You’ll know it’s the autumn season when the temperatures start dropping, leaves change their color and see them falling, and the nights get darker. While it’s easy to prepare to hibernate and cozy up indoors, it’s also essential to spend time preparing your house for the season.

There are several things you have to do inside and out of your house to prevent possible damage when the colder months hit. Making preparations and taking some precautions not only ensures you’ll be comfortable throughout the season but also help keep your home in good condition.

To help you get started, read this guide about how to get your home ready for the autumn season.

1. Deep Clean Your House

While deep cleaning can be time-consuming, it has many valuable benefits. One of these is that it can help keep any pest away. Deep cleaning can also remove the unhygienic mess in carpets, kitchens, clutter-filled rooms, and rugs.

For best results, call professionals. Infestation can be hard to address without professional help. So instead of doing it yourself, let the pros do the job for you.

Aside from keeping the pests away, deep cleaning can also increase the chances of a comfortable autumn season. Keep in mind that when the temperature drops and you start using your heating system, fabrics in your home can be a haven for bacteria, mites, mold, and germs. So, to avoid these, don’t hesitate to deep clean your house and achieve healthier and cozier autumn.

2. Inspect Your Basement

Checking your basement during autumn is ideal since the humidity level is lower than in the winter. As you inspect your basement, ensure there’s no water infiltration and that your insulation is sufficient.

Make sure there are no holes or cracks in your foundation and that each water control device, including sump pumps and floor drains, is in good condition. If you don’t know how to inspect such devices, it’s best to contact professionals.

3. Prepare Your Yard

Aside from raking leaves, you can prepare your yard for autumn by removing dead bushes, shrubs, and broken or dead branches. Trim low-hanging trees that obscure walkways or touch your walls and roof.

If you reside in a region with a snowy climate, the weight of trees with ice and snow may cause the branches to break, hang further down, or snap. Once that happens, these branches may fall on your roof, causing damage to your property. To prevent that, trim those branches immediately and call an expert for help.

Once done cleaning your yard, it’s time to take care of your plants. Cover the most delicate and vulnerable ones. Ask for expert advice if you’re unsure which plants you should cover. If your plants are small and portable, you can bring them indoors. However, if they’re too big, you can consider using a fleece bag as an easier option.

4. Clean And Store Your Outdoor Furniture

While outdoor furniture is designed for outdoor use, it doesn’t mean that you must leave it outside even in rainy autumn conditions. If you want to protect your outdoor furniture, bring it indoors.

You can also create an outdoor storage shed for your outdoor furniture. If you don’t have enough space inside your house, you can purchase a waterproof cover made as an alternative or store it in your garage.

5. Perform An Overall Fire-Safety Check

Nothing beats a warm ambiance on a cold autumn night. However, if you want to stay comfortable throughout autumn, you may need more heat sources. For this reason, make sure to prepare your family and home for possible fire hazards through the following:

• Test if your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors are working. Typically, most of these detectors come with a test button. If they don’t work upon pressing the button, consider changing their batteries.
• Ensure to install detectors on each floor of your house.
• Have a fire extinguisher in an accessible place and teach everyone how to use it.
• Clear the spaces around heaters, fireplaces, stoves, and furnaces. During the autumn season, you’ll use these often as the temperatures drop, and you don’t want flammable materials close to them.
• Check every existing fire extinguisher for damage. If it’s more than five years old, consider purchasing a new one.

Clean Your Gutters

Your roof’s drainage system is crucial in diverting the water away from your home’s exterior and away from the foundation walls. That’s why they must stay clear of any debris. Things such as sticks, leaves, and some pieces of debris may block your gutters, resulting in damaged exterior surfaces. In other cases, it may cause water damage in your basement. So, before the leaves start to fall, clean your gutters thoroughly. To keep your gutters clear of debris, install mesh gutter guards. If you have old drains, consider replacing them and hiring professionals to ensure proper installation.

6. Check Your Boiler

Get every gas appliance in your house inspected and serviced regularly. Autumn is the perfect time to do this. But to give your gas appliances a health check, you need to ask for help from the experts.

Professionals can do a thorough inspection of your gas pipework and determine whether or not there’s a gas leak in your house. When hiring professionals, opt for those who have been in the industry for years and are reputable for quality service. This way, you can be sure that your boiler is in good hands.

7. Clean Your Fireplace

Your fireplace plays an essential role in beating the cold autumn nights. If you want to use it without inconvenience, start cleaning it. It is a safety measure because lighting a fireplace with a dirty chimney may cause fire hazards.

Some of the benefits of cleaning your fireplace are as follows:

• Save energy
• Remove creosote to avoid dangerous fires in the chimney
• Better air quality
• Catch damage before it becomes worse

If you want to experience such benefits and prevent any issues, don’t hesitate to spend time cleaning your fireplace. You can also hire a reliable service provider to inspect your fireplace and clean your chimney if you can’t do it yourself.

8. Ensure Your Doors And Windows Are Sealed Properly

If your doors and windows aren’t sealed well, it may result in heat loss, causing your boiler to work harder. Once that happens, it’ll increase your heating bills, which isn’t great for those with a tight budget.

When sealing your windows and doors, start with the biggest ones, especially the bay windows and patio doors. Below are some of the ways to insulate your doors and windows:

• If you have single pane windows, you might want to replace them with dual pane windows. These are more energy efficient and insulate your home better.
  Check your doors and windows for tightness using the candle test. It works by holding a candle close to any window or door; once it flickers, there could be a leak.
• Use weatherstrips to seal draughty windows and doors. Weatherstripping is a cost-effective and easy way to boost your home’s energy efficiency by minimizing air leaks in your doors and windows.
• Re-caulk your doors and windows to seal the drafts. If you’re planning not to open your windows until spring, use caulk to seal them shut temporarily and remove it once the water gets warmer.
• Use insulated curtains to retain heat inside your home during colder days.
• Apply window films to insulate your windows and keep your home warm.

9. Don’t Forget The Lights

Another way to prepare your home for the autumn season is to ensure all your lights are working fine. Since autumn nights get darker, you must ensure that your lights won’t cause inconvenience to you or your family members.

Depending on your preferences, you can embrace ambient light. Evenly-distributed warm lighting can give your house a romantic and cozy ambiance. Aside from upgrading your lighting fixtures, you can also opt for candlelight. Just be sure to blow them out before going to bed to ensure your safety.

10. Check Your Roof

When preparing your house for the autumn season, it’s essential to check your roof. As the season changes to autumn and the weather becomes cooler, preparing your roof ahead of the winter can help you avoid roofing problems.

One of the ways to keep your roof in good shape for the autumn season is to check for any debris build-up and remove it. Although you can do it yourself, hiring professionals to ensure safety is sometimes better. Professionals won’t only help keep your roof debris-free but also check your roof for damage and other signs of problems that may worsen during autumn and winter.

If your roof has problems, fix them immediately. Minor roofing issues may become bigger and more expensive problems once left unchecked. Professional preventive maintenance can go a long way to protect your home while keeping repair costs down.

Bottom Line

While it may seem like a lot to prepare your home for the autumn season, doing the above tips can make your life much easier and help you save more money over time. So, never think twice about preparing your home for autumn and always call professional assistance for complicated repairs or home preparation tasks that are beyond your grasp.