The weather is getting cooler. As you are digging out your sweaters and jeans, don’t forget that you need to transition your house for cooler weather as well as your wardrobe. Don’t know where to start? I have 10 things you should do to transition your house for cooler weather before winter.
We recently talked about resetting your house for the Fall here at Sara in Season. It was all about using the change of season as an excuse to do things around your house that you neglect most of the year. Now that you’ve paid some attention to the neglected areas of your house, it’s time to get your house ready for cooler weather.
You need to pay attention to different things around your house in the cooler months than you do in the warmer months. Some of these things may be obvious, but some you may not even think about. I grew up in Florida, so getting a house ready for cold weather was a foreign concept to me when I moved north. Through trial and error and help from my Pennsylvanian husband, I figured out 10 things to do to transition the house to be prepared for cooler weather.
Don’t put these tasks off until winter hits. Now is the time to think about what you need to focus on to transition your house for cooler weather before it gets really cold. Come transition your house for cooler weather with me!
Transition Your House for Cooler Weather
HVAC
When the weather cools, you’ll need to switch over your HVAC system from cooling to heating. This is one of the most obvious changes that you’ll need to make to transition your house for cooler weather. Even though it’s pretty obvious, let’s go through two things you should do with your HVAC system here in the Fall before the weather really turns.
Filter
You need to change your filter before you really start relying on your heat system. So that means pronto for most of us, and mid-January for all my Florida friends and family (if at all). A filter change is in order whether you heat your house with a furnace or a forced air system. You’re just making sure that you’re breathing clean warm air. Keep those allergies and asthma attacks at bay!
Maintenance
Fall is also a great time to call in your HVAC service company to come take a look at your system. A furnace does you no good if it’s not working! Don’t wait until it’s 0°F outside and your house gets down to 50°F to call in the professionals. This is especially true if you have little kids at home and you don’t want to have a sleepless, freezing night.
Porch
Another fairly obvious task to do to transition your house for cooler weather is to take care of your porch or outdoor area. I’ll talk about this area as your porch, but the same advice holds if you have a deck or a patio.
Clean
It’s a great time to get yourself a clean slate on your outdoor area. Wipe down all your outdoor furniture, remove all of the fallen leaves that have accumulated, make sure your grill or other outdoor cooking devices are sparkling. Heck, even bust out the pressure washer and get all the moss and gunk off the floor of your porch. This is a great excuse for your husband to play with his outdoor toys, so get him involved!
Cover
Especially if you live in an area that expects snow and/or ice, now is the time to cover or put away your outdoor furniture and cooking apparatus. Whatever you don’t have room to bring inside should be covered. Amazon has a bunch of options for outdoor furniture covers. Just make sure you measure twice before you buy to make sure the cover will actually fit over your furniture. If you are covering your furniture and it has cushions, don’t forget to take those off and store them before you cover. You also need to cover any grills or smokers that you keep on your porch. I like to use a grill cover that has a drawstring around the bottom to help it stay on when it’s windy.
Outdoor toys
If your porch looks like mine, it’s littered with toys. Balls, bats, gloves, sand tables, water tables, bubbles, sidewalk chalk – it’s all there. And now it’s time for all of it to come inside. Clear out a corner of your garage or other storage space to house these toys that live outside. We have been functioning (or not functioning) by throwing all of our kids’ outdoor toys in a corner of our garage, but I have my eye on an organizer that may be our family Christmas present this year. However you choose to store your kids’ outdoor toys in the winter, just make sure to bring them in so they can survive to get more great use when the weather warms again.
Gutters
We learned this lesson the hard way last year. It’s imperative that you clean out your gutters as you transition your house for cooler weather. Why, you ask? If your gutters are clogged with leaves, sticks, or other debris, snow and ice can build up in your gutters and downspouts and damage them or even cause them to break off from your house. This is no good. Avoid this by taking a leaf blower to your gutters, pressure washing your gutters, or hiring a professional if you have serious clogs.
Fireplace
I recommended that you clean your fireplace as part of your Fall house reset, but if you didn’t do it then, I strongly encourage you to clean your fireplace as you transition your house for cooler weather. Why? You’ll likely want to use your fireplace when it’s cold outside, so you should make sure it’s so fresh and so clean. Make sure the ashes have all been cleaned out, remove anything that your kids might have put in the fireplace or on the hearth, and get your firewood ready to go. If it’s been a while since you’ve had your chimney inspected, go ahead and call the chimney sweep. This isn’t something to mess around with.
Windows & doors
Windows and doors can really be a source of misery when the weather outside gets cold. If they aren’t sealed properly, they can let in those frigid drafts, which make it hard to live by the windows and doors in your house and increase your heating costs. As part of your work to transition your house for cooler weather, go around and check the weather stripping on your windows and doors. If you see cracks or holes, head to the hardware store and buy yourself some new weather stripping and get busy! This is a project that will pay dividends, friends!
Snow & ice prep
This is another item on the list that’s only applicable if you live in a place that expects snow and ice. Even if you haven’t had much snow lately, it’s always a good idea to be prepared. Get out your snowblower and start it up so you can make sure it works. Buy rock salt and keep some in the garage and near the doors out of your house so you can easily sprinkle it and avoid slips on the ice. Inspect your snow shovel to make sure that it hasn’t cracked or otherwise broken since you last used it. Finally, if you have kids, consider getting them snow shovels of their own. My kids absolutely love to help clear the snow, and it’s so much easier for them to help if they have a shovel that is sized right for them.
Pipes
You must turn off the water supply to outdoor faucets as you transition your house for cooler weather. We learned this lesson the hard way our first year not living in an apartment. Grab a cup of tea, it’s story time.
The first year we lived in North Carolina, we lived in a townhouse. It got unusually cold for a few days that winter. Much colder than typically seen in January in North Carolina. I worked from home while we lived in North Carolina, and the morning in question I was upstairs in my home office toiling away. My husband had worked the night shift that night and hadn’t yet returned home. All of a sudden, I hear what sounds like a shower turn on. I thought to myself that my husband must have gotten home and didn’t announce his presence. The shower sound continued for a while, and then it dawned on me that my husband wouldn’t have been in the shower that long. I opened the door into the garage to check to see if his car was home and was met with so.much.water. It was literally raining in the garage. After finding the emergency water shut-off to the whole house, my husband arrived home and started investigating. No shut-off valve had been installed on the pipe to the outside faucet. The pipes had frozen and burst. It was a mess.
If you want to avoid the mess and headache of burst pipes, make sure that your outdoor faucets have shut-off valves and that you close them now before it starts dipping into freezing temperatures. Trust me, you don’t want to have to deal with the effects of a frozen and burst pipe.
Smoke & CO detectors
We should all regularly test and change the batteries in our life-saving detectors in our homes. Even though we should (and we know we should), sometimes it doesn’t happen. Let this be your reminder to test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and change their batteries. As the season of indoor fires, Christmas trees, and home cooking nears, you want your detectors to be reliable. The five minutes you take now to check might just save your life.
Ceiling fans
OK, this is a new one for me that I just recently learned. Remember, I grew up in Florida where we turned the heat on maybe once every other year, so it was so not on my radar that you need to switch the direction of your ceiling fans in the winter when you’re using heat instead of air conditioning. If you reverse their direction (to clockwise!), they will push warm air down and keep you toasty warm all winter long. This is genius, y’all!
Plants
I do not have a green thumb. In fact, I have the opposite – a black thumb. Plants tend to die when they are under my care. If you also struggle to keep plants alive, this one is for you. When the temperatures start to dip, you need to take measures to ensure that your plants will survive the winter.
- For plants that are planted in the ground, make sure they are insulated with a good layer of mulch.
- Small plants that are potted should be brought inside for the winter. If you choose the garage as their temporary home, cover them with light blankets.
- Look up! Check the state of the trees around your house. Make sure that any limbs that are hanging over your house or cars are trimmed. If you don’t, ice and snow can make them extremely heavy. Heavy enough to fall and wreak all kinds of havoc.
Other posts
If you are interested in other around-the-house tips, check out these posts:
I hope you’ve found this a helpful guide for how to transition your house for cooler weather this Fall. What else do you do to get your house ready for winter? Let me know in the comments down below or over on Instagram @sarainseason.