How to prepare your house and yard for winter?

Before any winter, we make sure to change our wardrobe to warmer clothes, to switch to winter tires on our cars, and even to vaccinate against the flu. However, our house and its surroundings need the same care before the cold season. A professional cleaning and home maintenance company, such as our own, can help you with these activities. In the following, we will guide you through the tasks you need to check off your list, whether you want to do it yourself or call us.

Around the house

The first thing you need to do is clean the gutters. They can fill up with fallen leaves, twigs, and acorns, that will prevent the melting snow and ice inside from flowing freely. This will translate into freezing gutters, which in turn can lead to water damage inside your house. Secondly, you need to power wash outside surfaces, another task our well-trained experts can fulfill in no time. Scrubbing down patios, decks, and walkways will remove accumulated dirt from summer.

Other activities you could do around the house, just before winter sets in, include turning off outside spigots and covering exterior faucets with insulation, washing the windows and inspecting the seals, planning snow removal early, and buying ice melt.

Outdoor living area

Moving to the outdoor living area, we must inform you that there is still a lot of work left. It includes draining the outside water features, including hot tubs, fountains, swimming pools, and waterfalls, as well as dealing with the ashes inside the firepit area. The last thing you would want is for water to collect and freeze, in combination with remnants from the last fire.

Also, you have to cover any outdoor furniture or put it away in a shed, together with stowing your patio umbrella. You can continue to grill, but if you move the grill closer to your house, be careful to avoid fire hazards or melted siding. Last but not least, you should check the outdoor lighting, replacing all faulty bulbs. Why? Because this activity would be much harder to do if you had to climb a ladder on an icy patio.

Lawn & landscape

When it comes to lawn and landscape, there are a lot of things to do as well. First of all, you have to cut grass to at least 4 inches in snow-prone areas, to protect it from the snow. If you cut it too short, the snow and cold might damage roots, and if you leave it too long, it might develop snow mold disease. Furthermore, you should fertilize the lawn to encourage thicker root growth, drain and blow out irrigation systems, as well as protect shrubs, with burlap barriers, especially near the main roads.

Last but not least, you should apply oil spray to shrubs and trees, to help control specific pests, treat plants with deer repellant, let grasses stand and not prune ornamental grasses until spring, and recycle leaves, mowing over them and letting them decompose in place.



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