After a long, cold winter, there’s nothing better than getting outside when springtime comes. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and soon your backyard will be filled with flowers and all kinds of wildlife. That’s saying nothing of all the fun outdoor activities you can enjoy in nicer weather.
As enjoyable as spring can be, there are a great number of spring home maintenance tips you can and should use to get your home ready for spring. Think about the last time you checked the smoke alarms around your house. When was the last time you check your vents or your home plumbing system?
With the right checklist, you can prepare your home and be ready to enjoy spring when it arrives. Use this checklist to help get your home spring-ready:
Scrub Your Walls
Before spring hits, take some time and scrub all the walls in your home. If you’ve noticed lately that there are all kinds of smudges and dirt marks and debris on your walls, take some time and clean them. Usually, all your need are a combination of soap and water and some kind of brush or sponge. You can use stepladders to get to the hard-to-reach places, and you can use cloths to get around some of the tighter spots. Make sure to clean your kitchen, your bathrooms, your living room and even the baseboards and electrical outlets.
If you have smokers in your house, this is the perfect time to clean your walls. Even if you don’t automatically see it, nicotine residue can become thickly coated on your walls, and it can take some time and special cleaning materials to really get off. If you live in a home with heavy smokers, go to your local hardware store and buy TSP powder. You can then mix that with water and scrub areas where smoke damage may be the heaviest. Don’t be surprised if you need to clean the same areas two or three times if nicotine starts to bleed through.
Check Your Roof
It’s recommended that you get your roof inspected at least twice a year. If you live in an area with harsh winters, you should not hesitate to do this. Inspect your roof and look for things that are out of the ordinary such as broken shingles, cracks or areas where the roof might be sagging.If you notice serious issues, contact a local roof repair company right away. You don’t want to ignore a problem and then have something serious happen when it’s too late.
Have Your HVAC System Checked
Having local HVAC services check your home’s heating and cooling system is another must on your spring home maintenance checklist. If you’ve been running the heat all winter, you need to be sure that your system is ready to handle warmer weather when late spring and summer arrive. A professional can check all the necessary connections, replace any worn out filters, and ensure that your system is in ship-shape, ready to handle whatever coming heat or cold comes its way.
Having your HVAC system inspected and cleaned is a great way to keep the allergens out of your home. It’s easy to dust and clean the inside of your home to prevent dust buildup and mold buildup, but an uncleaned HVAC system can spread all sorts of allergens in the air, leaving unsuspecting homeowners vulnerable to a whole host of potential health problems.
If you don’t have a central heating and cooling system in your home, and you use air conditioners in different rooms during the spring and summer, make sure to maintenance those as well. Before you do an air conditioning installation in a bedroom window, make sure the outlet you’re plugging it into is clean, make sure the filter on the air conditioner is clean, and make sure that the window you’re putting it into is still in good shape.
Clean Up Your Yard
Another one of the important spring home maintenance tips you should follow is to get your yard cleaned. If you’re planning on planting this spring, having a good-looking lawn, and having backyard barbecues, then you need a clean yard.
Take time to pick up any loose brush that’s accumulated during the winter. This helps clean your yard, and it also makes a great burning pile for a future bonfire. If you have a tree that’s taken a beating during winter and needs to be removed, call a local tree service to come and remove it. The same thing goes if you have an old stump in your backyard that you might have been neglecting for a few years.
As you clean your yard, also think about future projects and plans. If you plan on planting this spring and summer for example, you may want to lay the groundwork for a backyard garden. If you notice that your lawn is looking a little bare in some spots, get some grass seed and spread it around. It takes time and some water to get growing, but over time it helps your lawn look more full.
Have Your Plumbing Checked
Nothing is worse for a homeowner than dealing with a plumbing problem, especially one that shuts down a bathroom or a shower. If you’ve noticed some leaky faucets or slowly dripping pipes in your home, call local plumbing services right away. If you live in an older home, with older plumbing, you don’t want to take any chances on even the smallest of issues. Plumbing services will be able to help fix leaky areas, replace faulty plumbing and make sure all your water hookups are in good working order.
If you’re getting ready to vacation at a seasonal home, calling local plumbing services is a must. You likely use them when you winterize your vacation home and you also likely use them when you’re opening up your home for the spring or summer. The professionals know all the necessary steps to closing down and opening up home plumbing, so don’t hesitate to look to their services if you need them. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
Get All Your Outdoors Stuff Out
With spring fast approaching, another thing to add to your list of spring home maintenance tips is to get all of your spring outdoors accessories out of storage. That includes outdoor furniture, which likely needs to be cleaned after winter. That includes getting out the grill and cleaning that as well, to say nothing of going and filling up your propane tanks if you have a gas grill.
It also means getting out your lawn mower and doing any necessary maintenance on that. Whether you’ve got a small backyard to mow or half an acre of property, you want to know that you’ve got a functioning lawn mower, so clean out the gas tank, check the spark plugs, and do any other necessary maintenance you need to do.
Clean Your Gutters
Even after winter snow melts, your gutters can still collect plenty of debris. The best thing you can do is grab a ladder and start cleaning. You can slap on a pair of gloves and remove as much debris as you can with your hands. For anything that’s left over, you can pull out your garden hose and spray out your gutters. If you use a hose, just make sure that any water from the hose is pouring out of your downspouts away from your foundation walls.
While you’re cleaning your gutters, take a few minutes and look at your siding. If you notice siding in some areas is faded or cracking, call on local professionals to do siding replacement. It is possible to do it yourself, but it can be very tricky and probably best left to the pros.
Don’t Forget Your Windows
Much like your home’s walls, baseboards, and other areas, your windows can get pretty dirty too over time. Obviously cleaning them is a no-brainer on your list of spring home maintenance tips, but you may find that the arrival of spring calls for getting new windows.
These days, there are a plethora of options for window replacements, and it ultimately comes down to what’s going to work best for your home. You can get windows that are more eco-friendly and will protect your furniture from harmful UV rays. You can get windows that have more tint, so you’re not catching a glare as you try and read. You can get windows that have automatic blinds and windows with shutters that match the exterior of your home. The possibilities really are endless.
Check Your Electricity
As you clean up your home and follow spring maintenance tips to get your home spring-ready, don’t forget to check your electricity. There’s nothing worse than having the power go out or having an important appliance stop working in the middle of the night because of some kind of electrical issue.
Local home improvement services in your area can check all your home’s electrical connections, starting from your breaker box and going room by room to make sure wiring is in good shape. They can also make any necessary electrical upgrades. This serves many purposes and helps your home in many ways. It ensures that when you plug things into an outlet, turn on a lamp or even connect to WiFi, that your home isn’t going to experience outages, shortages, or surges.
Electricians can also check your HVAC system hookups and let you know if there are any problems you need to fix. This includes having too many things plugged into one outlet or plugging things into an outlet that may be uncovered or open to the elements such as rain or snow.
Think About Upgrades
Springtime is the perfect time to make needed upgrades to your home, and really you can go about it any way you want.
If you’re looking at exterior improvements, you could consider putting a new coat of paint on your home to spruce up the curb appeal. You could also consider filling in cracks in your driveway. Sprucing up the curb appeal will make neighbors take notice and make you feel better about your home.
You might also consider having solar panels installed outside your home. This can be a little costly at first, but over time it can pay off and save you some big money on energy bills and make your home more eco-friendly in the process.
Don’t Forget The Foundation
Your home’s foundation is just that, the thing on which your home sits and provides structure for your home. Because it’s such an important part of your home, you need to treat it as such and do any necessary maintenance. A few obvious spring home maintenance tips are to clear debris away from the foundation and to make sure water is pooling up around it. When that happens, it can seep into your home, especially if you have a basement, when snow starts to thaw. If you happen to notice cracks in your home’s foundation, contact foundation repair services right away. They can make any needed fixes, so you aren’t dealing with any long term, costly issues down the road.
By prepping your home for spring, you can be ready for just about anything. By taking the time now to get your home ready, you can spend your spring and summer nights enjoying the nice weather and doing the things you love to do, rather than spending time making repairs and spending money because you skimped on spring cleaning.
So throw on some gloves, grab your mops and rags, and tools and get to cleaning. By the time spring comes around, your home will be looking spic and span inside and out and you’ll be feeling proud of all the hard work you put in.
