Summer Maintenance Tips For Northeastern PA Homes
As the weather finally warms up and school lets out, we know summer is on its way.
While most families have a spring cleaning routine, many do not have an established summer maintenance care routine. However, the warm weather is the perfect time to start thinking about home repair projects and getting that home inspection you've been putting off.
If you plan to sell your home in the next year, then a pre-listing inspection and some routine maintenance will pay dividends.
Regardless if you plan to buy or sell a home, here are nine summer maintenance tips that will benefit your home.
- Inspect your deck and/or Patio
Wood decks typically require painting or staining every few years to prolong their life. Likewise, if your patio is concrete, it is important to look for any areas that may need to be sealed. If your patio happens to be brick, look for missing pieces or damaged ones so that they may be replaced.
Summer is the perfect time to tidy up that deck and fix any exterior defects that raise alarm bells on that inspection report.
- Check your fence
Your fence may not be an area you check often, but it requires some upkeep. If your fence is chain-linked, it is important to look for any broken parts, especially if you have pets. This can also help keep your furry friends out of harm's way.
If your fence is made of wood, it is important to stain or paint it as often as you would a wood deck.
Vinyl fencing may require periodic tightening of the panels, especially if the ground around the posts has shifted.
- Inspect the grading around your home
When doing this you want to ensure that the pitch of the ground around your home's foundation is sloping away from your home. This allows for water to be directed away from your home to lessen water damage. If you happen to notice any low areas, these can be fixed by adding top soil.
Ignoring your grading can lead to structural issues, including foundation cracks that invite moisture in.
- Check your gutters
If your gutters are clogged or damaged, this may lead to water issues inside your home.
First, you want to ensure that your gutters are not damaged and that they are all connected. Also, it is important to check your downspouts and make sure that they are taking water away from your home as far away as possible. To help with this, you can purchase inexpensive extensions.
Install leaf guards to prevent your gutters from clogging and winterize them to simplify cleanup, especially during the fall.
- Perform some landscaping
Mowing the lawn is probably already part of your summer chores, but taking care of all of your landscaping needs is essential. Trim back hedges, eliminate standing water, and get rid of any rotting wood or garbage in your yard that can serve as a shelter for pests.
- Inspect and clean siding
Power washing your siding is a great way to eliminate dirt and debris that can lead to mold and cosmetic defects. It will also help prevent ants and other pests from entering your walls.
As a final task, inspect your siding for any damage. Rust, splitting wood, or loose vinyl can be signs of a deeper problem that may require immediate repair.
- Inspect indoor hoses and pipes
Water is the enemy of any homeowner. Be sure to inspect all pipes and hoses, including washer hookups, for any leaks that could lead to mold and foundation damage.
- Eliminate pests wherever possible
Pest protection is a major concern for NEPA homeowners in the summer, especially as wood-destroying organisms like termites can wreak havoc on their homes. Keeping a clean home, landscaping, and cleaning up trash and debris will help limit the amount of
- Monitor humidity
Likewise, you’ll need to monitor humidity in the summer, especially in attics and basements where warm air struggles to circulate. Look for ways to increase ventilation with fans and dehumidifiers. Unchecked humidity will lead to mold and damage to different areas of your home.
We hope you found these four tips helpful as you prepare your home for summer. If you need help drafting a summer maintenance list, be sure to get an inspection performed to identify any serious issues that require immediate repair.
Maintaining Your HVAC Filter
One of the most common HVAC issues we find on home inspections is poor maintenance as a result of a dirty or clogged filter. While a dirty filter won’t spell the end of your HVAC unit just yet, it will slowly rob it of its energy efficiency and eventually degrade its interior components.
Fortunately, maintaining an HVAC filter is very easy and straightforward and only requires routine cleaning about once or twice a month. This guide will discuss the importance of maintaining your HVAC filter and how to clean it thoroughly.
The Importance of HVAC Filter Maintenance
Maintaining your HVAC filter is incredibly important for several reasons. For one, it helps maintain indoor air quality. A clean filter also helps keep your family safe by reducing allergens and dust that circulate through the air.
Cleaning your filter also allows you to save on energy costs. When filters are clogged with dirt, they have to work harder to maintain the same temperature, which will increase your energy bill each month.
Lastly, regularly maintaining your filter allows you to maximize the system's life. A clogged filter, as we now know, causes the system to work overtime, which may cause it to overheat, resulting in leaks and electrical issues.
Now that we can see why maintaining your HVAC filter is important, the question is, how do we do this?
Types of HVAC Filters
Before we discuss how to clean your filters, it is important to know that there are two types of HVAC filters:
1.) Disposable: These filters should be thrown away once they become clogged or dirty. They consist of a cardboard frame that is not designed to withstand spraying from a hose or continuous use. Disposable filters should be replaced at least every three months
2.) Permanent: Instead of cheap cardboard frames, most standard HVAC filters have fiberglass frames. They may cost more upfront, but in the long run, can save you money as these can be cleaned and then reused.
How to Clean Reusable HVAC Filters
To clean your permanent filter, first turn off the heating or air conditioner and then locate your HVAC unit's service panel. Once you have found this, open it to remove the filter. Clean the filter with running water, either from your sink or a garden hose. It is important to wait until your filter is completely dry before reinserting it back into your system.
Quick Tips for Maintaining Your HVAC Filter
- Follow manufacturer instructions for cleaning and maintaining your HVAC filter.
- Use a special cleaner designed for your filter to prolong its life.
- Set a reminder on your phone for every month to clean your HVAC filter when the system is in use. Make it part of your spring cleaning and summer maintenance routine.
- Inspect filters for damage after each cleaning and replace filters when they become torn or have holes present.
By following these easy steps, you will be able to not only protect the health of your family, but also save on energy costs and lengthen the life of your HVAC system!
Winterizing Your Gutters
As the winter months approach, it is important to remember to clean your gutters properly. When your gutters are full of leaves and other debris, they can cause water buildup, which can go under your roof and end up leaving cracks in your foundation.
In fact, poor water drainage is often one of the most common issues we find on home inspection reports in NEPA.
Avoid the ill effects of water damage from clogged or cracked gutters by winterizing them with this 5-step guide.
The Importance of Winterizing Your Gutters
Winterizing your gutters is important for the safety of your gutters as well as your home.
- Maintaining Structural Integrity: Ensuring your gutters are securely fastened and free of clogs helps maintain their structural integrity under the weight of snow and ice. This prevents potential damage to the gutter system itself and to your roofline.
- Preventing Water Damage: Clearing out gutters before winter prevents water from backing up and seeping into your home's foundation or basement, which can cause costly water damage and mold growth.
- Preserving Landscape: Properly winterized gutters direct melting snow away from your home's foundation and landscaping, protecting them from excessive moisture that can lead to erosion and plant damage.
- Extending Gutter Lifespan: Regular maintenance and winterization can extend the lifespan of your gutters by preventing rust, corrosion, and structural damage caused by freezing and thawing cycles.
- Avoiding Safety Hazards: Clean gutters prevent dangerous icicles and ice buildup around your home, reducing the risk of injury to yourself and others from falling ice or slippery pathways.
Do Gutters Cause Ice Dams?
One reason people winterize their gutters is to avoid costly ice dams. However, ice dams are not formed or influenced by gutters and are often the result of poor insulation in the roofing area that leads to moisture buildup.
Considerations for Different Types of Gutters
While most gutters are made of seamless aluminum, it's not unheard of to find steel, vinyl, or even zinc gutters lying around NEPA.
Depending on the type of material your gutter is made of, it may be vulnerable to the harsh effects of winter. Lighter materials like vinyl may crack under the added weight and pressure of ice and snow buildup.
Steel gutters are often vulnerable to rust, as are copper and zinc gutters.
Aluminum gutters provide a good middle ground, though they are doubly susceptible to dents and rust, so winterizing them is crucial for their longevity.
5 Ways to Winterize Your Gutter
Looking to maintain the health of your home and your gutters? Here are five tips to winterize your gutters and ensure they work properly.
1. Clean Your Gutter
First, you need to clean out all debris from your gutters that may be impacting its ability to divert water from your house. Even just a few leaves, acorns, or sticks can cause water to buildup, which then freezes and expands to break your gutters.
Cleaning your gutters can be done on your own or with the help of a professional.
The best tool to use when cleaning your gutter is an old plastic spatula. This will not scratch your gutter, and you can even cut it to fit! The plastic also allows for easy clean-up afterward. A plumber's snake is also a great tool for cleaning out downspouts. You should try to clean your gutters at least once a year, and more if you have a lot of overhanging trees or after a bad storm.
2. Perform an Inspection
A gutter inspection can tell you whether or not it is properly diverting water. You can do this yourself by checking to see that rain is properly exiting each of your gutters or you can have a home inspector perform an inspection for assurance.
3. Add Extra Protection
Leaf guards will prevent large debris from ever entering your gutters, giving you the luxury of avoiding cleanup duty. For many homeowners, it comes down to a question of whether or not they want to invest the money to have them installed upfront or to get their gutters cleaned during the later part of the year.
4. Ensure Gutters Are Aligned
Another important to do is to ensure that your gutters are properly flush with your building and are not sagging or falling off. Misaligned gutters can allow water to penetrate between gaps and buildup around your foundation.
5. Improve Your Attic's Insulation
If you want to avoid ice dams that crack and bend your gutters, then you need to improve your attic or roof's insulation. Talk to an insulation specialist about the best way to insulate your attic and avoid costly ice dams. New insulation will confer several benefits, from preventing your pipes from freezing to lowering your energy bills.
Don't Overlook Your Gutters
Of all the big to-dos a homeowner has to deal with, gutters may not be your biggest priority. But making the effort to clean and inspect your gutters periodically--especially during the fall--can save you thousands in costly repairs and extend the life of your gutters.
For more advice on how to winterize your gutters, reach out to a gutter specialist or a full-service home inspector like Mountain to Valley Home Inspections.
Maintaining your Sump Pump during the Winter
Winter maintenance is important in ensuring that your electrical appliances don’t fail due to extreme weather. Given the unpredictability of the winters in NEPA, we recommend winterizing most appliances in your home that will not be used, from your hot water heater to your sump pump.
Unfortunately, damaged sump pumps are one of the most common home inspection errors we see in a lot of homes in NEPA. This guide will help you prolong the longevity of your sump pump through some simple winter maintenance.
Remove the Discharge Hose
First, you can begin by removing your sump pump discharge hose for the winter. By removing the hose connecting your sump pump to the discharge pipe and leaving it disconnected until warmer weather returns, you will prevent it from freezing.
Since this hose is exposed to the elements more than any other part of your system, it’s essential to start here. It’s also important to remember to re-attach the hose when it becomes warmer out as things will begin to thaw.
You can also choose to have an extra discharge hose. With the extra hose, you can remove one hose if it freezes and replace it with the spare while the first thaws out.
Keep Your Sump Pump Running
A common misconception among homeowners is that you should unplug your sump pump for the winter to protect it.
You should never unplug your sump pump because if the weather warms up and snow or a rain storm hits your area, your basement could flood
Clean Out the Sump Pit
Clear out debris from your sump pump's pit that may have accumulated through the summer and fall. You should make sure that there is no dirt, ice, gunk, or any other debris that might inhibit the system. This will help to prevent clogs in the intake or discharge pipes and prevent mold from accumulating that can spread around the home.
Test Your Pump to Ensure Its Functional
You should also test your pump regularly. During the winter months, run some water through it to ensure that it is functioning properly. Run a test every few weeks to keep your sump pump running in tip-top shape.
Inspect Your Discharge Pipe
Another important tip is to make sure that your discharge pipe gets rid of water away from your home. Your pump's discharge pipe takes water from your sump pump and disposes of it away from your home. If your discharge pipe is too close, the water could keep seeping back into your sump pump and cause it to run continuously. It is recommended that water be discharged at least ten feet away from your home's foundation to prevent damage and cracks from forming.
You can even wrap your pipe with a thermal blanket like any other pipe in your home to prevent it from freezing.
Keep Your Basement Warm
Lastly, we recommend that you keep your heat on in your basement. By keeping your basement warm, you can prevent any of your home's pipes from freezing. Consider upgrading your insulation to save money and keep your basement warm during the freezing months.
We hope that these tips will help you prevent damage to your sump pump and ensure that it is properly maintained!
How to Prevent your Pipes from Freezing
Of the many consequences that cold weather can bring in NEPA, frozen pipes are one of the most destructive. Repairing burst pipes could end up costing you hundreds of dollars and lead to issues like mold and foundation cracks. For people with burst pipes, we also recommend a follow-up home inspection to ensure further damage has not occurred.
Unfortunately, frozen pipes can occur in homes with both plastic and copper pipes, so it is important to know what to do to prevent them. By taking the following precautions, you can reduce the risk of frozen water pipes and the resulting damage a bursting pipe can cause.
- Insulate Your Pipes
You can first begin insulating exposed pipes, as these are the most susceptible to freezing. Heat tape and cables can be used to wrap around pipes and retain heat. When using these tapes and cables, it is important that you use products approved by an independent testing organization and only for how you intend to use them, for either exterior or interior pipes. You should also follow all directions provided on the packaging.
- Seal All Leaks
Sealing air leaks in your basement and attic can also be beneficial as it will prevent cold air from entering these areas and freezing your pipes. You should start by looking for air leaks around electrical wiring, dryer vents and pipes, and then use caulk or expanding foam insulation to keep the cold out.
- Open Cabinets to Allow Heat In
Opening cabinet doors can allow heat to reach uninsulated pipes that are under your sinks. Do this in any area of the home where pipes are present, such as bathrooms and kitchens. If you have pipes that run along the wall through bedrooms, open up panels and allow heat from the home to keep these pipes warm.
- Allow Water to Trickle
Allowing a trickle of hot or cold water to drip overnight can also prevent the freezing of your pipes. Any water, regardless of the temperature, will help melt ice that forms inside the pipe, preventing it from freezing.
- Disconnect Outdoor Hoses
Securing outdoor houses, valves, and faucets is also an important winter maintenance tip to remember. You should disconnect your garden hose and, if possible, use an indoor valve to shut off and drain the water from the pipes leading to your outside faucets. This reduces the chances of your pipes freezing in the short amount of pipe inside of your home.
- Turn Up Your Thermostat
Adjusting your thermostat can also be yet another way to protect your pipes. By keeping your thermostat set at the same temperature during the day and night, you prevent freezing, and during extreme cold, this helps to reduce the strain that your furnace may also be facing.
- Insulate Attics and Basements
If you want long-term relief against frozen pipes, you’ll need to upgrade the insulation in areas of your home where pipes are exposed, such as attics or basements. Work with an insulation contractor to install your insulation so that all areas are properly ventilated.
What to Do If Your Pipes Do Freeze
Now that you know what should be done to prevent freezing pipes, what happens if yours freeze?
If you turn on your faucet and nothing comes out leave it turned on and call a plumber! You should also avoid the use of appliances near water, as areas with standing water could cause electrocution.
You should shut off your water supply if your pipes have already burst by cutting them off from the main supply. With the faucet still on, take a hair dryer (if you’re not near standing water) and heat the pipe to allow the ice to thaw.
Winterizing your pipes will help shield them from the threat of frost. Now that you know what things can be done to prevent your pipes from freezing and the tools necessary if something does go astray to help you, you can rest easy this winter!
Winterizing Your Water Heater
Like so many appliances, your hot water heater only gets thought of when it breaks and when it gets brought up on a home inspection report. While your water heater is designed to withstand frost by nature, if you are leaving your home or not using your hot water heater for an extended period of time, the pipes surrounding it might freeze.
One way to prevent this from happening is to winterize your hot water heater in the same way you would winterize your pipes on a very cold day. This simple 3-step guide will demonstrate how to winterize your hot water heater for an extended period of downtime.
The Importance of Protecting Your Hot Water Heater
Like gutters and pipes, winterizing your hot water heater is essential to maintaining your home through extreme cold weather. If your hot water heater is not in use and freezes, all the water inside the pipes will expand, destroying the system.
Worse yet, it could lead to leaks and pipe bursts that result in mold and foundation cracks.
Precautionary Steps
Before you begin winterizing your hot water heater, you must make sure to turn off the water and gas supply or unplug the heater if yours happens to be electric. Once this is done, you need to make sure the pilot light is turned off along with the knob on the heater control box. This will prevent accidental electrocution or injury during this process.
Step 1: Drain the Tank
The next step is to drain the tank. To do this, you must first locate the drain near the bottom of your water heater and attach your garden hose to it. Then, you will be able to drain the water into a bucket until it is empty. While doing this make sure your air vent is open at the top of the water heater.
Step 2: Let Water Drain Through Your Faucets
Now that your tank is empty, you should turn on all the faucets in your home and leave them open. When you do, some water may come out, but it should stop in just a few minutes. Be sure to keep lower-level faucets open in your basement as well to allow all the hot water to drain out entirely.
Step 3: Insulate Your Tanka and Pipes
We highly recommend purchasing a water heater blanket to protect the equipment while it is not being used, keeping it warm and preventing ice from forming. Not only should the water heater be protected from the cold, but the pipes leading up to it as well. To protect your pipes, you should purchase some insulation and wrap it around them using duct tape to secure it in place.
By following these simple and easy steps you can enjoy your time away from the cold and relax knowing your water heater has been taken care of and will work properly upon your return!