We are now into Spring, thankfully! So, what does that mean for your home maintenance? As a homeowner one of the most useful resources you have is the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), as they provide seasonal maintenance tips and tricks to help you keep your home in tip-top condition! We at Westhills like to think of maintenance as prevention and it’s always better to prevent than to try to cure.
This Spring start your maintenance routine by checking all of your alarms – smoke, carbon monoxide and security. We all know how important it is to have a these alarms in the home, so be sure they are working! Replace the batteries now so that you don’t have to worry about them until next Spring.
Another great Spring maintenance task is cleaning the windows, screens and window hardware and replacing any screens. If you live in Westhills and have screens on your windows, it is unlikely at this point you’ll have to replace any, however, it is good to get into the habit of checking each year. While you are out cleaning your windows open the valve to your outside hose connection, assuming we’re past the threat of any frost! (Let’s hope so…. right?!) Also, take a peek at the leveling of any exterior steps or deck to ensure that nothing has moved as a result of frost or settling.
CMHC also recommends a number of other maintenance tasks to undertake, but many are unnecessary to those living in Westhills. For instance, a Westhills fence is unlikely to need painting or repair, as they are still fairly new. That being said, we were on the Island are known to get some pretty big gusts of wind, so wind repair may be necessary. CMHC also recommends that you turn off your gas furnace and fireplace pilot lights when timing permits. This is not applicable to Westhills homeowners as Westhills, in an effort to reduce the developments carbon footprint, has a geo-exchange Community Energy System that provides heating, making gas unnecessary.
Lastly, CMHC recommends that in the Spring you start your landscape maintenance, which is certainly important! We all take pride in how our home looks from the street and Westhills is no different. If you’ve moved into your Westhills home within the last year you won’t have to worry about landscaping maintenance in your front yard as Westhills provides one year of free front yard landscaping! Just be sure to get out back and pull your weeds.
For more information on seasonal maintenance tips, please see the CMHC website.