Home Maintenance Tips for Summer

Beautiful weather means the start of celebrations for many people. Whether you’re planning a huge Memorial Day barbecue or you’ve already begun getting some party supplies for the Fourth of July, summer is calling out to you. Right now, hamburgers, hot dogs, cold drinks and coolers are at the forefront of your mind. Slowly, though, your thoughts begin drifting back to a barbecue long ago. Perhaps you were a child, or maybe you were the host of the disastrous affair.

We all have our stories about a party that went awry, and your own story has likely left its effects on you. It’s possible that someone, maybe even you, grew sick from food poisoning after a contaminated platter of burgers made its way around the barbecue, or perhaps you remember one rainy day when everyone was shuttered up in the freezing cold house.

Another possibility is that the air conditioning went out on the hottest day of summer, and all of the guests left because the heat was too much for them to bare. Whether you were a guest or the host of this event, you never want it to reoccur in your lifetime.

Instead of idly sitting around waiting for deleterious events to run their course, make yourself proactive this year. Taking the time to check out the yard, the air conditioning units, the gas in the grill, the food and other vital elements is sure to prevent a major headache later on.

You can address these tasks by yourself, and you can call in professionals to lend a helping hand. No matter how many items are on your to-do list for warm weather maintenance, make sure you do not skip over these elements to ensure a safe and celebratory season for your family and your party guests.

1. Maintain Yard Growth

Overgrown shrubbery and wild grass lead to an aesthetically unappealing look on your property. In fact, your community may have laws or regulations that preclude you from allowing the yard growth to reach certain heights.

Even if your community doesn’t enforce these regulations, you exude the impression that you do not care about your property, making guests wonder if you really took the time to clean the meat and vegetables that are about to go on the grill. Trimming the overgrown shrubs is a task that you can take on.

However, hiring a team of professionals to make sure this lawn care never goes to the wayside is also a smart decision. Once your yard is trimmed and tidy, you’ll likely begin to see the possibilities for flowers, vegetables and lawn decor you can add to spruce it up even more.

2. Inspect Home Insulation

Whether you are worried that you’ll need to bring everyone inside if it rains during the 4th of July barbecue or you simply do not want to spend a night suffering in the sweltering heat, you must check your home insulation.

Calling professionals to help with this task is a wise idea, but you likely have some sense of how the insulation is now. If you turn the heat all the way up and still feel a breeze coming through the house on the coldest days, your house probably has some issues with insulation.

To ensure that your home stays at a desirable temperature, looking into this issue is key. Problems with home insulation could indicate more serious problems that are lurking just beneath the surface.

3. Test and Lubricate the Garage Door

Garage doors often fall to they wayside when it comes to home maintenance, especially if you have barely ventured out to the garage during the colder months. However, a broken garage door poses a major safety hazard. It could crash down on top of people or pets, leading to injuries or death. Therefore, even when you are testing it, you must be careful.

A faulty garage door can be problematic in terms of crime as well. For example, if the garage door is not secure, some could easily break in, stealing your and your family’s valuables. Whether you want to protect the safety of people or possessions, testing the garage door is key.

4. Inspect the Hard Yard Spaces

You have already taken care of the greenery on the property, but you also want to look into the maintenance and safety of the patio, driveway and other similar features. Cracks in the driveway or the cement can lead to people falling. You have a table in a precarious position on a patio because the patio itself is beginning to deteriorate.

Even if you are not an avid party host, taking care of these issues is important for the safety of your family. Children, for example, could easily trip on a crack or a loose brick and take a dangerous fall. If you have these surfaces near your pool, they need particular attention.

5. Check the Cooling Units

Imagine sitting in the house on a stifling hot day without the ability to turn on the air conditioner. Whether you have central air or individual units, you want to make sure they are functioning properly before the hottest days of summer come into fruition. A day that is 90 degrees and humid is not the time to find out that the air conditioner has stopped working.

Take care of any repairs and maintenance now before those temperatures begin to climb up to unbearable points on the thermometer. Also, make sure that a build-up of hair, fur and other particles has not occurred because they could lead to a fire hazard.

Warm weather brings a great deal of joy with it, especially for people who have suffered through particularly frigid winters. However, you do not want to forget about the responsibilities that are associated with the warmer weather. Taking the time to check these parts of your property now promise less of an annoyance later on. You don’t have to tackle these prodigious tasks alone though.

Call Blaze Air at (336) 788-3222 in Winston-Salem, NC now to start planning for the best season of the year.