Check List for Winter

There ten things that you should take care of in the waning days of fall to make sure that you spend the winter comfy and warm in your home.

1. Have your heating system serviced and change your furnace and/ or heat pump filters. 
2. Check that smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors are in working order and the batteries are good.
3. If you have window units, remove air conditioners from windows and store away in the basement.
4. Clear out your gutters. Also, Make sure downspouts extend away from the house by at least 5 feet 
5. Cut back tree limbs or branches surrounding your home to at least 3 feet away from the house.
6. Clean and cover patio furniture with a tarp. Store cushions inside or in a garden shed or garage. Though I will admit that my polywood furniture has wintered uncovered outside for 13 years and still looks like new.
7. Flush the hot water heater. Check that your sump pump(s) is working.  
8. Unscrew the hoses and turn off the water to your outside hoses
9. To prevent frozen pipes have a plan to address the weak points on the coldest nights
10. Check the roof for damage and get it repaired before winter.

I failed to complete my spring repair list and now is my chance to make sure the house is buttoned up for winter. All these items have to do with maintaining equipment, preventing water and ice problems and just staying warm and safe in the winter.  Your heating and air conditioning equipment should be serviced twice a year to make sure it is functioning properly. If you have a gas furnace, it is especially necessary to make sure that it is working properly. In addition, the system functions better when the air flow is not blocked by a dirty filter. Change them. If you have window air conditioning units now is the time to remove them and store them in the basement. This will eliminate a source of air leak to your home; and extend the life of the air conditioner.

Every home should have smoke alarms, and all homes with oil, natural gas or propane burning appliances such as a furnace, water heater, stove, cooktop or grill should have a carbon monoxide monitor. If you have an all-electric home you do not really need a carbon monoxide alarm unless you operate a generator during power outages. The U.S. Fire Administration for Homeland Security, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and the Red Cross agree after working for 87,000 hours or 10 years in normal environmental conditions in the home it is time to replace your smoke alarms.

Next, on the list Is to clear out your gutters. Clogged gutters can accumulate water in the gutter and around the house. In my case a roofer’s glove clogged a gutter and water poured down from the overflowing gutter on top of a bay window that sprung a leak before I could clear out the gutter. That is the repair that did not get done over the summer.  In addition, a clogged gutter can contribute to creating ice dam. Coming from New England I worry about ice dams that form above the gutters at the edge of the roof. These dams of ice prevent melting snow from draining off the roof and instead may allow the water to back up behind the dam which can both leak into the home and lift the edge of the roof. Fortunately, in Northern Virginia we do not often have to worry about ice dams on the roof, instead it is torrential rain storms and wind that challenge us.

Freezing rain is also a problem. The ice glaze that forms can get quite heavy, and as it builds up on trees or shrubs, branches get weighed down and can snap under the weight.  These snapped branches can damage your home. It is best to cut back tress and large shrubs that overhang your home.

Turn off the water to your outside hoses, there should be a valve for each in the basement next to the main water line. In older homes this is not always true. Next, unscrew the hoses. Most modern homes have frost-free sillcocks (hose bibs) installed, and if they are properly installed with a correct angel to drain the water back they should be fine all winter; however, I found out the hard way that sometimes they are simply not installed right or leaving the hose connected that winter may have caused the problem. My frost free sillcock in the back of the house had the pipe in the inside wall split a few years back. I replaced both sillcocks in the spring and now turn off the water in the winter. This should prevent problems in the future.

Also, you need to prevent frozen pipes. Frozen pipes can happen in your supply line or other parts of the house. If your well supply line or the water main is not frozen, you may have water in part of the house, but frozen pipes elsewhere. There are some things you can do to prevent frozen pipes. A couple of ceramic electric heat cubes, thermocouple, electric blanket and a little strategy can prevent frozen pipes before they happen, or defrost a frozen pipe. The likely pipes to freeze are against exterior walls of the home, or are exposed to the cold, like outdoor hose bibs, and water supply pipes in unheated interior areas like basements and crawl spaces, attics, garages, or kitchen cabinets. Pipes that run against exterior walls that have little or no insulation are also subject to freezing. 

In sub-zero weather wells with and without separate well houses can freeze. Keeping the temperature in a well house above freezing or your well pipe insulated can prevent this. It used to be that an inefficient 100 watt incandescent bulb gave off enough heat to do the job, but now with more efficient bulbs insulation and other sources of heat have to be used. An electric blanket can do the job. Deep wells are unlikely to freeze, it’s usually a supply line that was not buried deep enough. Abnormally cold snaps can identify many a private well line that was not buried deep enough at its most vulnerable point where it connects to the foundation.

Because of the usually mild winters here in Virginia, bathrooms are often build above garages or have pipes run through a dormer. If you have a bathroom above a garage keep a small ceramic electric heater ($40) connected to a thermocouple that turns it on when the temperature in the garage falls below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Turn on the heating cube in the garage and check it functioning when you turn off the hoses in late fall.

When the weather is forecast to fall into the single digits or lower open the cabinet doors below sinks located on outside walls or against attic dormers, and in the most extreme weather run an extra ceramic electric heater overnight keeping that bathroom toasty while the rest of the house is at an energy saving 62-65 degrees.

Letting the water run in very cold weather can work, but can also create other problems. While running water may prevent the water supply pipes from freezing, in the coldest weather the slowly running water might cause the drain pipe to the septic system to freeze and block the flow or even burst, and it can overwhelm a septic system. If you are on city water and sewer letting water trickle can prevent frozen pipes at a price.

Now is a good time to prepare for winter. Also, you might want to change your furnace and or heat pump filters so that the systems will work their best through the cold months ahead. Remember if we have snow to dig out your heat pump and make sure all furnace vents are clear and unblocked.

Structural Damage Caused by Water Infiltration- Adventures in Home Ownership

I am an engineer so I have a maintenance schedule for my home, but no home is immune to system failure, time and weather. Buildings and their systems have limited lives, and over time all systems fail; however, the late 2004 vintage house I bought in 2007 has experienced premature structural component failure. As the housing bubble heated up builders started throwing up houses and scrambling for construction workers. Inexperience and speed inevitably lead to quality control problems with the structure of my home (built by Patriot Homes a subsidiary of Lennar Homes)- over the years we have discovered insulation that was forgotten, attic vents that were not installed, a section of the floor plate that extended through the foundation, settling around the house, improperly installed flashing that lead to all sorts of leaks, concrete walks and steps that cracked and chipped in less than a decade and now a significant water infiltration problem due to a series of construction faults that has resulted in a serious potential structural problem.

Moisture and water infiltration is the major route of home destruction and needs to be addressed before your home is consumed by the elements and nature. Water stains can be caused by roof leaks, or condensing moisture. There's a lot of moisture generated inside homes. Bathrooms without exhaust fans or fans not vented to the exterior, leaking dryer vents, damp basements, kitchens and crawlspaces and basements can be the source of moisture in the in the home or attic. Improper roof ventilation or uneven insulation can create "cold spots" in summer or winter where moisture condenses to the point of dripping onto the ceiling or wet areas on the underside of the roof sheathing. Air conditioning equipment or heat exchangers in the attic can result in condensate dripping out of the system or off of the refrigerant lines or ducts. Water stains on a window sill and around the door were the first indications of my problem. Small water leaks of all kinds can be ignored for a long time, don’t. Though I made three previous attempts in the last few years to locate the source of the moisture, it took ripping off the framing around the front door to get even a hint of the extent of the problem.

Before I am done it is going to cost me around $50,000 to rip the stone facing off my house, jack hammer the front steps, rebuild the support beams for the cantilevered floor that shields the front door, replace the headers for the door and the palladium window, correctly flash the new structure, extend the roof overhang, re-insulate the house, re-sheath the house (this time will concrete board) and replace the stone facing and rebuild the front steps. This all needs to be done before winter sets in. Failure to maintain a home or poor construction are not covered by homeowners insurance. Typically, this type of damage is not covered by insurance unless the water damage that caused the structural damage was caused by what insurance people call a covered peril such as a storm. There is no insurance coverage and I have no recourse against the former owner (Fremont Bank)- this is on my dime and I am cutting no corners in this project. The structural repair if done right will last a lifetime and appearance of the home will be improved (at least to my eye). It is fortunate that I just love a good construction project and that I have saved 2% of the cost of the house each year for repair and maintenance. The rule of thumb for home ownership has always been that 2-3% of a home’s value will be spent on average each year to maintain, repair and upgrade a home. A newer or well-maintained home can usually use the lower number.

The life expectancy of the components that make up a home depend on the quality of materials, the quality of installation, the level of maintenance, weather and climate conditions, and the intensity of use. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and Derecho that do not appear to damage a home can stress components and shorten their life. Some components of a home have a shortened life expectancy due to intensive use and there are systems and components that become obsolete. In 2006 the National Association of Home Builders estimates that there were 124 million homes in the United States, with a median age of 32 years. Ten million of these homes were built between 2000 and 2006. Old age, poor maintenance and poor quality of initial construction are the usual causes of structural damage to homes. Water infiltration is the single largest underlying cause of structural damage.

Lennar Homes has an excellent check list on their website for regular and routine maintenance of your home. Home ownership requires maintaining your property. You can also read the National Association of Home Builders Study of Life Expectancy of Housing Components to estimate the life of all the components in a home and budget for replacement of things like hot water heaters which have an expected life of 10 years for gas and 11 years for electric and air conditioners with a life of 10-15 years or heat pumps with a life expectancy of 16 years. Be aware that all these items are likely to break and need to be repaired (repeatedly) in the second half of their life. I admit that last year I replaced my heat pump rather than repair it in order to improve the heating and cooling efficiency and comfort in my home. However, my current problem is about the structural integrity of the home. The framing and other structural systems were intended to last a lifetime and here I am rebuilding the front of the house.