Your Winter Home Maintenance Checklist

Your Winter Home Maintenance Checklist

The most important details in this text are the best ways to prevent winter-related disasters such as ice dams, frozen pipes and other winter woes. To do this, it is important to protect entryway flooring, check emergency supplies, check batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, stay ahead of ice dams, and stay ahead of leaks and damage to the roof and home. To prevent ice dams, experts recommend using floor mats both inside and outside each entrance to your home, providing a boot scraper or brush outside for removing excess snow, and a waterproof tray inside for placing wet shoes and boots, and checking emergency supplies such as bottled water, shelf-stable foods, flashlights, batteries, first-aid supplies and a hand-crank radio and smartphone charger. This is especially important during winter, when we keep windows closed and use wood-burning stoves and fireplaces more often.