Spring is here (in literally two days) and if you’re living in the Midwest, you know winter can wreak havoc on your home. Months of snow, ice, sleet, wind and cold temperatures have long-term effects. Hopefully your home was prepared for that nasty weather, thanks to our winter home maintenance tips blog. But enough with winter – let’s move into that warmer weather. Here is our spring maintenance checklist to get it in shape!
Check Your Roof
In our winter checklist, we made sure you got the roof ready for Santa, but with reindeer hooves, hail, snow, ice and wind, we need to see how it fared. So on a nice warm and sunny day, SAFELY, get up on the roof to see if there are any damaged shingles.
Or, if you don’t do heights or don’t feel comfortable on what to look for, hire a professional. We recommend All Peaks Roofing, LLC
Do an Exterior Sweep
All of those winter weather details we mentioned earlier could have also left some damage on your siding. So you’ll want to have someone take a look to see if siding needs to be repaired or replaced.
In addition, because of all the precipitation and moisture (which doesn’t necessarily stop in the spring), you could be dealing with wood rot. Give it a good pressure washing and repaint any areas that are exposed to protect the wood underneath.
Clean Your Gutters
Gutters seem to make it on almost every seasonal maintenance list, but it’s because they can do so much to help your home. And if they’re in bad shape, they can easily help to damage your home.
Spring storms can bring inches of rain in a short amount of time that can overload your gutters unless they’re cleared of debris. If not, water will run over and down the side of your house which can cause similar damage to what we mentioned above in the Exterior Sweep section. On top of that, it could cause foundation issues or cause water leakage in your home.
Oh, and don’t forget those downspouts. They should really extend at least three feet away from your home so water isn’t pooling in the corners of your home.
Sump Pump
The last thing we’ll recommend inspecting, on our spring maintenance checklist, is your sump pump. Most homes in the midwest, especially those with basements, have sump pumps. Make sure it’s working and pumping water out properly.
Another thing to consider with a sump pump is to have a back-up pump battery. With spring storms can come power outages, and if the rain is pouring down, you’ll still need it being pumped out! A battery back-up could be the difference between a dry basement and a basement with inches of standing water.
Spring is always a time where we Midwesterners get excited about starting to be able to work on our homes and yards outside instead of being cooped up inside. For more vendors Dani Beyer Real Estate recommends for home maintenance, check out the Resource page of our website.