Now is the time to get your home cold-weather ready
There are a few low-cost maintenance tasks you can take care of in early fall that could save you a lot of money in the winter.
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00:00 You know what I'm going to say?
00:01 Winter is coming.
00:02 Winter is coming.
00:03 Cold weather is coming soon, along with winter.
00:05 Now it's time to get your home ready inside and outside
00:10 for the next season.
00:11 So to help you out, Paul Hope is senior home and appliances
00:14 writer with Consumer Reports.
00:15 And Paul is joining us this morning.
00:17 Thanks, Paul.
00:18 We appreciate you being here on a Wednesday morning.
00:21 Absolutely.
00:22 All right, so we were just talking behind the scenes.
00:26 I'm an apartment girl.
00:27 It took a long time for me to understand
00:29 what it's like being a homeowner.
00:30 I just bought my first house last year.
00:32 And there are a lot of surprises along the way.
00:34 So perhaps for folks like myself who
00:36 have had those kind of shocking moments,
00:38 let's start off with some of the problems
00:41 that you can encounter as the weather gets colder,
00:43 like with your roof, for example.
00:46 What's the most important thing to get done early
00:48 for the exterior of your home as the weather gets colder?
00:52 Sure, so the roof is a great place to start.
00:55 Something easy that most homeowners
00:56 can take care of themselves is just
00:58 making sure that the gutter pipes are cleaned out.
01:01 Leaves love to fall and accumulate in there
01:03 during the fall, obviously.
01:04 Doing at least one end of season cleaning
01:07 will guarantee that the gutter pipes work effectively,
01:10 which means that once your roof is covered in snow, as it melts,
01:13 it actually has somewhere to go.
01:14 And it's not going to back up and create
01:16 ice dams or other problems for your roof and shingles.
01:19 It's also obviously a great time to inspect the shingles
01:21 themselves, look for any that are damaged, cracked,
01:23 or missing, and go ahead and replace those
01:25 before the first snowfall.
01:27 All right, let's move inside.
01:28 And boy, freezing pipes, no one wants that.
01:31 Oh, bad, yeah.
01:31 That is an expensive problem.
01:33 Now, what should you do with your pipes
01:35 to avoid any water damage?
01:39 Absolutely.
01:39 You know, a burst frozen pipe can cost upwards of $5,000
01:43 to repair once all the damage is sort of cleared out of the way.
01:45 So one of the most important things you can do
01:47 is install pipe insulation or have
01:49 somebody install it for you.
01:50 It costs as little as pennies per foot,
01:54 and it can end up saving you thousands.
01:55 If you don't have pipe insulation on a really
01:57 frigid or cool day, and you're worried about those pipes
02:00 freezing, especially long exterior walls,
02:02 go ahead and crack on faucets in your house
02:04 and just let water run at a trickle.
02:06 That slow, steady trickle will at least make sure
02:08 that on the coldest days, your pipes
02:10 don't freeze until you can get around
02:11 to installing the insulation.
02:13 So important, especially as we head
02:15 to that freeze time of year.
02:17 OK, so how do you make your home more energy efficient
02:20 in the middle of all this?
02:21 Any tips for maybe saving money and keeping
02:24 your home a little warmer?
02:26 Absolutely.
02:26 So the first place to start is really
02:28 with the furnace or boiler in your home.
02:30 Short of replacing it, you can get peak efficiency
02:33 and avoid costly repairs by just having an annual inspection
02:36 of your home's heating system.
02:38 So it's a great time to catch any parts that
02:40 are on the verge of breaking, replace filters.
02:43 Not only will you avoid having a really costly repair
02:46 in the middle of the season, but you'll also
02:47 make sure that things are running at peak efficiency
02:50 and saving you money through the winter.
02:52 Yeah, a little maintenance, Paul,
02:55 goes a very, very long way.
02:57 Very cheap things to do before winter comes,
03:01 and it'll save you a boatload of money.
03:03 Paul Hope, senior home and appliances writer
03:05 for Consumer Reports.
03:06 Paul, thanks a lot for joining us here this morning.