Home Winterizing: Two Types of Advice

When it comes to winterizing the house, there is two kinds of tips. The first variety often involves spending a load of money to upgrade your energy efficiency. While definitely worthwhile, these fixes can often be very costly (think adding insulation, getting a new energy efficient furnace, etc.). If you’re like me, big expenses like these can be very demotivating.

The other variety of home winterizing tips focus on the things that you can do on a weekend afternoon for very little money (or free) with a little bit of elbow grease. The cost savings of doing such work generally comes in the form of preventing costly fix-it repairs that come from neglect. Here are 10 things that you should do around the house every year before the first sign of snow hits.

How to Winterize your House for Almost Nothing

1. Clean the gutters out: Gutters that are dammed up with leaves can result in ice dams, which can lead to all kinds of costly outdoor repairs – damaged shingles, roof leaks, broken gutters, etc. Additionally, if your gutters are clogged up, water could be falling right next to your foundation and leading to leads and possible flooding in the basement.

2. Drain your external faucets: Water that is sitting in pipes that lead to outside faucets can freeze and burst, ultimately flooding your basement and leading to possible water damage and mold problems. Simply close off the interior faucet valves by turning them clockwise all the way to the right. Then go outside and make sure that every last drop has come out of the faucet.

3. Repair your shingles: If you have cracked, missing, or otherwise damaged shingles, have them replaced immediately so that you don’t get roof leaks. Strong winds, falling tree limbs, and sun weathering can all lead to damaged shingles. You might as well check them out while you’re up on your roof cleaning your gutters out.

4. Flush your hot water heater: You can do this any time of year, but you might as well throw it in with the other maintenance work you’ll be doing since you really only need to do it about once a year. If you don’t, sediment can build up at the bottom of your water heater and cause it to lose efficiency or even leak.

Simply take one of your water hoses and fasten it to the water faucet at the bottom of your water heater. Turn off the water heater so that you don’t get burned by hot water accidentally. Run the hose outdoors, preferrably, but if you can’t do that, then a laundry tub should be sufficient. Open the valve and let the water drain out completely, rinsing the sediment out with it.

5. Replace your furnace filter: Furnace filters, in a clean basement, can lead to a more efficient performing furnace when replace about every six months. I usually replace mine when I first turn on the heat and then when I switch over to air conditioning in the summer.

Frugalhead Discussion:

• What winterizing tips do you have?
• For those who don’t live in cold weather climates, what maintenance work do you have to do?

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You may also find the following article of interest:

The 2 Things Everyone Should do to Lower Heating Costs this Winter