Preparing Your Home for Winter

Tags: knowledge broker, knowledge broker real estate, toronto real estate, newmarket real estate, new homes, new condos, newmarket homes for sale, dream home, dream home inspiration, preparing your home for winter, winter buyers, winter prep

If you have a pool or a summer cottage, you’ve hopefully already closed them and prepared them for the winter. Now, it’s time to think about preparing your home. Go through this maintenance checklist and tick off the things as you go to make sure your home is protected – not neglected.

1. Check Your Heating System – Most heating (and air) systems last anywhere from 12 to 15 years. However, things aren’t made like they used to be and you can find yourself in trouble around 10 years. So, unless you want to find yourself bundled under five blankets trying to keep warm, make sure it’s working.

2. Paint, Caulk, and Seal Exterior Wood – If your home has wooden trim, it might need a little care to get through the colder weather. If not, you’ll end up with rotten wood around the outside windows and doors.

3. Clean Your Gutters – The leaves have fallen off the trees and now, it’s time to clean the gutters. If not, they may back up, overflow, and deteriorate the exterior of your home.

4. Order Firewood and Clean The Chimney – A cozy fire on a cold December night sounds nice, right? Too bad you forgot to order firewood! Don’t make this rookie mistake. On that note, make sure you’ve inspected the fireplace and properly cleaned it before you use it. Critters have a way of finding their way into our chimneys.

5. Test All Alarms – A lot of fire happens in the winter and since people have their homes closed up tighter to keep out the colder weather, carbon dioxide is a serious concern. Check all smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and hire an HVAC inspection to ensure your furnace and water heater are properly vented – which is the root cause of carbon monoxide.

6. Shunt Down Sprinkler System and Drain Outdoor Faucets – If you’re not sure how to call in an expert. You don’t want to mess up your sprinkler system in the winter and have to wait till Spring to get it fixed.

7. Prepare Outdoor Equipment – This goes for both summer and winter. When putting away summer lawn and yard care equipment, make sure that you drain the gas as old gas can make your equipment run poorly. In terms of your snowblower, make sure it still runs and that you have enough gas on hand to get you through the first snowfall.

We hope this checklist helps you get organized for the winter ahead. For any more tips or contacts, you need to ensure your house is secured please contact us at your earliest convivence.

At Knowledge Broker, our goal is to create an open-source of information for all our clients. We want to ensure that, at the end of the day, they get exactly what they want and what they need. If you know someone who could use our help or services please put them in touch with us or send us their details using the contact information below. And before you go, click here to take the Knowledge Broker Quiz and see exactly what we can do for you!

JOSHUA CAMPBELL (@knowledgebrkr)
Real Estate Broker
Coldwell Banker The Real Estate Centre, Brokerage
j oshua@knowledgebroker.ca
249 Avenue Road • Newmarket, ON L3Y 1N8
289.231.0001