Every year I have a number of chores to finish ahead of the intensely cold winter season.
I start with cleaning my rain gutters and clearing off any leaves and debris from my rooftop.
It’s important to clean these areas before the first snowfall, or you risk burying it all beneath snow and ice. Another winter frustration is chopping wood for weeks at a time to get ready. We use our fireplace as supplemental heat to our central furnace. I don’t like chopping wood when it’s below zero outside, so I try to get three cords worth of wood ready for the fireplace in the weeks leading up to the first snowfalls. This sometimes gives me more wood than I need, but the remainder can always be used for bonfires during spring and summer. Inside I have the task of sealing the house to prevent hot air from leaking out. That means all of the foam weatherstripping in my doorways gets ripped out and replaced. After that is finished, I then get the shrink film out for the windows. If you have old windows that aren’t double pane, shrink film is great because it creates a similar air gap that has insulative properties. You use double sided tape to stretch it over the window frame and the surrounding wall. It’s like cling wrap but twice as thick. Once the entire window is covered, you take a hair dryer on low and slowly run it over the surface of the shrink film. This is when the “shrink” occurs—the sags in the plastic tighten up and create a taunt plastic shield over the entire window. Aside from creating an insulative air bubble, the shrink film also solves the problems with unseen leaks in the windows. It’s almost like caulking the cracks of your windows with a product that can be removed in two minutes if necessary.