After a long winter, your home is likely in need of a little help to get back into its best condition and appearance. Wet, cold, and icy weather can take their toll on a home’s exterior, as well as on the rest of your property. That’s why spring is one of the best times of year to get out and do a little improvement on your exterior.
Home Improvement Tips for Spring
Whether your home needs a little inspecting and maintenance or whether it needs significantly more help, these 7 spring home improvement tips will help you get it back in order fast:
1. Check and Maintain Your Gutters
Your gutters do an important job of collecting rainwater and directing it away from your foundation. Unfortunately, they can become easily clogged with a variety of debris including leaves, pine needles, and even deteriorating roofing shingles.
Each spring, take the time to thoroughly inspect your gutters. Make sure that they hang properly, and tighten any gutter screws that are coming loose. If necessary, replace sections that are cracked, rusting, or otherwise showing signs of failure.
Make sure that they’re also clean and free of debris so that they can run freely. While you’re doing this, take a look at the bottoms of the gutters for any granules or debris from your roof. An excess of granules can indicate that your roof will need repair or replacement soon.
2. Replace Your Siding
After a long wet winter, wood siding can begin to soften and rot, while vinyl siding can begin showing a lot of cracks and holes. Inspect your siding and if you can insert a screwdriver into your wood at any point or you notice cracks showing in the vinyl, your current siding won’t make it one more winter. That makes spring a good time of year to replace your siding with something more durable like fiber cement.
Fiber cement siding resists the things that can do winter damage to other types of siding. This includes moisture, insects, and cold. Fiber cement also comes in a wide range of colors, styles, and sizes so you can completely transform the appearance of your home into something newer, fresher, and more attractive - perfect for spring.
3. Service Your AC Unit
Before the summer starts to heat up, make sure you get your air conditioner serviced. Spring is the ideal time for regular AC cleaning and maintenance. You don’t want to wait until the hottest days of the year to discover that your air conditioner has a broken part or dirty coils which could cause it to freeze.
Schedule your yearly HVAC service for the spring months before the heat of summer starts to set in. Then you can relax, knowing that your AC will function the way that it’s intended to when you need it.
4. Take an Inspection Walk
Your gutters and siding aren’t the only areas you should be paying attention to after the winter. Each spring, take the time to make an inspection of your entire property. You’ll want to look for signs of trouble, such as curling, broken, or missing roofing shingles, cracks in the concrete foundation, and rotting or softening trim around windows and doors. If you find any of these issues, you should get them taken care of right away, Issues surrounding your roof or your foundation have a tendency to get worse over time if not addressed.
If you find that your trim is rotting, consider replacing it either alone or with the rest of your siding. Fiber cement trim can help prevent future softening and rotting.
5. Fill In Low Areas around Your Foundation
Snow, ice, and rain have a habit of eroding soil around the foundation of your home. They can also create depressions and low areas in your landscaping that can lead to more erosion over time. This can lead to floods as well as instability in the foundation and things like cracks in the concrete.
If you notice that there are low areas or depressions around your foundation, take the time to fill them in with compacted soil. This will help prevent water from pooling in the future, and will help keep your foundation in good repair.
6. Install Screens
Spring is a great time of year to get out your window screens, inspect, clean, and install them. Make sure that your screens are in good condition and are free from any holes or tears that could let insects into your home. Clean them well, and make any repairs that are necessary. In the case of any screens with large holes or tears, it may be best to invest in new ones.
Install your screens now so you can make the most of any warmer days.
7. Check and Reseal Your Windows
Your windows are sealed on the exterior with a form of caulk, usually silicone. This helps keep wind and rain out of your home, but continued exposure to the elements can cause the caulk to crack and fall out. When this happens, you may experience more air infiltration in your home, which can raise your energy bills and make your interior less comfortable.
Take a look each spring at the areas around your windows to see the condition of the caulk. If it’s not intact, remove the old caulk and install new caulking to help seal your windows up in time to turn the air conditioning on.
Get Your Home Ready for Summer
By performing these basic home improvement tasks in the spring, you can ensure that your home is ready for the coming summer. Your home will look and function better, and you’ll be ready for the heat and summer rain. Take on these 7 projects this spring to get your home ready for summer.
For more information on how to spruce up your home’s exterior, contact Allura today.
