Five Last Minute House Projects For A Problem-Free Winter

Winter is almost upon us, and that means that the hardest time of year for our houses and homes is here. The true test of your roof, walls, and plumbing comes when the weather changes and the air gets cold.

Protect your pipes

The autumn is the perfect time to shelter all your outdoor plumbing connections and pipes. There is little foliage in the way, and the water hose and other essential areas can be easily accessed. Make sure to cover all exposed piping and your faucets with insulation.

Check your roof for leaks

The weather of winter are going to find all the little problems and make them bigger. Rain, snow, and ice take advantage of the tiny cracks caused by expansion and contraction in response to heat. This is necessary for both commercial and residential buildings and should be done in all climates. Even with commercial roofing Hawaii can be a challenging environment, and personal homes in snowy regions are even more so. Use visual inspection, thermometers, and every other means at your disposal to search for cracks, leaks, and holes in the roof.

Get thick curtains

Much of the heat in your house will be lost through your windows. Get heavy, insulated drapes to help block out that winter chill. Open them in the morning to let in the sun and then close them against the cold of night. They will make your home notably warmer and cozier. Drapes are especially important for long picture windows, as their enormous surface area is an invitation to massive heat loss.

Use an infrared thermometer to search for drafts

There are new thermometers on the market now that can detect the temperature of a surface simply by looking at it with an infrared camera. All you have to do is walk around your house and point the thermometer at the corners of the roof and floor. If an area shows as much colder than the rest of the room, then you can be sure there is some sort of air leak near there. Then you can decide to either close the hole or add insulation.

Invest in slippers and warm clothes

In a home where everyone has comfortably warm clothes to wear the thermostat can be kept lower. The amount of energy it takes to heat a house rises and falls exponentially for every degree on the thermometer, and a home where the denizens are comfortable in the mid sixties will be much more heat efficient than one that is kept at 72 degrees.