Is Your Home Ready for Summertime?
If you’re the proud owner of a beautiful home, then you must be familiar with the exhausting process of winterizing your home, which also includes scheduling a furnace check and sealing all your windows and doors against drafts.
However, did you know that there are a couple of things that you should do in advance of warmer weather? Yep, that’s right, you need to prepare your home for summer weather just as much!
It will help you cool your space more efficiently and also keep you ahead of seasonal dust and allergies. Here are a couple of things that you could easily do to get your home up and running for the warmer months. The sooner you’re done with it, the sooner you get to sit back, relax, and soak up that beloved sunshine!
Do your spring cleaning.
One of the most efficient things you could possibly do to prepare a home for summer weather is to deal with that long spring cleaning list that has been patiently waiting for you.
There’s a very good reason why so many homeowners decide to do an all-out deep clean in the spring. There’s plenty of dust accumulating during the winter when homes are generally closed off because of the cold weather.
But when spring comes, we also tap into a renewed sense of energy, plus all that extra sunlight for spotting all that built-up debris. Your spring cleaning checklist could differ, but as a general rule, it’s all about freshening up all those things that you don’t generally get to do in routine cleanings.
This could also include vacuuming curtains and blinds, washing the windows inside and out, which also include window trim and sills, dusting off indoor and outdoor light fixtures and bulbs, disinfecting surfaces like your stair rail, light switches, and even cabinet hardware, but also cleaning out your dryer vent.
A very good rule of thumb as you clean your home is to dust first, vacuum, and sweep last. This way, you can pick up whatever has fallen off.
Do some routine HVAC maintenance.
HVAC systems have an enormous job coming up, so another thing you might want to do when it comes to how to prepare a home for summer is to make sure that everything is running at its best.
Summer is the best time for seasonal allergies, so you want to make sure that your air filter is as clean as it gets. Whether or not it’s time for a proper replacement, only depends on what type of filter you have and when the last time you swapped it out was.
Also, you need to keep in mind that the majority of filters have to be replaced every 90 days. Other highly important steps for pre-summer HVAC maintenance also include making sure that any areas in both your indoor and outdoor spaces are totally free from debris and clutter.
You might want to have about two feet of free space around each component. Now is also a great time to turn off water to the furnace humidifier, and you can switch it back on in the fall.
Check the thermostat.
You really don’t want to wait until the first heat wave hits to discover that your home’s thermostat isn’t properly working. Just put your thermostat on AC mode and turn on the air five degrees cooler than your home’s current temperature.
What’s supposed to happen is for your system to kick into gear. You should be able to feel cool air plumping out of the air vents. If the airflow is restricted in any way, then that is a sign that something might be wrong.
If you need to upgrade it, then now would be the proper time to make the change to a smart thermostat. Not only will a brand-new system give you the needed assurance that everything is working properly (assuming you don’t have any other venting issues), but it will also help you save around 15% on your summer cooling bills.
Don’t have a thermostat? Well, what are you waiting for? Here’s an Amazon Smart Thermostat that will make your life easier.
Rotate your ceiling fans counterclockwise.
You’ll want your ceiling fan to run counterclockwise in the summer. This way, it will allow the cool air to be pushed down instead of the other way around.
Rotating your fans in the right direction might also help draw moisture out of the air, which is definitely helpful if you live in a high-humidity climate.
As a general rule, you want your ceiling fans to be running counterclockwise any time you’re also running the air conditioning. This might allow you to cool your home more efficiently, including by turning your AC up a couple of degrees.
Run fans at low speed because it will provide a comfortable downdraft and also help redistribute cool air throughout the room.
Adjust the return registers.
Another efficient way to prepare a home for summer is to switch the direction of your return registers, meaning the return heating and cooling events that are located close to the ceilings and floors of your home.
As a general rule, they are a bit larger than normal vents, which should make them quite easy to distinguish. In the summertime, you might want your registers to draw in warm air and leave the cool air behind.
You can also help ensure that they are doing this by simply opening up your ceiling registers and closing the door registers, which in turn will optimize the flow of air throughout the house.
Test the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
You might not be hearing that unwelcome chirping noise just yet, but it’s still a good idea to test the smoke and carbon monoxide detector as you fully prepare for warmer weather.
That’s mainly because, in addition to low batteries, dust might also inhibit those important detectors from working as they should. Moreover, it’s always a good idea to address that sooner rather than later.
Make sure you test your alarms and give them the needed dusting. If it’s time to change the batteries, make sure you do that as soon as possible.
Take a look at the gutters.
There’s something extremely relaxing about a proper summer rain. To be honest, they’re my absolute favorite. I mean, as long as you don’t have to worry about moisture making its way into your home!
Winter can definitely take a toll on gutters, so you might want to go around the exterior of your house and make sure you properly check your gutters.
You’ll want to see if they’re efficiently cleaned out and that they’re pointing in the right direction, which is away from your foundation. You don’t have to create an opportunity for water to pool up close to the base of your home because it might lead to expensive leakage issues.
Do some basic landscaping.
Besides any spring planting that you might want to do, you should also go around your yard and check if there are any other issues. This could also include identifying bushes or trees that didn’t make it through the winter, as well as looking for other areas that could use some TLC.
If you notice any dead patches in your lawn, resist the temptation to re-seed right away. The best time to sow the grass seed is in the late summer or even early fall.
This way, you won’t have to worry about soaring temperatures and scorching sun, which make it much more difficult for grass to grow. So yes, hold off for now and focus on the things that you can take care of for now.
If you found this article useful, you should definitely check 9 Common Decorating Mistakes and Ways to Fix Them
