Remember, There’s No Weather Offseason In Iowa
Through snow, wind, rain and more rain, we endured to reach the Promised Land.
After a spring only a fish could love, weather-weary Iowans have finally reached sweet summertime. While our only weekend thoughts may naturally be to cue up the stereo, fire up the barbecue, crack open a cold one, hang out with The Avengers and Spider-Man, camp out at the beach or hit the water, we can’t afford to hibernate on the relentless weather and environmental threats that continue to assault our homes during the summer months.
“Dreams of the summer season tend to focus on long days spent reading the latest bestsellers, napping in the rope hammock or watching white clouds drift across a blue sky,” Bob Vila.com’s Donna Boyle Schwartz writes. “But if you’re a homeowner, you know that summer isn’t always a day at the beach. Though storms and storm damage are hallmarks of winter, of course, weather-related hazards are threats throughout the steamy summer months too.”
So at the risk of being a summertime joy kill, here are five home maintenance musts to address before the Fourth of July.
1) Get In The Gutter: This may right up them with doing laundry on a Friday night on the list of the least-favorite household tasks, but when was the last time you inspected your home’s main rain water drainage system?
Fall leaves and debris combined with heavy summer downpours (let’s face it, we know we haven’t seen the last of Mother Nature’s wet wrath this summer) can lead to clogs and heavily obstructed gutters. To ensure your gutters drain away storm waters with reliability, give your gutters an in-depth summer cleaning.
Flat-out tired of cleaning instead of napping in the summertime? One-piece LeafGuar Brand Gutters eliminate the need for homeowners to clean their gutters, providing a sure-fire get-it-and-forget solution.
2) Save Your Siding: Your home’s exterior siding fights a 365-day boxing match with the weather with no off days. During the summer months, dirt, mold, pollen, tree sap and inconsiderate birds steadily accumulate on your siding, ultimately shortening the lifespan of your siding material.
3) Don’t Overlook the Roof: Iowa winters treat roofs as if they are pinatas, upsetting, tearing, loosening and warping shingles and ruthlessly assaulting their structural integrity.
4) Pay Attention to Your Pavement: Winter’s second-favorite punching bag often goes overlooked without a second thought, but there’s no better time than during the best weather of the year to give much needed TLC to cracked, crumbling or chipping concrete before it inevitably worsens, perhaps irreversibly. If your driveway needs repaving, don’t sit on it until fall, apply resurfacer.
5) Beware the Pest Threat: While you and your family are on Dream Street, a wide variety of super nuisance pests are planning and launching coups on your house. No pest threat is greater than termites. To prevent an infestation, keep your basement and attic dry and well-ventilated. Outdoors, keep a one-inch gap between the soil and wood portions of your home and tightly seal foundation cracks.
Summer is Iowans’ reward for weathering Mother Nature’s bad moods the other nine months of the year, but it’s no time to kick up our feet and completely forget the hard truth of Midwest living. There is no offseason when it comes to protecting our homes from the perils of angry weather.
