May 23, 2022
Best Ways to Protect Your Home During Summer: 7 Tips to Try Now
When it comes to home maintenance, most people think about the fall and wintertime. It’s true that weather events like piles of leaves in the gutters, high-wind blizzards, and freezing temperatures can take a toll on any home.
However, summertime brings its own set of risks and calls for thorough summer home maintenance. Here’s how to keep your home safe and comfortable during the summer.
1. Service your air conditioner
As the warm weather sets in, have your air conditioner professionally serviced and cleaned. This yearly habit can help prevent costly issues in the future and can also help you catch issues early. That way, when your system eventually does require repairs, you can have them taken care of before the weather gets unbearably hot, thus protecting your home – and yourself – from the sweltering midsummer heat.
2. Add efficiency
On top of having your AC unit serviced, some of the best summer home care tips are all about efficiency. The beginning of summer is the perfect time of year to install blinds or curtains, replace single-pane windows, and reinstall weather strips or seals that are meant to keep undesirable temperatures out.
In fact, you can perform a thorough home energy assessment for your house yourself, or even have a professional assessment performed. These assessments are designed to help you identify any weak points in your home’s efficiency measures. Addressing these issues can help you cut air conditioning costs while also doing your part for the environment by adding energy efficiency to your home.
3. Trim trees and bushes
One of the most overlooked yet important summer home care tips is to adequately trim back trees and bushes. Especially when large trees have branches that hover above your home, near a power line, or along your fence, it’s crucial to correctly maintain them. This can prevent damage from summertime storms or simple overgrowth. It’s also an essential measure for fire safety. Once the summer hits, growth can happen very quickly, so keeping an eye on your trees, bushes, and shrubs is a must.
4. Be proactive about bugs and pests
There are few home maintenance issues more unsettling than dealing with bugs, rodents, or other pests in your home. Warm weather often means that spiders, wasps, moths, ants, and even rats or mice begin to find their way inside. Dealing with these pests is not only unpleasant but can also lead to health and safety issues for family members and pets.
Take steps to prevent bugs and pests from entering your home by:
- Resealing caulk around exterior windows, doors, and walls.
- Checking for any cracks in exterior walls and sealing any you find.
- Spraying repellent outdoors (check safety warnings and opt for natural solutions if necessary).
- Remembering not to store open food (including birdseed) in your garage, basement, or outdoors near your house.
5. Practice fire safety
Summertime is synonymous with neighborhood barbecues, family hamburger night, and hot dogs on Independence Day. In some climates, evenings are just chilly enough that a fire pit can come in handy to keep everyone comfortable at an outdoor gathering. As enjoyable as these activities are, they can also pose a fire risk to your home and neighborhood if not handled correctly.
Anytime you plan to have a contained fire or any flame near your home, keep your fire extinguisher handy. Grill fires are unfortunately quite common, but with the right precautions, they can be prevented or quickly extinguished. Most importantly, never leave a fire unattended. Read all manuals for grills and outdoor fire pits, and when you finish use for the day, ensure the fire is completely extinguished. Unexpected winds can turn even the smallest embers into a neighborhood disaster.
6. Consider an alarm system
For many families, the summer months mean vacation time! Protect your home and give yourself peace of mind while traveling by installing a home alarm or surveillance system. This can help prevent break-ins and theft while you’re away. Forming relationships with your neighbors, installing motion-activated exterior lights, connecting timers to interior lights, and keeping social media posts vague can also work wonders for keeping your home well-protected, even when you aren’t there.
7. Power wash and reseal
Some summer home tips are geared toward functionality and some are geared toward looks. This one is both! Changing temperatures can create subtle warping in your deck and porch over time.
In order to counteract the damage this can cause, start each summer by power washing exterior elements such as:
- Decks
- Porches and patios
- Sidewalks
- Driveways
Once they’re nice and clean, you can reseal and add UV protection to your deck and any other wood features in your home’s exterior. This will not only add a new life to the appearance of your home exterior but will also make your property safer and keep your deck intact longer. Don’t forget the railings!
Enjoy all that summertime has to offer, from the gardening opportunities to the blooming trees to the sunny days perfect for outdoor activities. As the warm weather draws to a close, keep end-of-summer maintenance tips in mind such as unplugging your hose from the spigot on cold nights.
Get Started Today
If the summertime has you ready to tackle your next home improvement project, DeLeers Construction can help. Get started today!
Message or call our experts at 920-347-5830 with any questions on hiring professionals for your home renovation or rebuilding!
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