As the temperature outside starts to drop, many homeowners are getting ready for the upcoming winter season. While planning for holiday parties and gift buying can be fun, there are many crucial steps you should take to ensure your California home is properly winterized for the winter ahead.
1. Seal Up Air Leaks
One of the best places to start winterizing your home is sealing up your exterior walls. Over time, as your home settles into the ground, it can develop air leaks around door and window frames on its exterior walls. Sometimes these air leaks can even allow cold air to seep through receptacles and light switches. Any cold air that’s allowed to seep into your home can decrease your indoor temperature and lead to your heating system working overtime to combat it.
Some of the best materials to use to seal up these air leaks effectively are weatherstripping and caulking. When it comes to the outlets and light switches on your exterior walls, there are foam pads that can be effective. These sit right behind the plastic cover plate to create an airtight seal. Be sure to check all your exterior walls for air leaks so that you can create a protective barrier between the inside and outside of your home.
2. Switch Ceiling Fan Direction
Ceiling fans can be extremely helpful for enhancing your comfort throughout the year. Everyone appreciates the cool breeze a ceiling fan provides in the summer, but most people neglect the fan’s benefits in the winter. In the wintertime, you need to reverse the direction in which your ceiling fans are spinning so that they’re turning in a clockwise fashion. This will help to force warm air stuck at the top of your rooms outward and into the walls. The hotter air will travel down your walls and back toward your floor so that you can enjoy it and stay warm. Be sure to switch the direction of all the ceiling fans in your home, and if you have any rooms that don’t have fans, consider installing them.
3. Replace the HVAC Filter
For your HVAC system to function efficiently during the wintertime, it needs to have a clean air filter. Over time, this air filter will trap unwanted airborne contaminants like dust and other debris. Eventually, the filter will become so full of debris that it will make it much harder for your heating system to pull air through it. This can lead not only to an inefficient heating system but also more wear and tear on its components.
As part of winterizing your home, you should put a fresh air filter in your HVAC system. Stick to choosing a filter that has a MERV rating of 13 or less as anything higher can put strain on your system. Be sure to have an extra filter available so that you can replace the current one without hesitation whenever it reaches the end of its usefulness.
4. Get Your Water Heater Serviced
While we all rely on hot water for our daily needs, many of us increase our hot water usage during the winter months. To ensure that your hot water heater is working efficiently, it’s important to get it serviced. It’s best to have a plumbing professional come in to perform maintenance on your system. This will include things like testing its pressure relief valve to ensure it’s working, draining excess sediments in your tank, and so forth. This will go a long way toward enhancing efficiency and reducing your risk of experiencing a major breakdown during the colder winter months.
5. Get Your HVAC System Serviced
Just as your water heater needs professional maintenance service, so does your heating system. A professional will be able to examine and test all the internal components of your system to ensure that they’re functioning optimally. They’ll inform you if there are any worn-out parts or malfunctioning components.
This way, you can have these issues addressed before the winter months hit, and that will greatly reduce your risk of experiencing a breakdown. Professional maintenance service is not only important to maintain the warranty on your equipment and ensure that your heating system is working at its peak efficiency level but also to ensure its safe operation.
6. Test Safety Devices
At the bare minimum, you should have smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher in your home. If your heating system burns natural gas, heating oil, or even propane, you need to have carbon monoxide detectors as well. This is to alert you if there is a malfunction with your heating system where these toxic fumes are backing up inside your residence. You should have smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors on every floor of your home. For optimal safety, there should also be one outside every bedroom. Be sure that your fire extinguisher is valid and has a rating of Type C or ABC.
7. Evaluate Attic Insulation and Vents
Insulation provides a necessary barrier between the air outside and the air inside your home. The higher the R-value that your insulation has, the more resistant it’s going to be the temperature difference. Before the winter season hits, it’s a good idea to examine your attic insulation to determine if it needs replacement or any additional insulation. If you notice open areas or your insulation does not sit above the floor joists, then consider adding more.
Another thing you want to take a look at while you’re up in your attic is your attic vents. Closing those vents to help keep more of your heat indoors may seem to make sense. However, that’s not the best option. Doing so can allow your attic to overheat and lead to premature deterioration of your roofing materials. Instead, opt for having open vents in your attic and simply cover them with a mesh-like material to keep out unwanted critters.
8. Get Your Ducting Cleaned and Sealed
Your ductwork plays a very large role in both the operating efficiency of your heating system and the quality of your indoor air. Before the winter season hits, it can be helpful to consider duct cleaning service. This is where an HVAC professional will use specialized equipment to remove built-up dust and debris inside your ductwork.
If you opt for duct sealing as well, they will locate any leaks or gaps that are within the ducting and seal those back up. This will ensure that there is sufficient airflow in your ductwork and that there aren’t any airborne contaminants contributing to poor indoor air quality.
9. Program Your Thermostat
If you don’t have a programmable or smart thermostat, it’s time to consider getting one. These devices allow you to put in different temperatures depending on the time of the day and the day of the week. By being able to set different temperatures at different times, you can better optimize your energy usage so that your heating system is not running when it’s unnecessary.
Additionally, investing in a smart thermostat will give you the ability to control the device from anywhere that your phone has internet connectivity. As part of your winterizing routine, you’ll want to go ahead and program your thermostat so that it’s set for the upcoming winter season.
Your Local HVAC Maintenance Resource
Loves Air offers reliable cooling and heating maintenance service throughout the Modesto, CA area. We can also help with all your other air conditioning, heating, thermostat, whole-house fan, water heater, duct, and solar needs. Schedule an appointment by calling our office today.
