With the warm weather and trips to the beach and the cottage, it’s easy to neglect your home during the summer months. Keeping it maintained will avoid any major mishaps down the line and keep your home in great shape.

1) Not inspecting your gutters

It’s important to inspect your gutters regularly. Even if you inspected them in the spring, keep an eye on them to ensure that leaves and other debris aren’t clogging them. This is especially important during the summer as we often get big rainstorms and heavy downpours. Keeping your gutters unclogged will help prevent flooding in your attic or roof, which can cause major damage to your home.

2) Neglecting your siding

Most homeowners think siding is purely aesthetic, but it actually has functional benefits as well. While you want your siding to look good so that it reflects how much pride you take in your home, it’s important to keep it clean. Your siding is exposed to a lot of natural elements, like rain, dirt, mould, pollen and tree sap. These accumulate over time if you don’t clean your siding, and can impact the lifespan of your siding.

3) Avoiding your roof

Let’s face it: the last thing any of us wants to do on a hot day is climb up onto a hot roof. But not inspecting your roof during the summer could be catastrophic to your home. Thunderstorms and wind storms can rip shingles, which in turn can let in water and lead to water damage. If you’re not regularly checking the state of your shingles, this water damage can lead to huge costs for fixing it.

4) Sidestepping your driveway

In Southern Ontario, it’s almost impossible to have a driveway fixed or repaved during the winter. That’s why it’s important for homeowners to assess their driveways and walkways for signs of damage and have them replaced before the summer is over. Keep your eye out for cracked, crumbling or chipping concrete. Catching any damage early can also mean the difference between repairing and replacing.

5) Staying away from pests

No one likes unwanted visitors in their homes, but who wants to deal with critters? Whether it’s insects or rodents, always deal with pests head-on. Avoiding them will only make your problem – and the damage they cause – much worse. There are also things you can do to avoid insect infestations, especially termites. Make sure your basement and attic are dry and well-ventilated, and always make sure soil outside is not touching any wood parts of your home.

6) Forgetting about filters

Changing your air conditioner’s filters regularly is vital to your unit working efficiently and effectively. If you have pets, make sure you’re checking on your filters every month. Make sure you’re choosing the right filters for your unit, and decide whether reusable, washable filters or fiberglass filters are right for you.

Bonus: don’t forget to get your HVAC unit maintained regularly to avoid it breaking down! Contact Bryan’s Fuel for annual and emergency maintenance for your air conditioner and heater.