4 ways to get your home prepared for winter early this year

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We might not have even made it into summer yet, but you should already be considering preparing your home for the winter months – as depressing of a thought as that may be.

In reality, the sooner that you get everything ready, the better. Leave it until the last minute, and you risk winter arriving on your doorstep when you still have that leaky window or haven’t fired up the furnace to make sure it is in good working order.

By preparing yourself for the colder weather when the conditions are at their finest, you’ll be making your own life a lot easier. To get you started, here are four ways to get your home prepared early for winter.

Have your furnace serviced

The last thing you need when the first cold snap of the year arrives is to either discover that your furnace isn’t working or fire it up only for it to break down after a couple of hours. You can avoid that happening by giving it a proper service now, weeks in advance of when it will be called into action for real. Call out an engineer to give it a professional going over to make sure it is running properly and efficiently.

Inspect all your windows and doors for cracks

Did you know that in winter, windows lose more heat per square foot of area than any other surface in the home? That means that they can have a severely detrimental impact on your home’s ability to stay at a comfortable temperature, potentially driving up energy costs as a result. You can try and prevent this by inspecting your windows for cracks and leaks and making sure they are properly sealed. Get out there while the weather is good and apply weather-stripping around windows and door frames where necessary. This will help to keep the heat in and the cold out this winter.

Clean out your gutters

If you want your gutters to be able to handle the rainfall of winter, then you need to ensure that they are free of all the debris, leaves, dirt and sticks that they collected over the previous year. Clogged gutters can result in overflowing which can, in turn, lead to leaks, something that nobody wants in the depth of winter. If your guttering looks like it is beyond repair, then you should consider getting gutter replacement Charleston, SC before winter arrives.

Pad pipes in unheated areas

Frozen pipes are a real problem in winter. Over the last decade, they’ve been responsible for over $4 billion worth of damage caused to homes in the United States, affecting an average of a quarter of a million Americans each year. You can prevent yourself adding to those figures by padding out pipes in the summer to stop them freezing in the winter. Adding just a small amount of insulation to those pipes in your basement, attic, crawl space and even outside which won’t be protected by the glow of your properties heat can help fend off this most costly and potentially devastating of issues.

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