4 Tips to Get Your Home Ready for the Cold of Winter

Preparing your home for winter will help keep you warmer while boosting your energy efficiency and protecting your investment. And because many of the weatherizing strategies you’re about to see end up paying for themselves, you may end up breaking even or coming out ahead, because heating and cooling tend to make up over 50% of your power bill.

If you want help figuring out where to start, consider getting an energy audit from your utility company. They’ll send out a professional assessor who will use thermal imaging to look for hot and cool spots in your roof, walls, and ceilings.

Here are the main areas to pay attention to as you prepare your home for the cold months.

1. Insulate Your Attic

Attics are often the biggest source of energy loss in a home, especially if you have an older building. The attic absorbs heat from your living space below and lets it escape the house, forcing your HVAC system to work much harder than it should.

Many homes in our region have either not insulated their attics at all, or have only done a partial job. If that’s you, consider installing insulation in your attic before the cold weather hits.

There are two ways do add insulation to your attic – fiberglass batts, and blown-in insulation (also known as loosefill insulation), which is most often comprised of mineral fibers, though people also use Styrofoam pellets or a cellulose material.

Either of these can be done as a DIY project, although it can get a bit messy. If you are going to blow in the material yourself, you can rent the blower machine at one of the hardware stores or local rental places.

2. Seal Doors

Drafty doors make for an uncomfortable living space, and they also make your HVAC system work much harder than it needs to. If you can see light coming through around the exterior doors, then cold air get in through as well. To prevent this, install weatherstripping around the door frame.

To handle gaps at the bottom or the door, install a new threshold, which is the plate affixed to the floor underneath the door, or door sweep, which attaches to the door itself. If the gap is large, you may need both.

3. Service Your HVAC System

A well-tuned HVAC system will operate efficiently and reduce your heating costs. There are a few common problems that arise over time that reduce its efficiency.

If you have a furnace, then the first problem to address is the simplest one – change out your air filter! A clogged air filter makes the system work much harder, which, therefore costs you more to operate, and will wear down the furnace faster. Some system have a reusable filter that needs to be washed every 3-6 month – make sure it’s fully dry before you reinstall it. If your system has disposable filters, you might be able to invest and buy the reusable kind. The disposable filters need to be replaced every 3-6 months.

Servicing your filter by a professional every 1-2 years will improve it’s efficiency and extend its life expectancy.

And don’t forge your duct system! You’d be amazed (and disgusted) at how much grime builds up inside your ducts over time. Clean ducts mean you’ll have better air flow, so your furnace doesn’t have to work as hard, and it will keep the air in your home healthier.

If you have a mini-split HVAC system, the comparable task is to open up the vaporizer and clean the filter. The vaporizer is the unit installed on the wall inside your house.

4. Water Line Maintenance

The exterior water lines around your home also need to be prepared for the cold. You don’t want a water line to freeze and burst if we have an extended cold spell. Drain your exterior faucets if they’re on separate lines from your interior water lines. Drain your dripline and hoses as well. And be sure to install a faucet cover or freeze cap.

Giving Parents a Confident Second Chance

Some parents who make early mistakes with their kids want to change and do better, but they often lack the confidence as well as the skills.

Dale Allen was one such parent. His daughter Daleionia was born with cocaine in her system. At the time, Dale was homeless, battling drug and alcohol addiction. But he wanted to be a good dad, so he spent two and a half years proving he could be a caring and responsible father to his baby girl. He did this by enrolling in a treatment program and taking parenting classes.

Determined to do right by his daughter, Dale also took two-hour bus rides from South Seattle to Auburn to visit Daleionia at Childhaven. He embraced single fatherhood as a chance to start over. He approached every challenge with patience, persistence and optimism.

“I just wanted to be an awesome dad,” Dale says. Childhaven greets parents and guardians as i nvaluable allies, and invites them to get involved by visiting their children’s classrooms, where they can get real-time coaching and gain confidence that they can meet their children’s needs.

When Dale first started visiting his daughter’s classroom, Daleionia kept her distance. Eventually, she got closer, and one day started running to him, squealing, “Daddy!”

Dale, a now-confident father and an alum of Childhaven’s Positive Parenting Program, raves about Childhaven’s supportive and judgment-free approach to working with parents. “They take the fear out of being a parent,” he says.

“Before, I was always afraid of making mistakes.”

Eventually, Dale won full custody of Daleionia, and entered a program with King County where he got to help other parents, and share the lessons he learned so they too could turn their lives around and reunite with their children.

Dale’s story shows why we support Childhaven by donating a portion of the profits from every home we sell. Because the best possible outcome is when kids can remain with their parents and grow up in loving, supportive homes.