Fall Home Maintenance Tips

As the summer transitions to fall and the weather gets cooler, maintaining your home’s performance is vital to the comfort and safety of you and your family. But what do you need to know about caring for a Minto Communities’ Home, and where do you begin?

The Seasonal Checklist guides you to a great looking and optimally performing home with an itemized list of maintenance tasks for each month. From checking exterior finishes and your eavestrough to servicing your furnace and winterizing your air conditioner, the Seasonal Checklist makes fall maintenance quick and easy.

The benefits of performing fall maintenance on your home

Maintaining your home in the fall not only protects your investment, but it also helps you identify small problems before they become big repairs. As the temperature drops and inclement weather rises, making sure your home’s mechanical systems are operating efficiently becomes more important than ever.

Conducting fall maintenance also:

• defends your home and safeguards you from unpredictable weather and invasive wildlife;
• saves you time as frequent cleaning means less maintenance long term; and
• maintains the value of your home.

Does the transition from summer to fall present unique challenges to maintaining my home?

Maintaining your home in the fall is similar to spring maintenance with the exception being you’re preparing for the cooler weather instead of rising temperatures. As such, it’s equally important to check your home’s foundation for cracks, inspect the roof for leaks or damaged shingles and repair any loose siding.

Here’s what else to watch for:

• Obvious damage to your home’s exterior such as ripped screens, faulty caulking and rotted trim.
• Evidence of leaks that aren’t apparent from outside like moisture in your basement or attic.
• Leaves, sticks or nests clogging your eavestrough, downspouts and exhaust vents.
• Blocked window wells, catch basins and drainage swales.

How do I prevent wildlife such as mice, squirrels and birds from nesting around my home?

In the fall, preventing pests from nesting in and around your home is always a challenge. But you’ll save time and money by addressing areas of concern early in the season.

• Inspect your home and auxiliary buildings such as a shed for holes—no hole is too small; a raccoon can squeeze into a crack the size of a baseball!
• Customize exterior features if needed—consider adding a guard to ridge vents, reinforcing exhaust vents and applying a specialized screen over your eavestrough.
• Practice cleanliness around your property—overflowing garbage bins and overgrown bushes will attract wildlife to your home.

I’m short on time, what maintenance should I prioritize?

Cleaning inside is just as important as it is outside, but if push comes to shove, inspecting the exterior of your home and being proactive about keeping wildlife out offers more long term benefits.

However, cleaning your Heat Recovery Ventilation unit, replacing or cleaning filters, cleaning vent covers and doing annual maintenance to your furnace are the priorities indoors.

Protect your health and your home, be prepared for the fall with this Warranty resource on how to get a handle on humidity.

Don’t forget, the Seasonal Maintenance Checklist is a great guide for Minto Communities’ homeowners. It saves you time by providing a list of items to check and maintain during each season including the fall.

Finally, beyond standard cleaning inside your home—sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping—as the calendar flips to November, start pulling your winter accessories out of storage and preparing for the snow and ice.

If you’d like to share your fall cleaning tips or need more information about what’s covered under your Warranty, refer to your homeowner care booklet or view it online.