Winter weather can take a real toll on the outside your home, especially in New Hampshire, where our winters are long and chilling. Everyone knows they need to shovel their driveway or remove the snow off of their car, but a lot of times we forget to do things like remove snow from our roofs or gutters. But you don’t want to forget about your home’s winter maintenance, because it could end up costing you a lot of money down the road.

Inspect Your Roof

Stormy weather can bring high winds, snow, and ice that can break down your roof over time through the build-up of ice dams. Storms can also damage trees and telephone poles that can fall in the direction of your home and permanently damage your roof. Living in New Hampshire, it’s important to have your roof inspected after big storms to ensure it’s safety moving forward and get leaks repaired ASAP before they have a chance to get worse.

Keep Your Gutters Clean

As we mentioned earlier, if there isn’t anywhere for ice and snow to drain, an ice dam will start to build up in your gutters. Ice dams can lead to the warping and cracking of gutters, rendering them useless in keeping water away from your home and it’s the foundation. When we have consecutive storms, it can be difficult to stay on top of removing ice dams, but that’s the most common time for them to occur. If your gutters aren’t working properly, they’ll negatively impact other parts of your home, so professional installation is key.

Protect Your Siding

If your home has wood siding, you are more susceptible to your siding being damaged by water. Wood can absorb water, which can lead to rot and weakening over time. Even if you don’t have wood siding, freezing New Hampshire winters can lead to cracks in vinyl siding and water entering the foundation of your home. In contrast to protecting your roof, you’ll also want to protect your foundation, which means removing snow from around your home before it can melt into your foundation.

Wrap-Up

Winter maintenance isn’t very fun but it’s something that can’t be overlooked if you want to preserve the appearance, value, and safety of your home. Remember, it’s important to have your roof inspected before any winter weather gets underway, that way, you can get in front of any small issues before they have a chance to become worse. If you don’t fix that small hole in your roof, you could end up having to replace the entire roof and siding later on.