Clean these filters quarterly, at the very least, not just before winter, and thank us later.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our 6 Ways To Prep Your Home For Winter with Zerorez® Tucson. Happy Fall ya’ll, and we’ll see you next week!