Winter is Coming! Are You Prepared?
Winter is Coming!
There is a strong likelihood of a long, cold winter in my area as the winter months approach.
Will you be able to handle the cooler temperatures in your home throughout the winter?
Whatever type of cold-weather climate you live in, here are a few maintenance tasks that will undoubtedly help protect your home from outside elements.
Pre-Winter Prep List
- Wash windows to let in more sunshine.
- Close storm windows.
- Ensure that your windows are adequately insulated.
- Add weather stripping to your exterior doors.
- Replace the filter on your air system. Do this monthly.
- Close the damper and glass doors on the fireplace when not in use.
- Inspect your attic for proper insulation.
- Have a professional inspect your heating system.
We should be prepared for the cold despite the fact that we cannot prevent it from arriving. As a result, your house will remain comfortable and sunny throughout the colder months.
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Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Janet Schiesl
Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.
She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.
Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
One of the challenges we face in the winter is opening the drapes when it’s sunny (it raises the room temperature A LOT) and closing them when there’s a northeast wind blowing on us (which lowers the room temperature a lot). Better windows would help, but since we’re renters, it’s not an option.
That’s too bad, is there a way to put some kind of strips around the windows.
I’m in Atlanta. We have a Winter season and thankfully it is shorter than the ones I was used to when I lived in Connecticut. Typically we have only a few days when the temperature dips below freezing and even then it will almost always get up into at least the 40s during the day.
We are in the same country and yet every state is different for sure. We have the 4 seasons in Virginia and we have to prep for the winter in order to save the system and keep it safe.
Winter IS coming. It’s hard to know what type of winter it will be in the Northeast. The climate has been shifting. Last winter, we only had one big snow. Either way, it’s wise to prepare, and I love your suggestions. Many of them we’ve already done.
We live in a 1950s contemporary with many windows (the original single pane ones.) The house isn’t well insulated. But one of the features I love is the radiant heat floors. This creates an even heat throughout the home. My ‘someday’ list includes replacing all of the windows.
We didn’t have a big winter either the last couple of years. Having heated floors must be wonderful.
It is definitely marching over here. I currently have my daughter and her husband’s entire apartment contents in my attic, so I’m calling that my insulation LOL!
We have curtains we close in the winter in our family room because the walls are largely glass. This really does help. They are sheer, so we still get light, but it minimizes the drafts. I wish we had heated the floor in that room, though.
We also just got the gutters cleaned out, which is critical because we have a million tall trees that fill them up, resulting in flooding.
Lastly, we have finished bringing in the furniture that fits inside and covering the ones that don’t.
(I wish we had glass doors on our fireplace but we don’t…)
You did most of what you had to do to prepare for winter. You can install a glass door on the fire place yourself, it’s not a big job. There are so many videos nowadays to do it yourself things.
The heated floor thing would be really nice especially in the bathrooms.
As an apartment dweller in the South, I’m delighted to have very few of these issues to contend with for myself. Most of these responsibilities fall to my complex management. Plus, I have a mostly upstairs apartment, meaning that if it’s cold outside, my downstairs coat closet gets chilly (so I don’t keep my coat in it), but most of my apartment stays warm without me even having to turn on the heat. So, while I end up using the A/C much of the year, I only ever turn the heat on for about an hour a day from mid-December through January, and then I’m done.
But certainly I’d need ALL of these tips if I lived in a house (or anywhere with colder weather). In that regard, I don’t miss living in Buffalo!
You have to do a lot to prepare for winter for sure if you own a house. Freezing temperatures can damage the outside and the inside. Buffalo is even colder than VA, so you experienced living in freezing temperatures! I’m sure you don’t miss it. We didn’t have severe winters the last 2 years, but they are calling for heavy winter this year and we have to be prepared.