Fall is the perfect time to prepare your home for winter. Cold weather, snow, and ice can be rally hard on your home, and can cause some pretty serious water damage. It is important to be proactive about protecting your home from potential water damage before the winter weather gets too cold to do it.

1. Clean the gutters. Leaves and other debris can collect in gutters and down spurts, causing water to back up and overflow onto your home and around the foundation. Anytime water collects around the home outside, it has the potential to cause water damage inside. Check that water is not getting trapped behind gutters, and that it can flow freely. 
2. Check your windows and doors. Since windows and doors provide openings into your home, it is important to be sure that any repairs in windows and doorframes are fixed before the cold weather blows in. You can use caulk or weather stripping to seal areas around windows and doors, that will not only help keep heat inside, but will prevent water, snow, and ice from leaking inside.
3. Inspect your roof to be sure that it is in good condition, there are no loose or missing pieces, and that water is able to run off and not collect on the roof. Your roof is one of the biggest lines of defense for keeping water out of your home, so be sure that it is maintained regularly and fortified to withstand the sow and ice that comes with winter.
4. Inspect the entire outside of your home, siding and foundation, and look for any damaged areas. Cracks, openings, and chips all provide ways for water to seep into your home, so be sure to look for any areas that need patched and repaired before winter comes.
5. Trim down any tree limbs that are getting to close to your house. Snow and cold weather are problematic for trees, and add extra weight to limbs that could fall onto your house or roof.  As the snow and ice melts from off tree limbs that are too close to your home, they can overwhelm the gutter system and cause water to overflow. To avoid these potential problems, clear away limbs that are too close to your home. 
6. Drain and turn off your sprinkler system. When the snow comes, you care not going to be using your sprinkler system, so if any water is left sitting in those pipes it can freeze and cause the pipes to burst and spring leaks. Burst sprinkler pipes can cause major flooding in the basement of your home, so it is important to get them blown out before freezing temperatures come.
7. Turn off exterior faucets, drain hoses, and store them away during winter. If there is water trapped in your hose when the temperatures drop, it will not only ruin the hose, but also cause water to freeze in the pipe. Frozen pipes are bad news for water damage prevention. 

By completing these tasks before the cold weather comes, you can help protect your home from water damage. Even following every preventative step put there though does not guarantee that your home will not ever be exposed to the effects of water damage. G.S. Jones has a team of skilled water damage technicians who are on call 24/7 to respond to your water damage emergency in Dormont, and surround areas in PA. Call us today if your property needs water damage repair.