 Kathy's Korner
Winterizing Tips
The fall of the year brings with it a glorious change of seasons. Unfortunately it also pulls behind it a (sometimes) not so glorious winter. Harsh winds blow, and if your windows leak, your heating bill goes up. Rain sometimes turns into ice and fills your gutters until they back up under your shingles. Snow flies and covers everything, and then you have to remove it from your car and your sidewalk. With apologies to all of you who love winter, it can be a trying time of year indeed. And it is the time of year when you find out if all of those 'maintenance' items you performed during the warmer months (when you really would have rather been swimming) pay off-literally. Here are some tips to help you better endure the winter.
If your windows are single-pane without storm windows, you are heating up the entire neighborhood-or at least your furnace is going to try. A great deal of heat is lost through the glass area of a window. If you don't have storm windows, you can purchase "instant" ones. They come in kits, which include the plastic and tape with which to mount the plastic. While not a perfect solution, they're pretty inexpensive and will give you some measure of insulation.
Any holes, spaces or gaps in anything will allow cold air in and heat out as well. The new expanding foams on the market will allow you to fill some pretty large spaces and they don't continue to expand after initial use, as did some of the old foam fillers.
Make sure you remember to clean out your gutters before it gets too chilly-and preferably after most of the leaves have fallen. While most people think of this as a springtime task, a gutter filled first with leaves and then frozen water provides the perfect opportunity for an "ice dam" that can get up under your shingles and then melt down the inside of your walls when it meets the heated space. This is not a pretty sight and it's no fun to deal with.
After shoveling and when applying "ice melt" to your sidewalks use calcium chloride if you can- not salt. It is easier on both the concrete and the adjoining grass areas.
If you haven't purchased one yet, we still have a few small plastic shovels left here in the ReStore. They're the perfect size for putting in your trunk in case you have to move some snow around in order to get your car moving again. (And they're only $1!) Having said all of that, there is one thing in particular that is good about winter: spring can't be far behind!
|
