Keeping Your Home Protected In The Winter

Winter
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When we think about it, a home is a beautiful thing. It shields us from the elements, it helps us gain a comfortable place to raise our family, and it’s often the place we feel ‘the most ourselves’ out of anywhere else on Planet Earth. Keeping your home protected in the winter then, as is coming our way, can be a great idea.

In fact, taking care of this can often help you save money, stay healthier, and protect those within that may be more sensitive to the cold, such as newborns or the elderly. Additionally, good home maintenance is simply worthwhile sense. As you can tell by many of the product reviews and much of the advice on our website, we are all about helping you live your best life with the best products and actions you can use to help you along. With that in mind, let us consider practical winter-proofing tips, those that will not take hours upon hours to achieve, or those that will add any additional stress.

Prevent Pipes From Freezing

Preventing your pipes from freezing is an important consideration in itself. You can achieve this by running water through the taps intermittently throughout the day, and leaving your central heating on a low degree of heat throughout most of the day, not enough to raise your bills sky-high, but helpful to the point where the cost of an emergency call-out plumber is not needed. Additionally, this can also help you avoid going without hot water or even water for long periods. You will thank yourself for this effort when taking warm showers each morning and avoiding that hellish cold blast we all dread when the water is not as heated as it could be.

Service Your Heating Implements

Servicing your heating implements is also an essential part of keeping your home protected in the winter. Having your boiler or central heating serviced once a month can again ensure that the installation will not stop working during the colder days and nights. While you may be able to survive wearing warmer clothes and placing another blanket atop your bed, infants and the elderly can suffer tremendously due to that, even with these extra steps. Although this shouldn’t be the only motivator of course, sometimes the hassle of being cold and having to take care of one extra broken thing can leave you to feel distracted and somewhat unhappy when you’re supposed to be enjoying the winter festivities.

Insulate Your Roof

Roof insulation is one of the most important elements of any winter preparation. You can achieve this by inspecting and replacing your roofing felt, and ensuring that the roofing work has managed to stay maintained over the summer. If not, then restorative work should take place in advance, and you have a couple of months from the time of this writing to do exactly that. Insulating your roof can be seen as somewhat of a  small investment, but the money you save keeping the heating in and preventing the potential of further roofing damage is almost unquestionable in its entirety. Worthwhile sealants such as Miothene can also have an amazing insulative effect.

Ensure Drainage Pipes Aren’t Blocked

Ensuring that your gutters and drainage pipes aren’t blocked is a very important measure to take when caring for your property through the autumn and winter. Leaves and other debris from the external environment can quite clearly take their toll on how the water may drain, and this can lead to water pooling and both damaging the exterior or interior of your property. Additionally, it’s simply a good idea to ensure that the baseline systems put in place to help you fend off weather damage are maintained before you use any other specialist measures.

Prune Your Exterior

Pruning your exterior is important. You may decide to trim some of the large trees around your property to ensure that even in high winds, old or looser branches do not fall onto your property and harm it at all. It can also be wise to park your vehicle within your garage to avoid any falling debris in the wind, as while this is not part of your home, it’s part of your property that you would rather prefer isn’t damaged in an untoward fashion.

Secure Your Outside Property

Securing your outside property is a good idea. Consider how many trampolines, parts of child’s climbing frames and fences are known to go flying when heavy winds come to an area. Sure, your small home may not experience anything as massive as the hurricane that brings devastation to places such as the Bahamas, but it’s important to take some of their wisdom and understand the damage wind can do if it’s not care for. Additionally, ensure that our previous advice of parking your car in the garage, keeping your essential outdoor elements weight down or tied up and that you assess damage immediately is important, because you cannot secure items in your neighbours gardens unfortunately. This way, you can remain just as protected as possible.

Stay Updated Regarding The Weather

Keeping an eye on the weather in general is a good idea. It can help you apply all of the advice in this column in a more timely manner, help you prepare your property for freezing temperatures, and commit to your safety. For example, sprinkling salt on your driveway, especially if it’s relatively steep, can help you prevent sliding down it in the morning when you’re just trying to get to work with the least amount of trouble possible.

Additionally, consider how you may wish to bring in certain hanging baskets that could freeze over, inspect your driveway tarmac or perhaps keep your dustbins in a safe and secure environment should the weather get out of hand. It’s almost impossible to care for every single potential damaging factor that could harm a home during winter (especially in colder climates), but without this effort you could be spending a lot more in reparative work. To that extent, following this advice is by far the best thing you could do for yourself here.

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