Spring is nearly here! The temperatures are warming and the snow has (mostly) melted. With the turn of seasons, it is now time to ready your home for warmer temperatures. Below is an easy spring home maintenance checklist that will cover what you need to do after the winter to ready your home for the spring and summer seasons.
For some reason, I find spring maintenance a bit less daunting than fall/winter maintenance. Perhaps that is just because I know warmer weather is coming.
The checklist below breaks spring maintenance down into small, manageable steps to take so your home is fully prepared for summer.
Here is a list of 13 easy ways to prepare your house for spring and summer after a long, cold winter.
1. First Fertalizer Treatment
If you are taking care of your own lawn care, now is the time to apply your first fertilizer treatment. This first treatment of the season typically takes place between February and April, around the time you would cut your grass for the first time.
Here is a link to the fertilizer we typically use on our lawn.
2. Yard Cleanup
Spring is a big time for yard cleanup. Leftover leaves need to be raked. Shrubs, bushes, and perennial flowers need to be trimmed and pruned.
For those types of coniferous plants that were wrapped in burlap for the winter, now is the time to take the burlap off.
Another spring yard maintenance item is dethatching the lawn. Thatch is a mix of dead and living grass that formed in between the grass and the soil. Dethatching helps to remove this layer for healthier grass growth.
Dethatching can be done using either a rake or by using a special blade on your lawnmower.
3. Take Summer Yard Items Out of Storage
Take out the summer yard items that were put into storage for the season.
Any hoses you want around your yard can be brought back out. Anything else you brought inside such as glass birdbaths or other yard decorations can also be taken back out.
Patio furniture should also be brought back outside. If they got dusty or dirty while in storage, use a damp rag to wipe them off.
4. Clean Gutters
Cleaning out gutters and downspouts is another important step. Over the course of late fall, leaves and branches can gather in gutters and cause them to clog.
Clogged gutters and downspouts can lead to dripping water closer to the house than you’d want.
5. Prepare the Lawn Mower
If you didn’t clean the lawn mower off at the end of last season, now is the time to do so. This includes cleaning grass off the blades and washing the mower deck.
Next, sharpen the blades and then change the oil in the lawn mower. This article has a quick walk-through on how to do that.
6. Air Conditioner Maintenance Check
Experts recommend having your air conditioner checked once a year to make sure it will continue to run smoothly through the summer. They can check things like condenser, refrigerant levels, and electrical system.
If you had covered up your air conditioning unit for the winter, now is the time to remove that cover.
In conjunction with this one, you should also check your external vents for your dryer. Dryer vents should be checked periodically to clean out extra lint and make sure there isn’t too much of a buildup.
7. Storm Windows / Doors
Depending on the age of the house, your house may have storm windows. In the spring, the storm windows should be removed, and then the screens are put on in place of the storm window for the summer months.
The same goes for storm doors. In our house, we have a storm door on our front door. In the summer months, we have the screen on it and in autumn, we switch it over to a glass storm door.
8. Turn On External Water Valves
External water spouts should have their water turned on in the spring.
During the winter, these are shut off to keep the pipes from freezing.
Ours are right below where each of our outdoor faucets are located in the basement. There is a simple valve and all you need to do is turn it in the other direction to shut the water off.
9. Uncover Your Windows
This one probably applies mostly to older homes. If you covered your windows to help keep the heat in for the winter, now is the time to remove those coverings.
10. Turn Off Humidifier
If you had a humidifier running in your house for the winter, you can shut it off once the weather warms up and starts getting more humid.
11. Put Away Winter Tools
Spring is the time to put away all your special winter tools. This can include shovels, ice scrapers, snow rakes, salt and any other tools you like to have on hand.
12. Snow Blower
At the end of the season, snow blowers require special work to make sure they are well taken care of for the future. Given the proper maintenance, snow blowers can last a long time.
Fuel stabilizer should get put into the fuel tank to make sure the gas doesn’t break down and clog your engine.
After the fuel stabilizer is put in, Snowblowers Direct recommends draining the remaining gas from the tank.
To better protect the engine, remove the spark plug and put oil into the combustion chamber. Then pull the cord a few times to help spread the lubrication out and replace the spark plug.
The final step is to wipe down and clean the snowblower to get all the remaining salt off of it to prevent corrosion.
13. Spray for Bugs
I don’t know about you, but by mid-June, our house seems to be swarming in bugs. One year I went outside to play with our dog and there were literally baby spiders dropping everywhere on the outside of our house.
I hate spiders, so I nearly went into a panic attack just seeing them all swarming our house. Ever since we have been spraying the perimeter of our house at least once a year for bugs.
We use Ortho Home Defense bug spray.
It has a nice easy spray nozzle and only takes maybe ten minutes to walk around the entire house and spray.
Get Started on Your Spring Home Maintenance
Making sure that your home is well cared for will allow it to provide you with a safe and comfy place to live for even longer.
Now that you have the knowledge on how to prepare your home for spring, go out there and get started!
The warming weather makes doing these spring home maintenance tasks fairly enjoyable. Take advantage of that nice weather and get outside to prepare your home for spring!
