Winter Is Fast Approaching, Is Your Home Ready?
With the winter months slowly starting to creep in you may have noticed a chill in the air. If your home isn’t ready for those colder months then you will notice this much more. Getting your home ready for another winter shouldn’t take too long, you just need to make sure everything is secure, maintained, and that the cold can’t get in. Take a look at the article below to find out more.
Flooring
This is something you might not think about when it comes to winter prep, however, if you have hardwood flooring in your home then you will certainly feel the cold more. This is because the hardwood floor can get really cold and will simply let that cold air off into your home. You can get warm to touch hardwood flooring but it still won’t provide the levels of warmth that carpet or vinyl would. If you are trying to warm your home up then placing rugs down will help, alternatively you could switch to carpeted floor.
Lighting
Lighting is an important one especially if you live in an area that regularly struggles with power cuts. You need to have a supply of torches available in a safe place that you can find. When it comes to the lighting around your home, think about what looks best. You should invest in energy saving lightbulbs as these won’t cut into your energy bills too much. If you have a garden then it can be useful to install solar lights, that way you can always see where you are going if you need to leave in the dark.
Windows
Windows are the most important part of pre winter checklists. If your windows are old and have seen better days then they may be letting cold air in. This happens when tiny cracks appear in the windows and frames. You may be wondering why your house feels so cold, and that will be the reason. Fill in any holes you see upon closer inspection, you could also replace your windows. Some window companies will hold an end of summer sale so you can get new windows in time for winter.
Boiler
Boilers have a really bad habit of breaking down in winter, this is due to how much harder they are working. If your boiler is old and tired then it will have a hard time keeping you and your home warm. Regular boiler maintenance and services will ensure you don’t have a broken boiler through the winter months. You will need to call in a boiler engineer to do this and they will give you a certificate to say the check has been done.
Blankets
This one might seem obvious but invest in some good quality blankets for the winter period. You never know when you will need it and it is much better to have it than not. If you have enough for everyone in the house then nobody will suffer the cold weather. Blankets can be handy to snuggle up with on the sofa at the end of a hard day in front of the tv.
Pests
With winter comes pests. They find your home as it is warm and they will use it as a shelter, they don’t know they are not wanted. You will find a lot of spiders in your home from around October time as this is when winter hits and it is too cold for them to mate outside. You can get spider catching gadgets if you aren’t a fan of getting up close and personal with them. You can research how to get rid of spiders for some other ways to evict these little guys. If you have issues with pests that you can’t deal with yourself then it might be time to call in pest control to sort this for you.
Curtains
Finally, if you are trying to survive winter then you might want to get some thick, heavy lined curtains to hang at your windows. Good quality curtains will keep the heat in and the cold out, if you keep them drawn. It can be a bit of a balancing act, trying to let in enough light but also keeping the cold out. You can search online or check your local store to see if they have heavy curtains in your window size.
Blinds will also work but not as good as curtains, so if you have thick blinds then you will get some benefit. You could also use both curtains and blinds, this will give you double the protection from the elements outside.
Hopefully you found this article useful and it gave you some handy tips on how you can get your home ready for winter in plenty of time.
