Winterizing your home: a checklist you can reuse every fall

Most winter damage to a house starts as something small that nobody got around to: a hose left on the outside tap, a furnace filter that's been in since spring, a gutter full of leaves. None of it takes long to deal with. The hard part is remembering, every year, in the few weeks before it matters.

This is the list we use. Do it once this fall, and next year you only have to follow it.

Outside, before the first hard frost

• Disconnect and drain the garden hoses. A hose left attached holds water against the tap, and that water can freeze back into the pipe. Coil the hoses and store them somewhere dry.
• Shut off the outside taps from inside, if your house has a separate shut-off valve for them, then open the outside tap to let the last of the water drain out.
• Drain the irrigation system, if you have one. Some need to be blown out with compressed air, which is a job many people hand to the company that installed it.
• Clean the gutters once the leaves are down. Blocked gutters back water up under the roof edge, and in a cold snap that water is where ice dams start.
• Look at the roof and the gutters from the ground. You're checking for missing shingles, sagging runs of gutter and downspouts that empty against the foundation.
• Put away or cover the outdoor furniture and the barbecue, and check that the propane tank is stored outside, never in the garage or the house.

Heating

• Check the furnace filter and change it if it's dirty. ENERGY STAR recommends checking it every month and changing it when it looks dirty. If yours is easy to forget, this is the one to put on a schedule.
• Book the heating check-up. ENERGY STAR suggests a yearly visit from a contractor, with the heating system checked in the fall and the cooling system in the spring. Fall bookings fill up, so book early.
• Have the chimney and vents inspected, if you burn wood or have a fuel-burning fireplace or stove. The U.S. Fire Administration says to have chimneys and vents cleaned and inspected at least once a year.
• Bleed the radiators, if you have hot-water heating. A radiator that's cold at the top has air in it.

Pipes

• Find your main water shut-off and make sure it turns. If a pipe bursts, this is the valve you'll want, and you don't want to be searching for it with water on the floor. Tag it so anyone in the house can find it.
• Insulate pipes in unheated spaces such as the crawlspace, the garage and exterior walls. Foam sleeves from a hardware store are cheap and easy to fit.
• Plan for trips. Leave the heat on while you're away and ask someone to check on the house. The Insurance Bureau of Canada points out that skipping this can affect your coverage, so read what your own policy says about vacant homes.

Safety

• Test every smoke alarm, and the carbon monoxide alarms too. The U.S. Fire Administration says to test smoke alarms monthly, change replaceable batteries at least once a year, and replace the whole alarm every 10 years. The date is printed on the back.
• Check the replace-by date on each carbon monoxide alarm. They wear out, and the lifespan varies by model, so go by the date the manufacturer prints on the unit.
• Clean the dryer lint filter every load and check the vent. The U.S. Fire Administration advises checking that the vent behind the dryer isn't crushed or blocked, and that the outdoor flap opens when the dryer runs.

Drafts and the attic

• Replace worn weatherstripping on doors and windows. If you can see daylight around a closed door, heat is getting out.
• Look in the attic after the first cold spell. The Insurance Bureau of Canada suggests checking for frost in the attic and for ice dams and icicles along the roof edge. Frost up there usually means warm, damp air is leaking up from the house.
• Switch ceiling fans to winter direction, clockwise on most fans, at low speed. It pushes warm air down from the ceiling.

For the emergency drawer

Winter is when power cuts last longest. Check that flashlights work, that you have spare batteries, and that there's enough water and food for a few days. Snow shovels and a bag of ice melt are easier to buy in November than during the first storm.

Make it a list you only write once

The checklist above is generic. Yours will be shorter or longer depending on the house: no chimney, but a sump pump; no irrigation system, but a heat pump with its own filter. What makes it stick is writing your version down once and having it come back on its own next fall.

In HomeHero, each line becomes a task, and recurring tasks repeat on a schedule you pick, in days, weeks, months or years. A few that work well:

• "Check furnace filter", every month, linked to the furnace.
• "Disconnect hoses and shut off outside taps", every year, due in late October.
• "Book furnace service", every year, due in September, so you beat the rush.
• "Test smoke and CO alarms", every month.

Link a task to the item it's about, and the furnace's page shows its filter size, its manual, the last service receipt and the task in one place. The bell in the app lists what's due and overdue. With Sync, you also get an email the day before a task is due.

For the jobs that come round at other times of year, see our home maintenance schedule.

Sources

• ENERGY STAR, Maintenance checklist
• U.S. Fire Administration, Heating fire safety
• U.S. Fire Administration, Smoke alarms
• U.S. Fire Administration, Clothes dryer fire safety (PDF)
• Insurance Bureau of Canada, Winter safety