1. Exterior Maintenance
When winterizing your home, the place to start is outside. You want to prevent any damage to the outside of your home to keep it from affecting the inside of your home. Try these tips for protecting the exterior of your home this winter: - Clear all gutters so that rainwater, melting snow and ice can successfully flow away from your home instead of forming ice dams, which can lead to leaks inside your home.
- Trim trees and remove dead branches around your home to prevent property-damaging breaks caused by the weight and force of winter winds, snow and ice.
- Protect your outdoor furniture, cooking appliances and recreational gear by storing them away or protecting them with weather-proof covers.
- Keep pest from seeking warmth in your home by covering chimneys with screening and blocking any possible entries in the foundation or around the eaves.
2. Prepare Your Plumbing
Failing to winterize the plumbing in your vacation home could lead to extensive damage while you're away. Before you check out for the winter season, be sure to do the following things to keep your pipes from freezing and busting during those cold winter months:
- Open all the water faucets and valves inside your home to let the water drain from the pipes.
- Turn off the main water shut off valve inside your home.
- Wrap all exterior pipes as well as pipes in unheated areas of your vacation home with polyurethane or fiberglass pipe insulation.
- Use spray foam insulation to fill in the gaps around outdoor spigots.
- Turn off or remove any back flow prevention devices from your faucets before insulating them.
- Disconnect and drain your washing machine hoses, ice maker waterline and dishwasher's supply and drain lines.
- Turn off the water heater and drain the water from the tank.
- Drain the water from spray attachments at your sinks and from the handheld shower head hoses.
- Flush your toilets and remove any excess water from the tanks and bowls with an old towel.
- Pour one cup of antifreeze into the toilet bowls and an additional cup down the overflow tube in the toilet tanks.
3. Interior Preparations
In addition to making sure your pipes aren't going to freeze on those cold winter nights, there are a few other items that should be addressed inside your home. Follow these tips to ensure a problem free winter for your vacation home:
- All electrical components in your vacation home should be shut down, with the exception of such essentials as the heating system, security system and outdoor lighting. Use carefully marked breakers in your home's circuit box as a guide.
- Unplug all appliances from the outlets.
- Adjust the heat to a minimum of 55 degrees to maintain proper interior humidity and prevent the development of molds and mildew.
- Open all cabinets where plumbing is present.
- Make sure the smoke, fire and carbon monoxide alarms in your vacation home are in working order.
- Make sure there is ample insulation in the attic, basement and crawl spaces. This will also help to keep your pipes from freezing.
- Empty and defrost the refrigerator, leaving the door ajar and the unit unplugged.
- Discard any food, toiletries or medications containing liquids that could freeze.
- Seal air leaks that allow cold air into your home, paying special attention to door frames and window sills.
- Turn off the pilot lights on stoves and fireplaces and turn off the gas. Also check for possible gas leaks.
Not all of these items may be applicable in your situation. If you plan to have guests coming and going throughout the winter, you might want to leave the water heater full of water and the refrigerator plugged in. One of the great things about having your Lake of the Ozarks vacation home on our rental program is that you have someone keeping an eye on your house all year round. When a guest checks out during the winter months, we make sure to turn the water off and turn the heat down to 55 for you. We also have maintenance people on staff to take care of any issues that may arise during the cold winter months. For more information about having our property management company at the Lake of the Ozarks manage your vacation home, give us a call at 573-365-3367 today. Now is the time to get everything setup for the 2016 summer season!
For more information please call us toll free at 1-877-284-0267!!
4571 Osage Beach Pkwy, Suite A
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076
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