Getting Your Home Ready For The Fall
January 22, 2025 | Posted by: Sherry Corbitt
With the fall season beginning, there are a variety of different tasks that you should do around your property. These few things will eliminate the possibility of damage to your home or needing new repairs from maintenance and cleaning.
Cleaning Your Chimney
If your house has a chimney, it certainly is an important task to do in the fall season. You want to know that there are no problems with it before it becomes a severe issue. Discovering anything wrong with it and getting it repaired in the fall will ensure that it is ready for the winter. It would be stressful to find out that something was wrong with it and the snow had already fallen.
Examine Your Furnace
Like the chimney point, taking the time to examine your furnace is necessary to prepare in the fall. There may be a part that needs to be changed or an actual problem with the stove itself. When you catch the early signs of a problem, it usually will be cheaper than getting it fixed when the problem is much worse. In addition, you want to ensure that your furnace is running smoothly as the weather starts to cool down.
Cleaning Gutters
This is one of the most vital tasks to complete during the fall. Over the past year, a lot of water, debris, leaves, and dirt have been stored in your gutters. It will break your gutters when you leave all of that to sit in them for too long. To fix gutters, you easily may have to spend a couple of thousand dollars. To avoid going through that hassle, taking an afternoon in the fall to clean them will save you a lot in the long run. Cleaning them can be difficult, as everything may be sticking to the gutters. You can use any household item to get it out, though, such as a small metal shovel or spatula.
Raking Leaves
There have been some debates about whether you should rake your leaves or not. Some suggest that it is good to leave them on the lawn until the spring season. Yet keeping the leaves on for so long takes away a lot of the grass’s strength and can even damage your property. To ensure your lawn remains healthy, purchase some leave bags at any store during the fall months and rake your leaves. Some may debate that mowing them down is better since it saves time and money. Yet mowing all the thick layers of leaves can put a strain on your lawnmower. With such added pressure, you can end up damaging or even breaking your mower. You definitely will save more time and money by picking them up instead, as you avoid having to repair or buy a new lawnmower.
Water Your Yard
Your lawn is going to be exhausted from the summer. It will need to regain its strength, especially before the winter time. After you rake all the leaves off your lawn, make sure you water your grass in the morning and or evening to see the best results. When you water it in the fall, you can be sure that it will be much healthier in the spring.
Fertilize
Depending on your lawn, you may only need to fertilize it once or twice a year. Similar to the previous point, Fertilizing during the fall provides nutrients to the grass and can help prepare it for the winter weather.
Cover Your Bushes and Plants
To make sure that your bushes and plants survive the cold winter outside, you will want to cover them up. Wrapping them in winter protective material will ensure that they last during the cold winter and look vibrant in the spring. You can find plant wraps at most hardware stores. Before wrapping your plants, make sure to research which ones do and do not need to be covered. Some plants may do best when you bring them inside until it is spring.
Bring Cold Sensitive Supplies into Your Home
The fall is a great time to organize your shed and establish what needs to come into your house before the winter. Some things can be ruined or damaged from the cold weather, such as paint or other liquids. Determine a safe spot in your house where you can store these items during the cold months. You want to make sure that all toxic items are kept out of reach from children.
Detach Hose
Many may overlook detaching their hose in the fall. Once you have watered your lawn and it is very close to snowfall, ensure that you separate it from the water faucet. When you keep it plugged on during the winter, the water inside the hose will freeze and cause the hose to snap. To avoid having to spend money on a new hose every season, detach it and store it in a mildly warmer area of your garage.
Check Your Windows
Doing a quick inspection of all the windows in your house can help you see any cracks or issues with them. Finding such matters in the fall will provide you with enough time to get them fixed before the colder weather comes. To discover the problems with your windows after the snow has fallen will be a much more significant concern.
Completing these tasks around your house in the fall will prevent any unnecessary issues and stress. Maintaining your home will also ensure that you save money.
If you have any questions or concerns about getting your home ready for the fall, please feel free to reach out to me.
Sherry Corbitt, Mortgage Broker
Sources
-Beaulieu, David (2020). Is it Necessary To Rake Leaves Off The Lawn? The Spruce. Retrieved from https://www.thespruce.com/why-necessary-to-rake-leaves-off-the-lawn-2132361
-Family Handyman (2020). Fall Home Maintenance Checklist: 20 Things to Do Every Year. Retrieved from https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/fall-home-maintenance-checklist/
-Riha, John (2020). A Fall Checklist of 10 Things You Gotta Do Before Winter Sets In. Houselogic. Retrieved from https://www.houselogic.com/organize-maintain/home-maintenance-tips/fall-checklist/
