Owning a home can be an incredible experience. Many people look forward to moving in and personalizing their homes, for example, and find the process of turning a building into a sanctuary that meets all of their needs to be an enjoyable one. It is important to keep in mind, however, that owning a home is about a lot more than just finding the right decorations for your kitchen or living room. Indeed, owning a home comes with all manner of responsibilities. This can be especially jarring if you are coming from a background of renting, where landlords were typically in charge of most of the upkeep of the building and grounds.
When you own your own home, you are now the person in charge of maintaining it. Let’s take a look at how to keep your home safe from wear and tear during the winter!
Winterize Your Home
Winter is one of the most damaging times for a home. Depending upon where you live, the constant dampness mixed with the extremely low temperatures combine to create one big headache for homeowners. Luckily, there are some things that you can do to help ensure that your home remains undamaged by winter’s harsh and unforgiving weather.
Remove Your Hose from Your Outside Faucet
Leaving your hose hooked up to your outside faucet might seem like no big deal, but that’s only because you haven’t been on the receiving end of the damage that occurs when this goes wrong. What typically happens in that homeowners forget that they never disconnected their hose. Water eventually becomes trapped inside and freezes. You won’t know there’s a problem until spring rolls around and you turn on your faucet for the first time. All of that newly unfrozen water will come pouring out and flood your basement. This is incredibly damaging, and can do as much as $5,000 of damage in ten minutes of time.
Properly Insulate Your Home
This is particularly an issue with older homes that were built when codes were very different from today’s norms. These buildings tend to have areas with little to no insulation at all, which can result in pipes freezing during especially cold weather. As you might imagine, these can in turn lead to some significant damage to your property. If you cannot afford to properly insulate your home this winter, there are a few things you can do to help prevent pipes from freezing and bursting.
If you need help winterizing your home or have found yourself with a disaster on your hands, it is important to find an experienced local plumber to help as quickly as possible. Morning Noon & Night can HELP!