Preparing Your Home for Warmer Weather

The days are getting longer, and the temperatures are getting warmer, which makes it the perfect time to tidy up around your house. A little bit of time invested at the start of the season will ensure that the inside and outside of your house are ready for plenty of backyard barbecues and time with family and friends. Here are some of the best ways to prepare your home for warmer weather.

Inspect Your Roof

Now that your roof made it through the harsh weather of the winter months, it’s time to make sure that it is ready to keep out the rains of spring. Get on a ladder and look over the surface of the roof for cracked or missing shingles, loose caulk, rusty or damaged flashing, and other issues. You should also check your gutters to ensure there is no additional yard debris that wasn’t removed in the fall.

Schedule HVAC Maintenance

Air conditioner technicians can get very busy in the early summer when homeowners are kicking their systems on for the first time and noticing problems. Scheduling your air conditioner preventative maintenance and inspection now is a wonderful way to make sure that it’s ready to provide you with cool, comfortable air once it gets hot. Annual maintenance can also help prolong the life of your air conditioner.

Wash the Windows

If you use storm windows, spring is the perfect time to clean them and put them away. Even if you don’t, spring is still a good opportunity to wash the inside and outside of your windows. Check over the screens for tears or other damage that might let bugs in while you are enjoying the fresh air. If any caulk around the windows is cracked or brittle, you can remove it and replace it with fresh caulk.

Prepare for Warm-Weather Pests

Just like mice are a problem in the winter months, there are also warm-weather pests. Ants commonly show up in homes in the spring and summer. When you are taking a walk around the exterior of your home, check for gaps around pipes, cracks in your foundation, and other places where it would be easy for ants to enter. Sweep up your kitchen floor regularly so that there are not any crumbs to appeal to opportunistic pests.

Get Your Deck Ready

Do you love entertaining family and friends during the warm months? Spring is the best time to get your deck and patio cleared off, cleaned, and ready for plenty of action. Take out any patio furniture that you stored over the winter, and give it a thorough rinse and dry. Depending on the decking material that you have, brushing it with a stiff-bristled broom may be enough to remove dirt. In other cases, using a pressure washer is the best choice.

As you prepare your deck, you should also think about any upgrades that you might like to make. Spring is a great time to install a new fireplace, add a kitchen area, install a ceiling fan, or add new outdoor lighting. Getting these projects out of the way in the spring ensures that you will have as much time to enjoy them as possible.