Winter is the roughest time of year for many homeowners and a time when many systems and other home elements may fail. However, it is possible to get experts to prepare you for this season. These individuals can perform repairs and maintenance that minimize severe long-term issues.
As a result, it is important to know what services to hire before winter hits to ensure that your home is safe. The following options are among the most beneficial and effective ways of avoiding serious issues. Make sure that you call each of these services to keep your home safe and secure.
Heating Oil Companies
First on our list of services to hire before winter includes a heating oil team. This option is especially important if you use heating oil to heat your home and keep it comfortable. However, you may need to call these professionals if you plan on upgrading your heating options. In this way, you can ensure that your home is heated comfortably and safely before winter comes around.
The best local heating oil company will not only set up a regular schedule for your oil delivery (if needed) but explain their prices and other services. Professionals like these are carefully trained to handle your needs and ensure that you get the necessary heating help. For instance, they may sit down with you and help you understand your options before committing to a new heating installation service.
Just as importantly, they can check your system for any problems before winter comes around. If there are problems with your system, you want to make sure they’re caught while the weather is still decent. Trying to fix them during the winter not only puts your family at risk but will cost you more money as getting experts to work on your home during the winter can be a challenging experience.
Window Installation Companies
When was the last time you called a window replacement company to check out your home? If you’re like most people, it has probably been many, many years. There’s even a chance that you’ve never called someone to inspect your windows. That decision is a mistake and can cause you serious long-term problems. Why? Poor windows can be a real efficiency issue when winter comes around again.
For example, efficiency windows can cause heavy heat flow that reduces your efficiency and causes higher heating bills. Even worse, it may cause you feel uncomfortable in specific areas of the home. This may include colder bedrooms that make it harder to sleep comfortably and other issues. As a result, window experts are among the chief services to hire before winter descends and makes this process tougher.
Just imagine trying to get your windows replaced in the winter. While the window professionals may not be in high demand, they’ll leave your home exposed to cold for several days at least. Even though they block off the gap with plastic and other materials, cold will still get into your home and increase your heating bills. Just get it done before winter comes to avoid annoying issues like these.
HVAC Companies
Similarly, how often do you call heating companies to check your furnace? Most people only call them when there’s a real problem, particularly in the winter when their heater fails. That’s an understandable mistake, but can be a costly one. HVAC companies may have to charge emergency repair fees to fix a furnace that fails in the middle of the night and is often working with others as well.
However, we think that HVAC companies should be on your list of services to hire before winter for a few reasons. First, you never know when a furnace problem will affect your home. There’s no reason to wait until the last minute to get help! Instead, you can get your heater inspected while it is still warm and make sure that it is running smoothly before winter strikes and put it to the test.
Even steps as simple as changing the air filter and upgrading its overall operation are critical to keeping your HVAC system operating. They can help answer any questions you might have about your furnace, such as why it smells when you turn it on for the first time in the winter. Typically, that’s because dust collects on the heater and gets burned. However, they can detect more serious problems and fix them for you.
Tree Companies
Trees provide your home with many benefits, including beauty, wind protection, and even shade to keep your home cool during the summer. When winter comes around, though, trees can become a real problem. In fact, we strongly suggest tree companies as prime services to hire before winter. Why? Well, just think about what kind of strain a typical tree goes through when winter comes along.
As snow builds up on your tree branches, any damage that you didn’t catch may end up causing them to crash. Even worse, a severely damaged tree might even crash under pressure and land on your home. Avoiding that kind of damage is as easy as contacting a tree trimming service. These experts will come to your home, check your trees, and trim their branches to protect your home.
Note that there’s a real chance that you might not hear good news from the trimmer. By this, we mean that they may tell you that your tree has got to go. This is always a rough situation, especially if you’ve grown fond of the tree and want to keep it around. However, it is important to put the safety of your home and your family first and to get rid of any trees that might fall this winter.
Chimney Repair Companies
A good chimney is more than just a place to watch out for Santa with your kids and hang stockings. It is an important heat management tool that can take the smoke out of your home and force the heat into the room. However, few people call chimney repair services when they need them simply because they don’t realize that there is even a problem that needs to be addressed in the first place.
For example, these professionals can come to your home and do a quick inspection of your chimney. If there’s nothing wrong, they can track any minor issues and discuss them with you. These may include loose bricks that may fall out at some point but are currently safe. They’ll let you know about any more serious problems, such as a sagging chimney, and provide repair options.
As a result, chimney repair companies should be on your list of services to hire before winter. Even if you think your chimney is working just fine, there might be minor issues that you haven’t even noticed. Thankfully, these professionals can typically do an inexpensive inspection and give you a clean bill of health, which can give you peace of mind knowing that everything is okay with your chimney.
Chimney Cleaning Service Companies
Getting your chimney repaired is often not the only step that you’ll need to take with your fireplace. You might need to call chimney cleaning companies to ensure that it is safe to use. Don’t get chimney repair and cleaning mixed up! They are two different services, and while some companies may provide both, a chimney repair without cleaning only does half of the necessary work.
Chimney soot will gradually build up in your fireplace and chimney as you use it. This soot can become a real problem if you let it get out of control, such as if it starts blocking up your chimney and you can’t get good airflow. That’s how home fires begin in many chimneys. Cleaning specialists will make sure that you’re safe and avoid serious soot buildup.
Therefore, chimney repair and cleaning are services to hire before winter to ensure that your chimney is in great shape. These professionals can work hard to get your chimney in prime operation. Unlike some of the other steps on this list, you may need to call these professionals every year. That’s because soot will build up and may clog your chimney. Other steps, like roof repair, may be more rarely necessary.
Gutter Cleaning Companies
Hanging icicles may look cool on your home but they can be a serious problem if they affect your gutters. Do you remember that scene in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” where Clark accidentally shoots a large icicle out of his gutter into his neighbor’s home? While that’s an exaggeration of this issue, it does highlight a common problem with gutters in the winter.
Dirty gutters that haven’t seen gutter cleaning services in years may collect debris, snow, and water and create heavy icicles inside. These may weigh down on your gutters and cause serious damage. Even worse, ice and water can freeze things like animal fecal matter in your gutters. That fecal matter is acidic and can wear through your gutters, causing holes that may trigger leaks.
Therefore, gutter cleaning professionals are important to put on your list of services to hire before winter. Just as importantly, they can help you understand other problems related to your gutters, such as how poor gutter maintenance can damage your home’s foundation. In this way, you can know as much as possible about your gutters as possible and their impact on your house.
Roofing Companies
Roofing service professionals are an important part of any winter preparation project. After all, your roof is a lot like the skin of your home and needs to be kept in great shape to avoid long-term damage. Unfortunately, there are many potential problems that may impact a roof, including issues with its shingles and underlayment that can cause leaks and other problems in the winter.
Furthermore, poor roof heating and insulation can cause ice dams on your house that can burst and cause severe danger to you or anyone standing beneath the dam. Thankfully, a local roofer can help with this problem by inspecting your roof and fixing any problems. These steps may include adding new insulation under your roof or replacing damaged shingles that help cause ice dams.
Thankfully, there are plenty of options when looking for roofing services to hire before winter. Some professionals may include roof inspectors, roof repair experts, maintenance teams, and even installation crews. Understand that it may take a week or so for these experts to do their thing, so plan a week where there’s going to be no rain to ensure that your roof gets the attention that it needs.
Plumbing Companies
Why would you need to hire a plumbing service before winter comes? Just think of what happens when the temperatures get cold enough and your pipes freeze. There’s nothing to laugh about when burst pipes happen because they can cause severe problems. For example, burst pipes can cause floods in your home’s basement that may impact its structural integrity in many ways, including damaging the foundation.
As a result, plumbers should be on your list of services to hire before winter. These professionals will come to your home and make sure everything is okay. They’ll start by doing a quick inspection of your pipes, including their insulation. If possible, they’ll replace any weak pipes and even put up more insulation around them to ensure that they are as strong as possible and less likely to burst.
These services to hire before winter will help to keep your home safe from long-term damage. Working with these experts may include hiring sub-contractors to work together with other building professionals to fix things like your roof, chimney, furnace, and much more.
It is important to understand the costs of all of these services, so please call these subcontractors right away to get price quotes. Doing so can ensure that you can budget properly, including getting out loans or finding other money sources if you can’t pay for all these services out of your pocket.
