Spring Made Easy - Get your home maintenance of to a good start

by Murray Anderson

Finally an end to the long cold winter is in sight. The sun has some heat in it and the snow banks are getting low enough that you might be able to see over them soon. Once spring finally does arrive you're going to want to get outside and enjoy it. Something you might want to do while enjoying that spring weather is taking a stroll around your house and property. This little walk will give you a chance to see how everything wintered, and help you figure out what projects need to go into your job jar. As a quick guide, here’s a little list of things you should check on.

Gardens

Even if you did clean out your gardens last fall, you know they're going to be near the top of that job jar. Once your gardens are dry enough that you can walk in them without water squishing around your feet you can start working on them. When you can get into your gardens, remove any plants that didn’t make it through the winter, and rake up any leaves that just blew in or mulch you might have spread. You can put all this into your composter and it will give you a good start on your next batch of compost. At the same time, take out that great batch of compost that’s been working in your composter over the winter and spread it in your garden.

While you're digging the compost in, be sure to break up any lumps of soil to help make your garden easier to work on when it’s time for planting. This is also a great time to dig in fertilizer, peat moss or other soil enhancers in addition to the compost. These help loosen the soil and ensure your garden provides a good growing environment for those flowers or vegetables.

Lawns

Your lawn, just like your gardens will need a good raking or even a power de thatching to get the dead grass up from the roots. Don't rush to get raking, wait until the lawn is well dried. If you rake too early, you could actually pull the grass up by its roots and damage the lawn rather than help it.

Fall is actually the best time to aerate a lawn, but, if you missed doing it then, you can still do it in the spring. Aerating loosens the soil, allows moisture and nutrients down into the root system, and gives you a healthier lawn. Top dressing and or fertilizing as well as seeding are all good spring jobs that don’t take too much time (well fertilizing and seeding anyway), and they provide big payoffs in your lawn’s health and appearance.

Trees

Check out the trees on and around your property. Did any tree branches break during the winter? Better get them down before they either fall on somebody or get surrounded by new growth and are impossible to get out of the tree. Remember, if you aren’t comfortable using a saw or climbing to remove tree branches, don’t do anything silly, and get a pro to remove them.

How about the house?

One of the easiest things to check, and something you want to stay on top of is the paint on your window frames, doors and siding. Look and see if it has blistered or cracked over the winter. Blistered paint is going to peel leaving exposed wood. If there are blisters, you need to plan on scrapping off the loose paint and applying a fresh coat. While you are looking at your windows and doors, check the caulking around the frames. Is it dried out and cracked? If so, it should be replaced as well.

Spring is the best time to repaint and replace caulking. During the summer, direct sunlight combined with summer’s heat can make paint dry too fast and affect its ability to protect your house – (not to mention their impact on the painter). An advantage to doing your walk around survey in the spring is that repainting doesn’t have to become a major project. You can plan ahead, spread your painting projects over a few weeks and not feel totally overwhelmed trying to do them all at once.

Look up. Are your eaves troughs and downspouts still firmly attached? The weight of snow and ice can pull them off the house or open gaps that will cause leaks and drips. If they have pulled loose, they should be refastened.

If you have any overhead wires, now is a good time to check if they started to sag over the winter. If any are drooping, contact the utility that owns them to come and tighten them.

Now, while you're standing there looking skyward, check the condition of your shingles. A pair of binoculars can help with this task. You want to se if any shingles have blown away during the winter or some shingles have cracked or curled up at the edges. Missing or damaged shingles need to be replaced or water will work its way through your roof into your home.

Also check the spark cap on your chimney. If it has come loose you could have an unwelcome visitor soon. Birds seem to love to get down into chimneys, and then they can’t get back out. Trying to get a live bird out of your fireplace (and your house) is not a great way to spend a spring day. So, make sure that spark cap is firmly attached.

How are your fences and gates? Fence gateposts can sometimes be shimmed to straighten them. Gates that have gotten out of alignment can often be fixed by attaching a turnbuckle (available at home stores), across them. Tightening (shortening) the turnbuckle helps pulls the gate back into square.

Don’t forget your driveway. If any cracks have developed over the winter you don’t want to ignore them (cracks are just going to get bigger), and you know they aren’t going to fix themselves. You can get crack fillers, patching and sealing products at hardware or home stores and spring (once the frost is out of the ground), is a good time to use them. It’s a messy job, but if you do it now, that’s one messy, unpleasant job that won’t be hanging over your head all summer.

One final item. If you have multi-paneled garage doors, check the screws holding the panels together. Over time, constant opening and closing can loosen screws and if they get too loose, the door panels can come apart. Tightening them up now is an easy job and way better than trying to fix a broken door or, even worse paying the pros to come in and put it back together.

So there you have it, a quick list of things to check on this spring. After your walk around you will know exactly what projects need to be put into your job jar this spring. The hard part (as always) is going to be getting them out of that jar.