Everyone loves the warm summer days where you can lounge around by the pool and sip on refreshing ice-cold drinks. But winter comes along before you know it and you’re suddenly plunged into woolly hats and gloves weather. The change in weather doesn’t only affect your wardrobe though. It also affects your home and ideally, you want to try to plan ahead for the winter before it comes. So, here are some of the best ways you can prepare your house for winter this year.
Check Your Windows
Having secure windows is essential for the winter if you want to keep your home warm. You want to ensure that your windows don’t have any cracks or gaps that could cause issues in adverse weather conditions. Small cracks could easily become large ones if they freeze over, and you may have to call in emergency glaziers to fix them. In London, emergency glaziers can attend to a situation within hours and get it resolved on the same day. So, if the worst happens there are options, but really you want to get them sorted before it’s below zero and the chill is coming through your broken window. Ensuring that you don’t have any gaps in your windows can also help you to retain energy and warmth, lowering your bills too!
Draught-Proof
Draughts are the bane of people’s lives in winter. There’s nothing worse than sitting in your what should be a cosy living room and feeling the cold outside air on your face. In order to stop this from happening, you should look to draught-proof your home before the winter weather sets in. Take a look at your doors and windows as both of them can easily let in the cold. If you notice any cold breezes in your home during the summer, they may feel great on a swelteringly hot day, but when it’s dropped to icy temperatures, it’s a different story. Don’t leave it until it’s too late and your whole family are sitting shivering because you didn’t get the draught fixed months prior.
Service Your Boiler
In the winter, your boiler is going to be crucial in the warming of your home, so you want to ensure it’s in tip-top condition beforehand. This means you should book your boiler service if you haven’t already done so. Even if you had one a few months ago, it could be a good idea to get it done again so that you can rest assured that it’s not going to leave you and your loved ones in the cold. Getting your boiler serviced before winter means that you’ll be able to fix any issues before they escalate into big problems. Smaller issues tend to be cheaper to fix as well, so you’ll be doing your heating and your wallet a favour.
Plan Your Heating
Once you know your heating is working fine, then you need to think about how you’re going to heat your home this winter. You don’t want to have your heating on high all the time as you’ll only cause high energy bills and end up feeling too hot. You want to ensure that you keep your home at an optimal temperature, so you could try making use of the programmes that your central heating has. This way you can get the best out of your boiler and keep your bills to a minimum.
Bleed Your Radiators
People generally don’t use their radiators during the summer, so when you do finally start using them again, you may notice that they heat a little unevenly. It’s quite common for them to feel colder at the top, but this doesn’t mean that they’re broken and need replacing. It can simply be a case of bleeding them which allows them to flush through any air that’s become trapped during their disuse. If you don’t bleed them, then the problem could get worse which will then lead to their need to be replaced. You don’t want to have to deal with uneven radiators or even go without them while they’re being fixed, so be sure to bleed them in plenty of time before the winter.
Ventilation And Damp
Winter is a prime time for dampness to develop as the wet air gets inside your home and isn’t properly ventilated out. Although it may seem awful to think of opening a window in the dead of winter, allowing your home to be aired out each morning can do wonders for the condensation that has developed overnight. Similarly, people tend to start drying their laundry inside once the days become chillier, so you need to make sure that you keep the room your dryer is in well ventilated.
Home Security
In the UK, crimes involving people’s homes like breaking and entering seem to increase in the winter, so you may want to invest in a good home security system beforehand. Things like porch lights and cameras in the driveway can be good deterrents, but you should also think about getting alarm systems that will alert you and the emergency services if anything happens. You also want to check things like your garden fences and doors to sheds to ensure that they’re as safe as they can be.
Prepping your home for winter should be a top priority for you each year. You want to make your home safe and warm for your family, so completing these checks can really help once those cold days roll around. Once you set your winter preparation routine, you won’t miss it ever again as you’ll definitely see the difference it can make to your bank account and your home year on year.