Homeowners

Seasonal Home Maintenance: Protecting Your Biggest Investment Year-Round

There’s nothing like the first few months in your new home. There’s a thrill in choosing just-the-right paint colors, finding stylish furniture for your space, and creating the home that you always dreamed would be yours.

But after the paint dries and you’ve settled in, there’s more to homeownership than just paying the mortgage. It’s time to think about home maintenance. 

Your home is likely your largest financial asset, so maintaining its structural integrity should be a priority. While home renovations often bring issues to light, a few seasonal chores will help you spot issues before they become problems. 

“Every season, at a minimum, you should change your furnace filter and do a quick self-inspection,” said Chris Hock, a licensed contractor and owner of Earth Savings Solutions in Denver.

This routine maintenance, combined with biannual tune-ups, can help extend the life of your furnace and air conditioner and prevent costly repairs.

So, what should you put on your maintenance checklist every season?

Spring home maintenance

The outside of your property can directly impact the inside. Doing things like keeping trees and bushes trimmed and ensuring they are healthy can help to prevent significant damage during spring storms.

Hock recommends pruning unruly limbs from trees before they bud. Leaves can add weight and make them more dangerous if they break or hit your home or vehicle during a spring storm. 

Homeowners should also clean their gutters in the spring. This ensures water is angled away from your home’s foundation and helps to keep your basement dry. Clogged gutters can allow water to pool or form ice dams, leading to leakage.

Spring is also a great time to examine your siding, trim, and windows. Rotting fiber siding boards or trim boards indicate it’s time for a new paint job.

Look for cracks in windows or slider doors, too. You might be able to repair them with new caulking, or it might be time for an upgrade. 

Don’t forget to check smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, changing any batteries and ensuring they are working correctly.

Finally, if spring storms have impacted you, inspecting your roof is always a good idea. A roofing professional will look for beehives, rotting shingles or boards, and crushed or missing flu pipes.

Summer home maintenance

As the season heats up, keeping your air conditioner free of debris to run more efficiently. 

“An air conditioner takes in heat and it’s cooling it before bringing it inside the house,” Hock said. “It needs to breathe. Often, there’s debris wrapped around it, and the coils are filthy.” 

Cleaning the coils can be as simple as blowing them off with a leaf blower or vacuum and then rinsing them with a garden hose. Dirty A/C filters or coils can cause freezing issues, which can shut down the air conditioner when it is most needed. 

If your A/C unit is clean and ready, check your insulation and air flow through your attic. Maintaining adequate insulation can reduce the burden of your heating and cooling on your HVAC system. 

You may also want to switch your ceiling fan to rotate counterclockwise. This will provide a downdraft, helping to keep your home cool.

Fall home maintenance

If you’re blessed with mature trees, you also face a bit of yard cleanup in the fall. Winterizing your yard can mean cleaning up leaves and treating turf to prepare it for colder temperatures.

Homeowners should also have the gutters cleaned out, especially if they’re clogged with some of those falling leaves.

You will also want to unhook garden hoses and winterize sprinkler systems to prevent outside faucets from freezing and leading to burst pipes. 

This is also a good season to clean out dryer vents. Lint buildup can cause fires.

Winter home maintenance

Even in warmer areas of the country, colder days are becoming more common. Protecting under-cabinet and outside pipes can prevent them from bursting. 

Once winter weather hits, homeowners should check for ice-damming and pushing accumulated snow away from the foundation of your home. Ice forming under shingles can cause separation, which opens a gateway for water damage or mold. That can be expensive to remedy.   

This is a good time to get your heating system a tune-up. It doesn’t hurt to have it checked.

You will also want to readjust ceiling fans to run clockwise. This can help keep your home warm.

Winter is also often the most affordable time to complete home renovations, said Hock.

“The slow months for most contractors are January, February and March,” Hock said. “If you want work done quickly and more affordably, you may be able to negotiate a better rate because they need the work. In summer, you won’t have that negotiating room.”