Home Maintenance Tips to Keep Your Home in Top Condition this Fall
Your home is not only the most important place for your family, but it is also likely your biggest investment, so you need to take care of it. You have to go beyond just keeping it clean and making sure there aren’t major, obvious damages like a hole in the roof. You need to keep up with maintenance to ensure that your home is in the best shape and that there are no lingering problems. Doing so will also help you to maintain the value of your home for if you ever need to sell. (You don’t want to wait until your property inspection to get a nasty surprise!)
Here are five things you should be doing this fall in Surprise to keep your home in top shape:
Sweep Your Chimney
Even though temperatures in Surprise don’t get excessively cold, they can fall low enough to make you want to bundle up and to turn up the heat. If you have a fireplace, lighting a fire can not only make you warmer but can create a lovely ambience. But if your chimney is dirty, that ambience will be ruined by nasty fumes and smoke.
Schedule a chimney sweep before the temperatures drop. All the buildup will be cleaned out so that you don’t have any toxic fumes or smoke in your house. You can light a fire and enjoy it without worry.
Clean the Gutters
Your gutters will fill up fast during the fall. There will be leaves, pine needles, and other debris. If you don’t clean your gutters now, water can get trapped there and pushed back up onto your roof, where it can cause all kinds of damage. Water can even get pushed to inside your walls.
Clean your gutters now. If you aren’t comfortable doing the work yourself, or if your roof is especially high, hire a professional to clean them for you. Safety should always come first.
Get a Roof Inspection
Surprise just weathered the monsoon season, and now colder temperatures are on the way. You could have damage to your roof and not even know it, and that could make your roof vulnerable to more damage this winter. With the colder temperatures coming up, your roof will also be less efficient if it has any damage, and you will end up paying a lot more in energy costs.
Hire a professional roofer to inspect your roof and ensure that it is in top condition for the winter ahead. If the roofer recommends any maintenance or repairs, make them right away. Leaving any issues untended will only weaken your roof and allow for more extensive damage to form.
Tend to Weather Stripping and Caulking
Your house is full of cracks that let the warm air out and the cold air in, causing your HVAC system to work overtime if you’re not careful. Weather stripping around your doors and caulking around your windows can help seal up your home and make it more energy-efficient. However, weather stripping and caulking can both crack and wear down over time, undermining their original intent.
Spend some time closely inspecting the weather stripping and caulking around your home and making any repairs that are needed. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, or you don’t feel comfortable doing the work, hire a professional.
Check the Floors
Flooring can expand and contract with temperature changes, and that can lead to damages. The summer months also likely saw a lot of activity in your home, so your floors may have become scuffed or scratched from people dragging in sand and tiny pebbles. Now is the time to inspect your floors and to make any needed repairs.
In most cases, your floors will just need to be buffed and coated to get back to their original beauty. However, you may need to call in a professional if more serious damage is discovered.
Yearly maintenance like this can save you a lot of money on excessive energy bills and potential repairs. But it can also keep your home in top shape, which can preserve its resale value when the time comes. If it’s been awhile since you moved into your home, you might consider calling a home inspector around Arizona for a more thorough property inspection to discover if there are any deeper, underlying issues.
ATS Home Inspections offer thorough, professional home inspections in Surprise and the surrounding area. We offer AZ real estate inspections for homeowners, those shopping for a new home, and those looking for investment opportunities. Call us today to schedule your inspection and to get the comprehensive information you need about a property.
ATS Home Inspections LLC
Phone (623) 266-8846
Email: tkolb@atshomeinspectionsllc.com
Website: atshomeinspectionsllc.com