I get up and force Matthew away from his computer and ask him to help me find the source of the noise. We hear it coming from the crawlspace. In my heart I know what it is.
My husband disappears under the house and reappears a few minutes later white faced, panicked and SOAKED.
It’s our worst nightmare, a pipe has burst under our house. It had been 17degrees that week and we’d gotten ALOT of snow so the water shutoff valve at the street was covered in 4 inches of hard packed ice. It took Matt what felt like ages to get it uncovered and shut off. And to top if off due to the weather and the holiday we had to wait over a week to get it fixed. Ultimately we actually needed to re-plumb the house and replace the main waterline to the tune of over $8000….. this is not including what we spent on a dehumidifier.
And soooo I am writing this blog- so that you may never experience a Christmas where you have to flush your toilets with water-bottles. You can hear more about this story on my podcast HERE but in the meantime here’s 4 quick tips to prep hour house for winter!
Water is important for life, but it’s also public enemy #1 to your home. Water can cause SO many problems with a home, from rot, to mold it’s important to ensure the systems that keep your home dry are in good working order. So make sure you clean your gutters and check them for holes! Ensure they’re properly affixed to your house and that they’re sloped correctly so water drains away. Also check that your downspouts lead far enough away from your house that the water isn’t pooling around the foundation!
Finally check your roof for debris and gently remove them! A lot of people go up on their roofs with rakes and collect the leaves similarly to how you would leaves in a yard…. this is a terrible idea. You may as well just throw your bank account off the roof with the leaves because rakes and roofs are not friends composition roofs are layered with tar and gravel that create a watertight shingle, if you take a rake to them it degrades the composition of the shingle and ages your roof by YEARS. Instead take a soft brush or broom and sweep it off or just remove leaves with hands! This prevents debris from sitting on the roof and causing uneven wear/ moss buildup from bio-matter.
When we speak of systems as realtors, contractors, inspectors … We’re talking about the major mechanical systems of the home, HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Central Vac etc. This is the time of year to make sure you have your water heater and your AC serviced. These systems can run like tops for decades if well maintained but they do the most work during the winter. So call Stan the hot water man and your local HVAC company and get that shit serviced.
Once apon a time I forgot to do this, and I ended up having to repipe my house. SO DONT FORGET TO DO THIS. The spigot covers are like $5 for a pack of 3.
This is the time to prepare the garden for winter for those of you who want to garden in the spring! This includes pruning and trimming trees! I want to especially encourage you to look at trees/ vegetation that hang over or near your home and consider trimming back any branches or limbs that could fall on the house. Remember if you get snow or ice where you live that makes tree limbs heavier and if one is over your roof line when it breaks … yikes!
Finally MULCH! I highly recommend getting Chipdrop to mulch your garden! Mulch is extremely important for the lifecycle of the garden, in the forest, a bed of leaves will fall on the ground and protect native pollinators, the soil and its many inhabitants for the winter. But in our own gardens we recreate that environment with mulch! Matt and I mulched our yard last year with Chipdrop to get rid of our lawn and it’s been amazing! For those of you who don’t know Chipdrop connects arborists with mulch to gardeners who need woodchips! And it’s absolutely free! I got quoted $1500 for enough mulch to cover our front yard and instead got Chipdrop for free which covered my entire property, as well as all of my neighbors garden beds. ITS GREAT.
Whether you do all or just a couple of these I hope this post makes you think about what care you’re giving your home. It’s important to think of houses as both things people live in, and living things, the better maintained they are, the longer the lifespan of the home and when it comes to property investment we want our homes to last a lifetime!
