Must-Do Home Maintenance Tasks Before Summer Ends
As summer winds down, it's the perfect time to tackle some essential home maintenance to get your property ready for fall and the colder months ahead. In this episode, Jamie breaks down 15 key tasks every homeowner should complete before the season changes.
From clearing out and servicing gutters to inspecting your roof for wear and tear, he’ll walk you through practical steps to protect your home from costly winter damage. He also covers important maintenance tips for critical systems like HVAC and plumbing to ensure everything runs safely and efficiently.
Connect with Gold Key Inspection Services!
Episode Highlights
- Why end-of-summer home maintenance matters
- How cleaning gutters protects your foundation
- Spotting roof and flashing leaks before they get worse
- Checking yard slope to keep water away from your home
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
03:55 - Preparing Your Home for Fall: Essential Tasks
07:59 - Inspecting Your Home: Seasonal Maintenance Tips
15:20 - Home Maintenance Tips: Water Heater and Dryer Vent Care
20:53 - End of Summer Maintenance Tips
Transcript
Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawl Space, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.
Speaker A:Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent, or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their homeownership challenges and inspiration along the way.
Speaker A:Your path to success starts here.
Speaker A:So we all love summer, but you know what?
Speaker A:Eventually summer ends, and we're getting to that point already.
Speaker A:So today I thought I'd talk about 15 end of the summer tasks that you can do around your house to help make sure it's prepared for fall and the seasons to come.
Speaker A:So if you love summer and you're sad to see it coming to the end, the good news is it's not over yet and we still have some warm weather left.
Speaker A:If you're tired of the heat and the humidity and you're looking forward to fall, this is your favorite time of year.
Speaker A:And so either way, good attitude, bad attitude, there's still tasks that need to be done to get this completed.
Speaker A:So let's jump in.
Speaker A:Number one, clean and service your gutters and downspouts.
Speaker A:You've heard me say this before, but throughout the course of the year, leaves fall, you've had seeds fall.
Speaker A:Especially if you have a lot of maple trees in the yard and they fill up your gutters, they can run down the downspouts, they clog the gutters.
Speaker A:And if you have underground downspouts, in other words, your downspout stops.
Speaker A:And then you've attached some kind of hose onto the bottom or corrugated tile that, that goes into the ground.
Speaker A:Wherever it dumps out, they inevitably get.
Speaker A:Get clogged up.
Speaker A:So take the time, clean those out.
Speaker A:And if you can't do it yourself safely, you need to hire somebody to do it.
Speaker A:Especially if you have second story windows or, or not windows, but roofs that, that, you know, require a long extension ladder, single story.
Speaker A:You know, if you're not comfortable on a ladder, period, then you need to hire somebody to come do that.
Speaker A:But definitely something to remove the debris, flush it with water, check the hangers on it.
Speaker A:Are the hangers still good?
Speaker A:Are they secured to the fascia board?
Speaker A:Or if they, worst case scenario, they use those straps where they nailed them right down through the gutter shingles.
Speaker A:You know, that's not ideal, but it's better than nothing.
Speaker A:Obviously, if you have some.
Speaker A:And then let's talk about gutter guards a little bit.
Speaker A:If you don't have them, it's a real simple process to pull the debris out of your gutter, flush it with water do what you need to do to clean that out.
Speaker A:If you do have gutter guards of any sort, there's screens, there's gutter helmet, where it's basically a metal curved top where water follows the curved edge and drips into the gutter.
Speaker A:And then supposedly the debris runs off the top.
Speaker A:But the problem with that is, inevitably you're still going to get a little debris in that gutter.
Speaker A:And in this case, you're going to need to remove that helmet part off of it and then clean it out and then reinstall the helmet part of it.
Speaker A:If you have screens, you'll need to remove those.
Speaker A:Make sure the screens are all free of debris.
Speaker A:Inevitably, you get a little bit of the twigs, the seeds, just a little junk, not leaves.
Speaker A:But eventually all of those get caught up with junk and limit the water flow.
Speaker A:Then you get backups.
Speaker A:It's more likely to have leaking gutters.
Speaker A:And the worst part of all is if they don't drain properly or get away from the property, it sits against the foundation, seeps into through cracks in the wall, goes down to the bottom, where you typically will have a joint between a cold joint between the footer and the foundation wall, and it can seep in there.
Speaker A:Worst case scenario, maybe your underground drain tiles are clogged up and they're not flushing water away properly and causing that problem.
Speaker A:So, number one, clean and service your gutters and downspouts.
Speaker A:This is something really you should do at least twice a year to make sure they're always working.
Speaker A:Number two, inspect the roof and the flashing.
Speaker A:Look for cracked, curled, or missing shingles.
Speaker A:Check flashing integrity of vents and chimneys.
Speaker A:One of the most common areas we see issues with flashing.
Speaker A:Flashing is just a name for a material between shingles and whatever is coming through the shingles.
Speaker A:In other words, a plumbing vent.
Speaker A:It could be a furnace vent, it could be that dormer.
Speaker A:But it's now changing direction.
Speaker A:And so we need something to make sure water doesn't get into that connection point or that joint.
Speaker A:And so that's what we're talking about.
Speaker A:We're talking about flashing.
Speaker A:So you're looking for anything that's cracked.
Speaker A:The most common area we'll see this flashing cracked is around plumbing vents.
Speaker A:Now, plumbing vents are there to allow proper drainage for the plumbing system.
Speaker A:And most of the time, on an asphalt shingle roof, you're going to have a plumbing vent that is made of kind of a rubber material.
Speaker A:And so over time, the sun and just weather in general will crack that rubber boot.
Speaker A:It dries it out.
Speaker A:You'll start to see little microscopic cracks and then they'll get bigger.
Speaker A:In some cases we've done inspections where you get up there and the entire boot, the rubber part's missing.
Speaker A:So you have about a 1 inch gap clear around the pipe directly into the attic.
Speaker A:Obviously that's going to bring loads of water into the attic.
Speaker A:And if you're at that point, you probably have stains on your ceiling if it's been happening for quite a while.
Speaker A:So that's one area to check around the plumbing vents around chimneys.
Speaker A:That's a big one too.
Speaker A:The way that chimney flashing is installed, there's really only one correct way to do it.
Speaker A:I won't get into the details of that today, but if it's not done that way, you're inevitably going to have leaks, things get loose and they just need a adjusted, they need resealed, maybe even done right for the first time.
Speaker A:But all of that needs to be done as far part of routine summer maintenance.
Speaker A:Now again, that's on the roof.
Speaker A:We don't want you climbing on the roof if you're not stable.
Speaker A:If you're not able to safely walk a roof, walk a ladder or do work like that, stay on the roof once you get up there.
Speaker A:So hire a professional to do this.
Speaker A:Call us if you need some recommendations for that.
Speaker A:Number three, check the grading around the foundation.
Speaker A:Especially if you've bought a new house recently or you've done some work around the house and you've regraded it, you've had some work done around it that you know you've disturbed the original dirt and so you've repacked it, but that's going to settle.
Speaker A:Dirt takes about seven years to return to its original form after it's been disturbed.
Speaker A:And so it's really important to make sure you haven't had any things that have sunk.
Speaker A:This is almost more important after a winter because frost, you get frost, heaving, settling and so forth.
Speaker A:That moves your dirt quite a bit more than it will during the summer.
Speaker A:But heavy rains throughout the summer can do the same.
Speaker A:So make sure the grading around the foundation is good.
Speaker A:Make sure it is sloping away from the foundation.
Speaker A:Now the ideal is you want it to slope about an inch per foot for the first six feet.
Speaker A:So you just have a nice gentle slope away from the foundation on all four sides.
Speaker A:We know that in some cases that's not possible.
Speaker A:You're built into the side of a hill, especially if you're in a lake house.
Speaker A:A lot of times the back of your property is going to Be into the side of a hill.
Speaker A:And so you've got water running straight toward your house whenever it rains.
Speaker A:In that case, you need to do some different things as far as grading and drainage and creating swales for water to go around the house because it's just not feasible to have a slope away.
Speaker A:And in that case, just make sure the drains are working properly.
Speaker A:Make sure when it does rain, you don't have water sitting right against the side of the house and causing problems.
Speaker A:So check that grading.
Speaker A:Number three.
Speaker A:Number four, Inspect caulking and exterior paint.
Speaker A:I am always amazed at how quickly exterior paint starts to have problems.
Speaker A:You put it on and you have hopes.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:I don't have to do that for another 10 years.
Speaker A:But it's just not the case.
Speaker A:Especially if you have a house that faces, you know, you have a painted side that faces west or south that's going to get hit with a lot more sun and heat throughout the course of the summer than the east or the north side will.
Speaker A:Just a fact.
Speaker A:And anytime you have paint there, you're going to look for peeling, bubbling.
Speaker A:The north side, you may look for mold buildup, especially if you have shade trees on the north side of your house.
Speaker A:You're almost going to get no sun on that side of the house.
Speaker A:And depending on the orientation of the trees, it's going to hold excess moisture and debris.
Speaker A:It's going to start growing green on the side of your house.
Speaker A:And that's not necessarily, you know, a problem mold wise, but it can stain your siding, leave it unsightly, and if it gets on your doors and trim, it can have a deteriorating effect because that's an organic product that can be deteriorated.
Speaker A:So look for areas that you either need to clean, you need to maybe scrape the paint off and repaint areas.
Speaker A:You need to re caulk around windows, doors, and trim to prevent against moisture.
Speaker A:Because it's easy in the summer to kind of lose track of the fact that, oh, we're not getting moisture in here, it should be okay.
Speaker A:But what about when the fall rain hits?
Speaker A:You know, where you're in November or October and we get it's 50 degrees and it's windy and we have a driving rain all day.
Speaker A:That's when the water can seep in if there's areas that have been unprotected.
Speaker A:Number five, pressure wash sidings, decks and patios.
Speaker A:Now, this is more of an option for you.
Speaker A:It's not quite as crucial as the other.
Speaker A:This is more cosmetic, but it does remove mildew, algae, salt stains, and it just prepares outdoor surfaces.
Speaker A:This would be more than anything you're preparing the outdoor surfaces for painting or sealing.
Speaker A:If you have a wood deck, clean that off, let it dry.
Speaker A:You want to make sure the moisture content in the wood is satisfactory before you apply paint or stain or it's not going to stay on very well.
Speaker A:A mistake that some people do is a pressure wash their deck and then the same day they're ready to paint that.
Speaker A:Or in reality, you'd really need to let that dry naturally for three to four days, generally in good drying conditions to allow proper wood moisture content before you add paint or stain.
Speaker A:So make sure you're doing that.
Speaker A:One note of caution, pressure washing.
Speaker A:Don't pressure washers siding too severely.
Speaker A:It's better to use use almost a soft wash or apply some kind of cleaner first.
Speaker A:You don't want to drive water through your siding.
Speaker A:Certainly if it's brick, you don't want to do that.
Speaker A:And you don't want to use a pressure washer on your roof.
Speaker A:Never do that, no matter how bad it looks.
Speaker A:That will damage the shingles.
Speaker A:If you have any kind of warranty left, that will eliminate your warranty, because manufacturers don't recommend that.
Speaker A:Number six, service your H Vac system and outcourt outdoor condenser.
Speaker A:You've probably heard this a hundred times, but it does bear true your outdoor condenser.
Speaker A:All year long, it's drawing air through it to then cool it to cool your house, all right?
Speaker A:And so it is drawing cotton, it's drawing dust, debris, whatever you name it, it's drawing it.
Speaker A:And so you can get quite a buildup, a nice carpet around the fins on that air conditioner.
Speaker A:And that's going to really hurt the performance of it.
Speaker A:And it's going to cause it to work harder and shorten the life of it.
Speaker A:So get that thing cleaned.
Speaker A:We have a video on our website of how to clean an air conditioner.
Speaker A:Certainly there's videos online.
Speaker A:You can look at that for that, or if you don't want to do it, hire a professional to do it.
Speaker A:And same with your H Vac system.
Speaker A:You know, when it's 90 degrees, the last thing you're thinking about is heat.
Speaker A:But if you live in the Midwest, you also know how quickly things can change.
Speaker A:And so it's a good time to think about heat and what's going to go on and how quickly you're going to need that.
Speaker A:Number eight, reverse the ceiling fans for summer airflow.
Speaker A:Ensure your fans rotate counterclockwise to push cool air downward.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:So many of you may not know that you.
Speaker A:Most fans have a reversing switch on them, and sometimes you want the air to come down.
Speaker A:In the winter you would, because you want hot air to be drawn down because hot air rises.
Speaker A:And in the summer you want it to be opposite.
Speaker A:So that's the time to do that.
Speaker A:Number nine, test and replace your smoke and carbon dioxide alarms.
Speaker A:Confirm functionality and change batteries.
Speaker A:Test the GFCI or AFCI outlets as they may trip under heavy moisture condition.
Speaker A:This is especially important for outside GFCI outlets.
Speaker A:These will almost always quit working the quickest, and it's just simply because they're outside and they're subject, even with proper covers, are subject to the weather changes more obviously than inside.
Speaker A:The best way to check them is to test them.
Speaker A:Hit that test button on it.
Speaker A:Does it, does it trip?
Speaker A:If it does trip, does it reset?
Speaker A:If it doesn't do one or both of those, they need to be replaced.
Speaker A:And so they could just be dirty.
Speaker A:But whatever the reason, you know, you can't see the inner parts of the GFCI outlet.
Speaker A:And sometimes those corrode on the inside.
Speaker A:And that's why it may look great on the outside, but it just doesn't work.
Speaker A:And so check them there.
Speaker A:Check them in the bathroom.
Speaker A:Let's check them in the garage, wherever you have them.
Speaker A:Make sure they're working.
Speaker A:And with the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, a great time to check them is just toward the end of summer before you get into that heating system, before you have your furnace, your fireplace, other heaters that you may, they may set up that could potentially cause a problem.
Speaker A:Make sure that the smoke alarms and the carbon monoxide alarms are installed and functional.
Speaker A:So they don't do any good just sitting there as decorations if they're not functional.
Speaker A:Number 10, inspect plumbing fixtures and perform leak checks.
Speaker A:So flush your toilets, run faucets and showers.
Speaker A:Inspect for leaks at hoses, fittings and appliances.
Speaker A:Now you might think, well, I live here, I can tell it doesn't leak.
Speaker A:Okay, how many times do you go in your crawl space?
Speaker A:How many times do you go in the basement?
Speaker A:If it's an unfinished older basement, not very often.
Speaker A:Run everything at once.
Speaker A:Have somebody upstairs making sure nothing's overflowing.
Speaker A:Run downstairs or go in the crawl space.
Speaker A:Or better yet, hire a professional to look at it.
Speaker A:Make sure you're not getting any leaks that are deteriorating, something wasting your water, creating, you know, hazardous conditions with potential sewer leaks and things like that where you can't see them.
Speaker A:So number 11 and this is an important one for water heaters.
Speaker A:Flush the water heater and this can be done a couple of ways.
Speaker A:We've always recommended drain a couple of gallons per month from that drain valve down there at the bottom or, and, or flush it once per year again.
Speaker A:We have videos on our website that show how to do this goldkeyinspect.com and navigate toward the the video section.
Speaker A:But it's very easy even in a with city water.
Speaker A:This is more prevalent among people that have wells.
Speaker A:But in city water as well, you get sediment buildup in the bottom of the tank.
Speaker A:And as the sediment builds up, one thing you may notice when your water heater is in heating mode is you hear a popping and rumbling in it is some strange noises coming out of that tank.
Speaker A:And what that is, the sediment creates like an air bubble around it.
Speaker A:And as it rises to the top, that air bubble pops and creates that noise.
Speaker A:That means you have a lot of sediment in the tank.
Speaker A:That means that sediment is going to absorb a lot of the heat that that flame is producing underneath it.
Speaker A:And so what you'll get is normally you have your water set to maybe 125 degrees, which is about where you want it.
Speaker A:But now that sediment is absorbing a lot of that heat.
Speaker A:And so how come my shower is not as hot anymore?
Speaker A:How come I have to turn that faucet further to the hot side to get the same amount of hot water as I used to?
Speaker A:And that is a likely reason why is that sediment buildup in it?
Speaker A:The sediment also will deteriorate the tank, cause it to leak much quicker.
Speaker A:And so you definitely want to flush that water heater out.
Speaker A:If you're in a garage, it's easy.
Speaker A:Hook a hose on, run the thing out the the driveway, turn off the inlet handle to the water heater, and then open it up.
Speaker A:It's 40 to 50 gallons in most cases.
Speaker A:Sometimes they're 75 or 80.
Speaker A:And still that's a lot of water.
Speaker A:But it's a good way to flush that sediment out of there and, and help preserve the life of your tank.
Speaker A:Number 12, clean your dryer vent.
Speaker A:Dryer vents are one of the most common things that start house fires, especially if it's plastic.
Speaker A:First of all, if it is a plastic white flexible vent, change it.
Speaker A:It needs to be changed to smooth walled metal.
Speaker A:That will help limit the buildup of lint.
Speaker A:It will help if there is an overheating situation.
Speaker A:Metal is not going to burn like plastic will.
Speaker A:And so great time to change it, especially if you have a Lot of twists and turns in that vent.
Speaker A:Probably a good time to hire a professional to come in with the equipment they use to be able to get into the dryer vent.
Speaker A:You'd be amazed at the junk that comes out of that dryer vent.
Speaker A:It's going to help the efficiency of your dryer.
Speaker A:It's going to be safer because you're not potentially starting fires.
Speaker A:And it's going to just make your dryer.
Speaker A:Drying the clothes take less time and reduce your energy bill.
Speaker A:So all those things go together very important.
Speaker A:Number 11, flush the water heater.
Speaker A:Number 12, clean the dryer vents.
Speaker A:Number 13, back to the outside.
Speaker A:Walk around and spot any cracks or gaps in the or vegetation damage.
Speaker A:That shrub that's been growing beautifully for years, is it now rubbing on the siding and creating holes in it?
Speaker A:Have you had Some kids shoot BBs at your vinyl siding and create cracks and holes in it or rocks from lawn mowing or things like that?
Speaker A:Good idea to patch that and just make sure you're not getting water in there.
Speaker A:And then one thing that a lot of us don't think about is spray and seal around garage doors.
Speaker A:Garage doors have a seal on the bottom where they meet the concrete, and they have seals on the sides where the trim meets the door.
Speaker A:And that just helps keep pests out.
Speaker A:It helps keep water out.
Speaker A:Well, those wear out, especially if they face south like they do on my home.
Speaker A:They wear out, they chip, they dry out.
Speaker A:Now you got cracks, you gaps, you got places for mice to come in.
Speaker A:So there's different ways either to replace it, to repair it.
Speaker A:But make sure you're checking the seals on the garage door lube, the rollers and everything else up on there.
Speaker A:And that's going to make sure your garage door is not squeaking like crazy when it's going up and down and it's doing what it needs to do.
Speaker A:And for number 15, finally clean, organize and refresh seasonal gear.
Speaker A:You know those kind of clothes that you only wear maybe in the fall you do, if you're a hunter, you have a certain area where you keep those kind of clothes to keep them away from the scents of modern living.
Speaker A:So it's an all natural scent or whatever, something like that.
Speaker A:Get those out, make sure they're clean, make sure they have, you haven't had mold, growth or, or other junk growing on them during the off season.
Speaker A:And declutter.
Speaker A:This is a good time to declutter before winter.
Speaker A:I know when I think of winter and pulling vehicles into the garage and you get the grime and the wet and everything.
Speaker A:The last thing you want is clutter because you need to be able to move around in there.
Speaker A:You need to be able to clean the garage regularly.
Speaker A:So declutter, get rid of things you don't need, sell things you don't need and maybe buy some storage bins, organize, hang some shelves so you can get things up off the floor.
Speaker A:Just a good time to do that because you still have good weather.
Speaker A:Even if you don't have a heated garage, it's a good time to do that in weather that is optimal for that kind of work.
Speaker A:You're not out there in a sweatshirt and gloves cleaning your garage.
Speaker A:That's not near as fun.
Speaker A:So hopefully some of these things, these end of summer maintenance tasks will be helpful for you.
Speaker A:Hopefully they'll get you down the right path getting, getting ready for the cooler weather.
Speaker A:And so we appreciate you listening to this.
Speaker A:Make sure you share it with your friends and call us if you need anything.
Speaker A:Call Gold Key Home Inspections.
Speaker A:We can provide inspections.
Speaker A:We can provide referrals for anything that you might need as far as doing some of this work we just mentioned today.
Speaker A:So have a great day everybody.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:This week you can catch up on the latest episode of the Thoughts from the Crawl Space podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, podcasts and YouTube.
Speaker A:For more information about Gold Key Inspection services, go to goldkeyinspect.com.
