Winter is coming. It is getting colder, and it’s harder to move with all the snow piling up. Thus, there are many things we need to prepare for the coming cold months, which helps us to stay safe in this harsh season. We are here today to shed light on some of the most crucial ones.
The List of Things Every Householder Should Prepare For Winter
Check Garden Hoses
When the temperature gets lower and the water turns solid, it will slightly expand. This results in big pressure on pipes. Therefore, when you forget to detach the hose from the spigot, the hose, the spigot, or even both can bust with ease.
Closing all the valves around your garden will not make a difference; such problems will still come to pass as long as the hose stays connected. Hence, make sure that you check and separate your garden hoses from whatever it takes water from before the most severe season of the years sweeps by.
Wash The Loft Venting
A loft ventilation system in poor condition may lead to the appearance of ice dams on roofs within the winter months, making your home into an ideal environment for mold to settle in and reduce the age of shingles through when warmer seasons arrived.
Thus, before the winter, you should clean the loft vents using a pressure washer, but one more notice is that you have to get this done quickly to avoid having water saturate your loft insulation. It makes sure that your house’s attic vents are working well, which helps to reduce mildew spread and lessen cooling costs during the dog days.
Store Your Gas Grill
If you are not a big fan of barbecues in the winter, pack and store your gas grill as soon as possible before a dense foot of snow can cover it. We will give you some handy clues for you to keep your gas grill in good shape and stop certain troublesome problems as you will use it again next spring.
The first step is that you need to wash and clean your grill thoroughly, which helps remove the remaining food debris.
Then, you need to turn off the gas at the tank, detach the burner and the gas line from the tubes, take out the device.
Next, use cooking oil to cover metal parts and burners that help our appliance avoid partly moisture and rust during the winter.
Then, use a plastic bag to pack your appliance’s burner to prevent insects or spiders from forming a nest in your grill’s gas-tubes during the winter.
One important thing to keep in mind is that you should never carry the tank into the house, even the storage room or garage is off-limit. It’s dangerous if there is a certain leak, even a small one may generate a large explosion if you pack the LP tank of the grill in a surrounded capacity.
Instead, you just need to detach the tank and pack it outside at an upstanding slot far from kid’s play sectors, dryers, and boiler vents. You can check more about how to service your boiler here: https://safetyhub.net/how-to-optimise-your-home-for-winter/.
If homeowners want to keep the gas grill outside the house, they just need to turn off the propane tank, and don’t forget to place a protective lid on your grill after finishing the above two steps.
Prevent Fire hazards
One of the most important things to prepare for winter is checking chimneys and the risk of fires.
The first thing to do is to see if your chimney still functions properly or not. You ought to check it thoroughly and get it cleaned, especially if your chimney has worked over 70 times (50 in case you usually use damped logs)
If you cannot remember the last time you cleaned the chimney, we are going to give you a quick tip to assess its current status and see whether it needs a bath or not.
You can pick the point on the fire poker and sweep it along the internal chimney. If you find around ⅛ inch layers of dust accumulation, you don’t need to hesitate about cleaning your chimney anymore.
Take Care of Your Flower Pots
Many people thought that flower pots made from ceramic or clay were designed to be put outside. Actually, this opinion is completely wrong.
If your flower pots are abandoned outside during the severe winter, when the temperature is getting lower, the damp soil inside your pots will be expanded, which causes them to crack easily. Therefore, if you want to see them again after the winter pass, you should reserve some good slots for them in your garage.
In order to optimize your home before the winter comes, besides the above-mentioned affairs, you should also look around your drainpipes, guttering, car, and battery thoroughly.
Conclusion
The winter is getting closer and closer. Therefore, to stay safe in the next cold season, you need to get ready. We hope that with these mentioned clues, you can save time to prepare for cold days in the best way possible.
Best wishes to you, and please keep following us to collect more useful tips. Thank you.