Preventative Fall Maintenance Tips

Before Old Man Winter knocks on your door, take the time to thoroughly inspect your home inside and out for problems. Spending a solid weekend fixing minor repairs now will save you thousands in major issues down the road. I've put a list of tips together based on problems that regularly surface during my home inspections. Unfortunately, when I arrive, most of these issues have turned into major problems because they were ignored by the Homeowners over the years. Give your home a little TLC and make your investment last. Please hire a licensed Contractor to handle the jobs you're not comfortable doing.

GUTTERS, DOWNSPOUTS, AND CONTROLLING THAT WATER

Ignore problems with your gutters and it can lead to water penetration, settlement of the foundation, wood rot, and pest infestation.

1. Keep ahead of the leaves and debris filling up in your gutters throughout fall

2.Be sure water is not coming down behind gutters and that all support brackets are securely in place.

3. Does your home have trees constantly filling your gutters with leaves every fall? Install gutter guards.

4. Drain your gutters at least 5'-6' away from the foundation. This dumps the water out past the disturbed soil. If your gutter downspout extensions or splash blocks aren't long enough, replace them. This will help prevent settlement of your foundation, driveway, patio, and sidewalks and water penetration into your basement.

5.Seal up any cracks in the driveway, sidewalks, and patio with expansive concrete caulk.

WOOD OR HARDBOARD SIDING

1. Look at all of your penetrations through the siding and make sure they are sealed.

2. Wood trim around windows and doors, corner seams, vertical lap joints, and vertical seams are common areas where caulk cracks open. If you find any, remove the old caulk and seal it again using paintable caulk.

3.On hardboard panel siding, the base edge is sometimes never painted or the paint will crack open. If the base edge is swelled or slightly rotted, now is a great time to install Cedar trim. Bevel the top edge of the Cedar trim at a 45 degree angle and nail it to the bottom edge of the panel siding making sure the trim hangs down about ". Caulk the top of the board, prime, and paint. This will prevent the siding from drawing any more water from capillary action and rotting.

4. If your hardboard panel or lap siding is rotted, then it should be replaced.

5.Keep the base edge sealed and painted. On new construction, the base edge of the siding where the lower roof meets the upper wall is almost never painted.

6. Watch for peeling paint or paint that is cracking. Get on top of it and paint your home. You'll find your home needs painting about every 4-6 years with regular exterior paint. The higher grade paint can last upwards of 20-30 years and it's like applying thick mud on your siding.

AIR LEAKS AT WINDOWS AND DOORS

1.Check around the window frames inside and out for potential leaks. Caulk any visible gaps.

2. Repair any damaged or loose door frames, window locks or latches.

3. Look around every exterior door for gaps. Look for daylight coming through the door on a sunny day. To prevent drafts and to help lower your heating bills, install weather stripping.

4. On older windows, check for gaps and weather strip as needed.

5. Stain on the bottom edge of wood casement windows notoriously wears off, if it was even stained in the first place. If left exposed, it doesn't take long for the wood to rot out. While the weather is still nice, open the windows and stain the exposed wood.

YOUR HEATING SYSTEM

The majority of homeowners can't remember the last time they changed their furnace filter, let alone paid a professional to service it. When you neglect your furnace, it tends to lose efficiency and may even develop a crack in the heat exchanger.

1.Have your heating system cleaned, serviced, and evaluated by a licensed HVAC Company.

2.Replace the filter in your furnace on a regular basis. This is the #1 cause of cracked heat exchangers.

3. Any place where the duct work comes together, they can leak. Take time identifying leaky areas here and seal up with duct mastiff. Your utility bills will thank you later. On my inspections, I've found duct work entirely disconnected and blowing conditioned air into the crawlspace and attic areas.

PLUMBING

1. Take time to double-check if your pipes are insulated in any unconditioned spaces such as crawlspaces or garages. If they aren't insulated well, get on it. In the past, if your supply lines produced ice cold water in the winter, they may be in danger of freezing. Pay particular attention to bathrooms that are built over cantilevered walls or over open spaces such as decks. House wrap in these locations are critical to prevent air flow while insulation works to keep the conditioned space warm.

2.Disconnect all garden hoses. Even frost-free spigots will freeze if the garden hose holds water in the pipe.

3. Winterize your sprinkler system. There's nothing worse in the Spring than turning on your sprinkler system and finding burst lines. Sprinkler systems with gravity drain are easy to empty. Simply open the drain valve and have the valves outside turned diagonally to allow air in. If your sprinkler system needs to be blown out with an air compressor, you may have to hire that done.

FIREPLACES AND CHIMNEYS

In 2009, 21.3% of the chimney systems I inspected had a breached liner. These liners were either cracked, shifted, or had deteriorated mortar joints. All of these situations can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning or risk catching your home on fire. I also found numerous chimneys with inadequate or cracked crowns, missing caps, heavy creosote buildup, and deteriorated brick. Before using your fireplace or stove this winter, please have it thoroughly evaluated by a Certified Chimney Sweep. To find one in your area, go to the Chimney Safety Institute of America's website at www.csia.org.

SMOKE ALARMS AND CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTORS

Your home should have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors installed on every level. Test the detectors frequently. CO detectors are manufactured to go off between 50-70 ppm when only 8 ppm over a long-term can be lethal. Make sure your CO detector has a peak level button so you can see when the highest level of CO was in your home since the last time you tested.

DRYER VENTS AND LINT BUILDUP

1. There are 2 ways to clean your dryer vents. The best way is to remove the dryer vent, lay it in your lawn, and spray water down the piping to wash all of the lint out. It's scary to see how much piles up on your grass. The 2nd way, if your dryer vent is enclosed in a finished wall or ceiling and can't be removed, is to hook up a leaf blower to it. Blasting air through it will help remove the lint buildup as well.

2.Unplug your dryer, then slide the lint trap out and remove the screws holding the insert that your lint trap slides into. Once this is off, reach your hand into the bottom of the dryer and remove all of the excess lint you can grab. I did this on ours and removed about a basketball sized pile of lint that had been trapped inside the channel of the dryer!

3. Over time a film will develop on the screen of your lint trap blocking air flow making your dryer work much harder to dryer each load. Don't believe me? Hold your lint trap under a faucet and watch it hold water! You can easily clean the layer of film off with soapy water.

4. Mesh or animal guards on the exterior end of your dryer vent is a fire hazard! This has lint build up extremely quickly and can clog the line. Remove them. A free moving flopper is the only thing that should be here.

YOUR ATTIC VENTILATION

For proper attic ventilation, the square footage for the intake vents needs to equal the exhaust vents. Rule of thumb is a home should have a soffit vent every 8'. Continuous soffit vents for intake and continuous ridge vents work best. In 2009, 49% of the homes I inspected had inadequate attic ventilation. Poor attic ventilation leads to higher utility bills, moisture building up in the attic space, faster wear-n-tear on your shingles, and it also voids your manufacturer's warranty on those shingles. I've ran across moisture so heavy in attics that the entire bottom side of the roof deck was black with mold!

1. For homes with soffit vents, you want to make sure they are kept free of debris. To remove some, all you need is a screwdriver. On the ground, hose them down. Before you put them back, check that air channel to make sure it's still open. There should be a 1" gap between the roof deck and the insulation leading into the attic space. If it's closed off, the soffit vent can't do it's job. Take a broom handle and slide it up in to make the air channel. If you can't remove the soffit vent, take a leaf blower and blow into the vents.

2. Take time to venture through your attic. Look for areas of mold growth, darkened areas, stains running down your rafters, rust on nails, and smell for any musty odors. If you find any of these, you probably have inadequate attic ventilation. In the winter, the easiest way to determine this is if you see any frost on the nails, rafters, or roof deck. Poor attic ventilation should be corrected by a licensed Roofing Contractor. Each roof and attic are different and the proper repairs will vary. Some may be as easy as adding more soffit vents, while others can be quite complicated.

YOUR HOME'S CRAWLSPACE VENTILATION

1. In colder climates, crawlspace vents should be closed during the winter to help the space retain heat and prevent pipes from freezing.

2. After the winter, open the vents to help control the moisture during the Spring, Summer, and Fall.