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The weather outside is frightful, so let’s keep inside delightful! The beginning of winter is nearing, but we’ve already experienced a hint of what this season will bring. We must prepare appropriately for the coming chill. In order to do this, we’ve put together a complete guide to help you winterize your home.
Schedule HVAC Maintenance
Step in your preparation for winter is making sure that your heating system is ready to keep you warm all winter long. The best way to do this is by scheduling heating maintenance and an inspection. With this service, our expert technicians will come to your home and thoroughly inspect your system, both the external and internal parts (including the thermostat), to make sure nothing is damaged and everything is good to go.
If we notice any problems, we’ll inform you of them along with our best recommendation, and if you want repairs, we’ll perform them then. This will allow you to enter the cold season with peace of mind about your heating systems capacity and ability to keep the house comfortable.
Clear Your Gutters
Next up, winter weather typically brings along more rain than usual which means it’s imperative that you keep your gutters cleaned out. Your gutters function as a device to reroute water from the side of your home, which could cause water damage. If your gutters get clogged by leaves or other debris, water will be forced over the brim and down the side of your home, making your walls vulnerable.
We recommend clearing the gutters after particularly windy or stormy days since that’s when leaves are most likely to make their way to the gutters.
Wrap Your Plumbing
What else comes with winter? Ah yes, colder temperatures. While Texas isn’t known for its consistently freezing temps, it does drift below freezing on an occasional night. When this happens, your plumbing, especially exterior plumbing, is vulnerable. If there is remaining water inside of the pipes, it will freeze, causing it to expand and force the pipes containing it to crack and even burst, which will cause significant damage when that water finally thaws.
We suggest wrapping your external pipes in insulation to prevent this from happening. This will prevent the water from getting cold enough to freeze and cause damage.
Insulate Your Home
Your pipes aren’t the only things that require insulation; your home does too. When it was built, the walls should have been filled with some sort of insulating material, but standards have changed, and some of that material may have withered away. Now is a good time to check in on it and make sure there’s an appropriate amount of insulation installed to keep the heat inside of your home and the cold outside of it.
Fix Any Leaks
Insulation is great for covering large expanses of your home, but some smaller nooks and crannies are even more vulnerable. Take your door frames and window frames, for instance. There’s an opportunity for gaps to form both around the door itself and the casing of the door. This is where a lot of heat is lost throughout your home. To prevent it, we recommend adding caulking and weatherstripping to these spaces. It should fill the gaps enough to prevent any major heat loss.
If you need any assistance to tackle any of these tasks, don’t hesitate to contact our team of experts. Visit our website or give us a call at to book an appointment and learn more about winterization.