The summer months are coming to a close and if you aren’t sticking around for the winter, it’s time to start thinking about preparing your vacation home or summer rental for the cold ahead. The winter months can be rough on Long Beach Island, and making sure you take the proper steps before you leave can prevent water damage, fire damage, and pests and rodents from affecting your property.
Before closing your home for the season, you should always shut off the main water supply and blow out the water in the pipes to prevent frozen pipes. If you just shut off the water but there is water still in the pipes that freeze over the winter, you may find yourself with a leaking pipe when you turn the water back on in the spring. Even if someone is checking on your home regularly, shut off the water. It only takes a few hours, let alone a few days, of running water to cause a significant amount of water damage.
Before you leave LBI, unplug all your appliances and flip the circuit breaker for everything you won’t need during the winter. Make sure to leave on the breaker for the alarm system, as well as the heater if you intend to maintain a minimum temperature during the winter months to prevent freezing and reduce indoor humidity.
Don’t assume that if you are heating the property that you can skip draining the pipes. All it takes is one strong storm that knocks out the power to result in frozen pipes that can cause significant water damage, especially when unattended.
To prevent pests and rodents from becoming a problem over the winter, leave your home as clean as possible, and remove all the food. Mice, chipmunks and other rodents are very resourceful, and if your home has a food supply, it is much more appealing that the cold, unsheltered outdoors.
Make sure to empty all trash cans, including outdoor trash cans. Keep things inside the home uncluttered to prevent pests from taking up residence. If you have had a pest problem in the past, consider taking extra measures to prevent it from happening again.
Stretch Cleaning & Restoration provides a fall cleanup service to clean your home from top-to-bottom at the end of the season. This can be an invaluable service, and helps free up your time to enjoy your last few moments on LBI. And if something disastrous like water damage or a fire happens during the winter, we are on LBI year-round to provide emergency restoration services.
