Your Early Spring House Maintenance Checklist

Giving your home a makeover to ready it for the warm weather ahead is a good way to welcome springtime. You can explore your house and yard during this period and assess any damage caused by the winter months. An inspection will help you figure out what has to be included on your spring house maintenance checklist so you can properly schedule the work and ensure that your home is in tip-top shape. Most people set aside an entire weekend for house maintenance. However, you will quickly find out that there is a lot that needs to be done; therefore, it is advisable to be organized if you are to do the job effectively and quickly. Utilize our spring house maintenance checklist below to make your home spring-ready.

Clean and Organize Your Home

The beginning of spring is a perfect time to deep clean your home so that it stays healthy and organized and your family remains happy. Deep cleaning ensures that there is no build-up of mold, dust, and mildew, all of which might lead to serious problems if left to accumulate. If you are a novice at cleaning, you might want to strategize, use a spring house maintenance checklist, and plan before you start cleaning. This will save you time. To clean efficiently, choose a single task at a time and perform the task in every room in the house. This is better than cleaning one room at a time, resulting in you feeling like you are in an endless cleaning loop.

It is also advisable to start with tasks that apply to all rooms. For instance, you can start with dusting ceiling fans and lights, cleaning window sills, and vacuuming curtains and blinds. You might also want to disinfect doorknobs, cupboard handles, and light switches. As you are cleaning and organizing, you can also check all rooms and remove items that are no longer in use, like dead batteries, and reorganize random items, such as industrial inkjet printer parts and houseplants in your home office.

Rid of Unused Clothes, Toys, and Appliances

Spring brings new promises: better weather and a sparkling clean slate. But how clean is your slate, exactly? As part of your spring house maintenance checklist, you might need to get rid of unused toys and appliances. While clearing out a year’s worth of accumulated clutter may seem like a daunting task, it’s easily doable when you have the right momentum.

You might have some clothing items in your closet that you no longer wear because they don’t fit anymore or because you’ve had a change of lifestyle. Getting rid of those clothes will help you create space in your closet. There are a lot of ways to dispose of unwanted clothes. You can either find a consignment shop in your area that accepts second-hand clothing and take your items there to be evaluated, or you can hold a yard or garage sale, depending on how many of the unused clothes you have. If the clothes are no longer usable, you can have them taken away by a garbage hauling service or donate them to an animal shelter. Animal shelters typically accept linens, blankets, and towels, but you have to call them first to find out if they are currently accepting donations.

Apart from clothes, you may also want to get rid of unwanted toys and appliances. If you are replacing old and broken appliances with new ones, professional delivery people can assist you by taking away the old appliance for a nominal fee. You can also sell them for cash or simply give them away.

Scrub Your Bathrooms and Clean Out the Drains

Cleaning showers, bathtubs, and toilets as well as removing all sorts of build-up from surfaces is time-consuming, and it takes some serious elbow grease. For this reason, most people dislike doing it. However, this process is an important part of your spring house maintenance checklist.

Following a step-by-step process when cleaning your bathroom can make the job relatively easier. You can start by removing all items from their usual spots. This includes all your products, towels, and rags. You should ensure that you remove all items from the counters as well. After removing all the items, you can start dusting and sweeping. To remove the dust, you can use a long handle duster to reach corners and get rid of cobwebs. If there are some areas you can’t reach properly; you can use a stepladder to get up higher.

Once you are done dusting, you may proceed and sweep or vacuum the floors to remove all of the debris and hair. The next step would be to clean the shower and tub. For this, you can either use an all-purpose cleaner or an acid-based cleaner, depending on how dirty the surfaces are. Following the tub and shower, you can then tackle all other surfaces. When all the surfaces are done, finish everything off by mopping the floor with water that is mixed with a cleaning solution.

Apart from cleaning the bathrooms, you will also need to clean out the drains to avoid blockages. If any of the drains are blocked, and you can’t fix them on your own, it is advisable to seek out the services of a plumbing expert.

Undergo Necessary Home Repairs

The winter takes a toll on a lot of things in your home, and it can damage certain parts of your house. For instance, the roof receives a lot of weight and shields you from harsh weather conditions, whether it be rain, snow, storms, or strong winds. It is therefore crucial when it’s springtime to inspect and undergo roof repair among other home repairs.

Basically, the roof maintenance process starts with proper inspection and assessment. This is where you can check whether your roof needs any repairs or attention. You can start by walking the perimeter of your home before you start climbing ladders and taking a closer look. As you are walking the perimeter of your yard, you can also check for shingles on the ground. Following that, you can then get onto the roof itself using a ladder, and you can also get into the attic to inspect. Your attic ceiling is usually the first to show signs if you have a leak in the roof. If there is damage, and it’s beyond what you can handle, then it might be time to call in the professionals.

Besides the roof, you may also want to pay attention and inspect your water heaters and geysers. If you need any water heater repair work done, it is advisable to call qualified professionals as well.

Reorganize Your Garage

After winter, it is highly likely that there will be a mess in your garage that can make you recoil in horror. A random stack of firewood and a tangled pile of rakes and hoses may be lying around. A lot of people use the garage as misfit storage and a place to dump outdoor tools during the winter. This junk is unsightly, and it can even be a hazard, especially if you have kids in the house. Spring is the perfect time to rearrange the mess in your garage and organize everything in a neat manner.

It is also possible that there might be some damage to some parts of your garage, especially the door, which can be warped due to extreme temperatures or damage, making it very difficult to open at times. This means you might have to undergo garage door repair as well.

Ensure Your Home’s HVAC Systems Are Working Flawlessly

<>Ensuring that your HVAC system is running properly at the beginning of spring is very important. For this, it is advisable to hire an HVAC company to perform a spring/summer HVAC preventative maintenance check. These companies will usually clean or replace filters, clean condenser and evaporator coils, drain lisses, pans and replace worn-out pulleys and belts.

They will also inspect all of the ducts for mold, dust, and debris and observe humidity levels. Also, keep in mind when searching for an HVAC maintenance company that you find one that suits your needs, equipment, and budget.

Make Sure Your Home’s Air Quality Is Superb

Most people tend to think that all the air pollution that takes place affects the outdoors. When air pollution is mentioned, the picture that comes to mind is haze hanging in the air and smoke coming from vehicles. However, the actual truth is that the air indoors is sometimes more polluted than the air outdoors. Lead, radon, and volatile chemicals can pollute indoor air together with fragrances and chemicals from cleaning products. Some pollutants even get into the home with new furniture.

Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to improve your air quality. One of the easiest methods of doing that is to keep your floors fresh and dust-free. Make use of a vacuum cleaner with strong suction and vacuum the same area several times to ensure that the floor doesn’t have any dust mites. One other thing that you might want to do is to keep humidity levels at a minimum inside the house. Dust mites love humid areas, and keeping humidity low can make it difficult for them to linger around your home. For this, you can use a dehumidifier or an air conditioner.

To further improve the air quality of your home, you can make it a non-smoking zone. If any of your visitors feel like smoking, they can do it outside, or you can even have a designated smoking area. As part of your spring house maintenance checklist, you can also use air duct cleaning services to ensure that there is free air circulation in your home.

Consider Making Eco-Friendly Changes

There are several budget-friendly changes that you can make in your home to turn it into an eco-friendly place. For instance, you can start washing your clothes with cold water. Experts say that almost 90% of the energy utilized by washing machines functions to heat water. A simple energy-saving hack would therefore be to skip the heating and stick to the cold water setting. By so doing, you will effectively reduce carbon dioxide emission while keeping your clothes in good shape for longer, as washing with hot water can make your clothing items less vibrant.

If you want to go all out to make your home eco-friendly, you can include solar energy on your spring house maintenance checklist. Many people have been turning to solar power in the past few years, which has led to a decrease in the cost of solar panels, making it a more affordable power option. You can either choose to go completely off the grid or supplement your home energy. Whichever you choose, you will not only make your home eco-friendly, but you will also be increasing your property value. However, you should consider that installing a system is more than just putting up a few panels and attaching a few batteries. Your home system has to be correctly sized to suit your needs and your house specifications and appliances. Also, ensure that you work with a reputable company that supplies high-quality products.

Consider Updating Your Homeowner’s Insurance

While reviewing your homeowner’s insurance may not rank high on your spring house maintenance checklist, updating it might end up saving you big bucks in the present and help you avoid a lot of grief down the road. Therefore, if you haven’t taken a detailed assessment of your insurance lately, you might need to dust it off and put it on your spring house maintenance checklist as a high-priority project.

The first step when updating your insurance would be to assess how much coverage you need. When doing this, your priority has to be the house itself, followed by possessions, living expenses, and liability. After that, you then have to inspect what’s not covered. Many people are not aware of what their policy excludes until they file a claim, and that’s not a situation you want to find yourself in.

Consider checking off these items on your early spring house maintenance checklist. It’ll save you time and money as the warmer months approach. Conduct repairs and clean now so you can enjoy the spring and summer seasons with your family in a safe and comfortable home.