The end of summer is almost here, and unfortunately, many of us homeowners just haven’t found the time to do some of those much-needed home maintenance tasks. Between trips to the beach, cottage or weeks-long vacations, it’s easy to let chores fall by the wayside.

But before the summer ends, make sure you get some of these crucial tasks done before the cold weather starts!

Fix Your Driveway

The warm summer weather is perfect for getting your driveway fixed – especially if it’s in really rough shape. Concrete driveways need a bit of TLC after a while, and if yours is looking cracked and damaged, the cold weather, snow and ice will only make things worse. Plus, if you fix your driveway early enough, you can avoid a full replacement and save hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Refresh Your Foundation

If you have lots of landscaping and greenery around your home’s foundation, any unsightly cracks, damage or grime was likely covered for most of the summer. But as the plants start to die away and expose the foundation walls, you can easily refresh them to up your curb appeal in the cooler months. It’s also a great time to check for any really heavy damage that you should repair before it causes real damage to your home.

Build a Fence

The last thing you want to do on those hot, humid summer days is to build a fence, but if you wait too long, you also run the risk that the ground will be frozen. In the late summer and early fall, take advantage of the cooler days to build a fence. It will give you more privacy as the leaves on the trees start to fall, and you can probably get a fence built within a weekend.

Before you start digging holes for your new fence, make sure you look up the location of buried pipes, gas lines, or telephone and electrical cables. Hitting a pipe or utility cable can cause major complications for you — not to mention representing a potential danger to you and your family. Ontario One Call is a great resource for finding pipes and utility lines.

Make Sure Your Home Has Good Airflow

Throughout the summer, you’ve likely been lucky enough to keep your windows and doors open to get that beautiful fresh air inside. But with winter coming, it will soon be too cold for that. Make sure all of the ventilation in your home is ready for the colder season by vacuuming air vents, ducts, stove hoods, bathroom fans and baseboard heaters. Also be sure to switch out your furnace’s filters to make sure it’s working as efficiently as possible.

Tackle Interior Painting

It may be too hot in the summer to spend all day or all weekend cooped up painting the walls, but make sure you tackle any interior paint jobs while you can still have the windows open. Choose a cooler day so you stay cool through all of that hard work, but still have enough ventilation that the paint fumes don’t build up.

Fall is just around the corner! Get some of these maintenance tasks from Bryan’s Fuel in Orangeville done early so you can enjoy the beautiful fall weather and have peace of mind that your home is ready for winter.