Weekly Maintenance for your Home

April – Week 15

Just like preventative maintenance on your car, if you take care of a few small items around the house every week, you can avoid many emergency breakdowns and expensive repairs.

As the winter ends and everything turns green, it is time to take a good look inside your attic. Go inside the attic and look for any cracked boards under the roof, maybe caused by heavy snow loads. Look for signs of matted down insulation that could have resulted from moisture accumulation, as these could lead you to spotting small leaks in the roof.

You also want to look around carefully for where you can see daylight getting into the attic. You should see light all along the soffits as that is where you do want ventilation coming in. But if you see daylight in unusual places, that could be a water leak, or an animal entrance. Make sure that the roof vents have insect and squirrel screening over them as well. For animal entrances you need to inspect the outside, especially the soffit area. Soon birds will be looking for protected nesting places, and your attic is an ideal one. They can actually pull back loose soffiting and go in and out. If you don't block them before nesting, you will have to wait to block up the entrance paths after the babies have flown the coop.

If you are working outside, be careful with ladder safety. If you are walking around in the attic be careful of where you step and be careful of the nails coming through the roof. For more information on working inside attics check out "Attic" in the SEARCH tab above.