Yearly Maintenance Tips for your Calgary Home

Keeping your Calgary home in tip top shape is relatively easy with some simple yearly maintenance tips. Regular maintenance is crucial as every home needs tender loving care. More importantly, by taking a little time and effort you can also save yourself a bunch of money and avoid expensive repair bills down the road.

Here’s a simple season by season breakdown of some of the more important tips to keep your home well maintained, safe, and healthy.

Spring Maintenance Tips

In spring, when the snow is done, you want to take a good look both inside and outside to check for the ravages of winter. Additionally, you should:

• Check your furnace and clean the filter or replace as necessary.
• Look out for mould or dampness, and cracks in the foundation and repair immediately.
• Take down the storm windows and check the caulking around the windows. Check your screens for holes or damaged frames.
• Eyeball your steps, walkway and driveway for cracks, frost damage, or broken steps. Also, give your deck, veranda and interior handrails a good once over and look for rotten wood or loose rails. Repair as soon as the weather looks good.
• Give your gutter a good once over and clean out any leaves or gunk. Make sure all fasteners are well secured.

Summer Tips

 Before you barbeque those steaks, check out the propane lines with soap and water to look for leaks.

• Look at all your caulking around the sinks and tub and replace if rotten or frayed.
• Change your air conditioner filter and poke around in the attic or crawl spaces to look for accumulated water or damp spots. Watch out for activity from those carpenter ants or termites.
• Lubricate and oil all your door hinges and outdoor locks. Check your exterior siding, and repair or paint as needed.
• Clean your decks and use a sealant to keep the wood in top form.

Fall Home Maintenance

There’s a lot more to do than just raking the leaves.

• Your furnace, alternative heating and cooling systems have to be thoroughly inspected and preferably by a professional and licensed HVAC inspector.
• Have your chimney cleaned, and have the oil tank or natural gas lines properly inspected.
• Perform the required maintenance on your outdoor equipment such as your lawn mower and snow blower.
• Make sure all your doors and windows are functioning smoothly and weather strip where required.
• Insulate any pipes that have given you previously problems and don’t forget to leave your outdoor tap open so you don’t burst a pipe.

Winter

Brrrr!

• Clean and ready the humidifier.
• Vacuum all vents, grills and heating registers.
• Check all your electrical cords and plugs and GFCI outlets.
• Change the batteries for all smoke and CO detectors.

These are some of the most basic tips. Be prepared!