Weekly Maintenance for your Home

October – Week 40

Just like preventative maintenance on your car, if you take care of a few small items around the house every week, you can avoid many emergency breakdowns and expensive repairs.

Protection From Freezing

It is probably time to drain your outdoor hose bibs and store those hoses. Think about any other pipes that are either outdoors, or on or near outside walls. Sometimes they can be insulated to protect them from freezing, sometimes they simply need to be drained until warmer weather. For more details check out the SEARCH tab above on "Pipes — Freezing".

Air Conditioners

While we are protecting things that are outdoors, it is time to cover those outdoor air conditioners. Remember that Heat Pumps are going to be still working much of the winter so you don't want to cover them, but if an outdoor compressor or fan unit is just for air conditioning it can be covered. One caution. Don’t seal it all up in plastic. You want to protect it from rain and snow, but if you seal it up too much you will also trap in moisture that may cause rusting. You need to cover it like a raincoat, with a covering that will allow for air circulation so as to allow for the escape of moisture. As for through the wall or through the window air conditioners, if you do not want to remove them for the winter you should not only cover the outside, but seal off the inside. The reason for this is that if you simply put a tight cover on the outside, the moisture in the air inside your house will migrate right into the box and built up quite a bit of frost inside the machine. A good looking air-tight cover over the inside of these machines is more important than a rain cover outside.

Screens & Storm Windows

Now that the bug season is over, it is time to remove all your screens and store them. In fact I recommend that you repair them right now so that they are ready to hold the bugs back when you suddenly want to install them in the spring. Outside screens must be removed because they will accumulate snow and ice, which is not good for the screens and seriously reduces light coming through the window. Looking out through a window is such a pleasure when the screens are gone. Yes, you should also remove the indoor screens. The reason for this, besides improving the view, is that they reduce the quantity of heat that reaches the glass but don't stop the household moisture, leading to increased condensation on the windows. Removing the screens allows for better air flow over the windows, less or no condensation, no mold growth and hence better indoor air quality all winter long. I bet you never thought that window screens had anything to do with indoor air quality.