Dear Claire: How Do I Prepare for the Rainy Season?

Preparing for Winter: Home Maintenance Tips

As they say on Game of Thrones “Winter is Coming”. So obviously we get most of our water and rain in the fall, and winter, and spring months. Things you should be looking at as we head toward the winter and rainy season are mostly related to water.

First and foremost, you want to look at your water management system. What do I mean by that? Your gutters and downspouts. If you’ve got trees, make sure your gutters are clean and that they don’t have a bunch of junk in them. It will stop the rainwater from dripping down into the down spouts and getting away from your house. Things to know if you have downspout thing that just goes down like this. If it terminates in a hole like that and goes into the ground that means your water is going into the storm drains and being taken away in the sewer. At least in Portland. If that’s happening, you kind of want to watch and see when it’s raining. Put on your rain gear and go outside and check. If it’s bubbling over and you might have a problem with that range rain and you might consider disconnecting it and having the water run out into your yard. Something to think about.

This is the time of year we take stock in everything, right? So take stock of your house. Walk around your house, look at the shingles, and look at the siding. That’s going to be the stuff on the outside of your house. You might have cedar shake or you might have lap siding. It’s going to look like big planks. In all these things and in every siding system, you don’t want any holes or gaps or anything like that. If you see a big chunk of missing siding or a big break in your siding, it can be a problem and sometimes it’s an easy fix. Caulk can do a lot. If you’ve got like cracked shingles and stuff like that, that’s pretty common just to caulk it and it should be good to go for the next year. Also take a look at your roof. You want to notice if there’s any missing shingles or if there’s moss. All those things are real small things to take care of. They’re really important in the grand scheme of the life of your house. In addition, you probably just want to just take a little peek in the crawl space or in your basement. Look for water as the rain starts. Is there water in the basement? Where is it? If it’s in that one corner where my downspout keeps getting a bunch of leaves in it and accumulating debris, you might need to do something about that gutter.

It’s a really good time to just write down everything that you need to address in the next few years and see if there’s anything major, but mostly it’s going to be minor stuff that needs to be just maintained. Of course, drag all of your garden tools inside, otherwise, they’re going to get off rusted laying on the ground or outside. And then if any of you are so lucky to have a pool or a hot tub, make sure it’s covered, take care of all of that. Or if it’s heated then you might be using it all winter, but I don’t have either unfortunately!

We’ve got cool videos where I show you how to do some of this stuff. So check out our Paris Group Realty, LLC YouTube channel. You’ll see how to clean your gutters and how to check on your downspouts and all that kind of stuff. I hope you guys stay cozy and safe and healthy this fall and of course, let me know if you have any questions, I’d be happy to help. Have a great day! Take care!

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