Spring Maintenance for Your Home

Preparing your home for winter is often seen as a task in preventive care. It’s the same with getting things shipshape for the warmer weather.

Here are some spring maintenance tips, courtesy of The Tennesean, for protecting your biggest investment – your home – and keeping all systems running without a hitch:

First, start with where a number of house problems either originate or eventually spread: Your windows. Take a good look at each one to see that they operate properly and fit in their openings without any gaps or blockages. Now is a good time to thoroughly clean the window tracks and check seals and weatherstripping. Just as you don’t want heated air leaking from your home during winter, you also don’t want it intruding during summer.

Then, schedule a time for all of your air conditioning equipment to be inspected. This includes central units as well as Window AC and Through the Wall AC. Replace and/or clean all filters as needed.

Seal up cracks leading to the outside, whether around windows, doors or other openings. These can serve as perfect entryways for pests that can do considerable damage to your system before you may even begin to notice their presence. Best to keep them out while you can!

Look over your roof (or have a qualified roofer do the job if you do not feel comfortable attempting this yourself) to see if there has been any damage from ice or snow. Sometimes, this damage can be all but invisible, showing up as a leak later in the season.

Inspect your foundation to check for damage or cracks. Make sure that soil slopes away from your foundation at the approximate rate of one inch for every foot.

An often-overlooked task that has the potential to cause significant damage: Clean all gutters of debris. This task needs to be attended to in both fall and spring, as winter storms can wind up forcing various forms of natural garbage into these spaces.

When all of that is accomplished, break out the patio furniture, clean and maintain according to your owner’s manual(s) and prepare to enjoy the pleasures of spring!