As the snow finally melts away, it’s time for homeowners to start thinking about spring cleaning. This is the best time of year to do some pretty intensive home maintenance. You’ll need to clean up after winter, and you’ll want to get going on it before it gets too hot to comfortably do maintenance work outdoors. Not sure where to start with your spring cleaning checklist? Here are five great places to start to make sure your house looks fantastic as you head into summertime.
1.Roof Maintenance and Repair
Winter is not kind to roofs. Snow sitting on the rooftop for months at a time may look picturesque, but snow and ice storms can break shingles or pull them off the roof, leaving unprotected areas that will culminate in a roof leak. You’ll want to replace any of these before the rainy spring is in full effect to avoid a puddle of rainwater collecting in your attic. Grab a ladder and climb on up. Besides loose or buckling shingles, keep an eye out for large amounts of moss, rusted or cracked caulk, and worn areas near chimneys.
2. Clean Out the Gutters
While you’re up there on the roof, it’s time for one of the least pleasant spring cleaning tasks: clearing the gutters of branches, leaves, and other leftovers from nature. This is an essential to do early in the season. If you have an especially rainy spring and you keep putting off gutter cleaning, you could find yourself with a mess before you know it. After you’ve cleaned out your gutters, make sure and do a test run by pouring water over and through them to make sure it’s draining properly, away from the house.
3. Clean Tiles
Bathroom and kitchen tiles are the essentials to tackle here, but if you have a tiled area in your backyard, now is the time to tackle them as well. This is when you really go in-depth, scrubbing, disinfecting, and de-grouting all the hard-to-reach areas of your floor. Cleaners with “neutral pH” on the label work great for tile, but you can also make your own DIY version. Just mix 1/2 cup of baking soda into 2 gallons of water and apply the cleaner with a mop. You may, however, need to forego the mop eventually and get down on your hands and knees to get out stubborn stains.
4. Prepare Your Air Conditioner
Depending on where you live and what kind of air conditioner you have, this could be as simple as pulling window units up from the basement and installing them or calling someone in to make sure your central air is running correctly. Central air services are often covered by home warranty plans, so you can easily get someone out to look into your system. Either way, you want to make sure it’s ready to keep your home cool as soon as summertime hits. If you’ve left units in the window all winter long without clearing them out, do a walk-around check to make sure leaves and twigs haven’t made their way inside the unit.
5. Check Smoke Detectors
This one isn’t just about keeping up appearances or preventing a leak. This one is essential to the safety of your home. Dust off the smoke detectors and CO detectors, replace the batteries, and run the tests. While this one is less time- and weather-sensitive than some of the others on this list, it’s not any less important. Doing this as part of your spring cleaning home maintenance will make sure that this important task does not get neglected.
Performing these tasks on a yearly basis in the spring will help keep your home looking great and working well all year round. Don’t wait until summertime to get started with these tasks. As soon as the weather allows it, jump right in and get your house back into shape!