The Small Home Problems You Ignore in Fall Get Expensive in Winter

Fall is the season when your house starts giving you warnings.

The furnace makes a noise you don’t remember hearing last year.

You notice the garage door doesn’t quite seal at the bottom.

There’s a crack in the driveway that seems a little wider than it was in June.

The upstairs rooms feel colder than the rest of the house.

None of those things necessarily feels urgent when it’s 60 degrees and sunny outside.

That’s exactly why now is the time to deal with them.

Homeowners get into trouble when they wait until a small maintenance issue becomes an emergency. A mouse in the garage becomes damaged wiring. A little heat loss through the attic becomes another winter of high utility bills. Uneven concrete gets another freeze-thaw cycle. And the furnace nobody has looked at in years decides to quit on the coldest night of January.

More Insulation Isn’t Always the Answer

If part of your house is uncomfortable or your heating bills seem too high, it’s easy to assume you simply need more insulation in the attic.

Maybe you do.

But piling new insulation on top of whatever is already there can hide the real problem.

Older insulation may contain evidence of rodents, moisture, mold, or other contamination. Covering that with another layer doesn’t remove it.

There’s also the question of air leakage.

Insulation slows heat transfer. It doesn’t necessarily stop air from moving through gaps and openings between the living space and the attic.

That means you can spend a lot of money adding insulation and still have cold rooms because warm air continues escaping through openings around framing, penetrations, fixtures, and other areas.

Before adding insulation, have someone determine what’s actually happening.

Is the existing insulation dry and in good condition?

Has there been a rodent or raccoon problem?

Is air leaking into the attic?

Is the attic properly ventilated?

Are recessed lights or other penetrations contributing to the problem?

If old insulation needs to be removed so the attic can be properly sealed, it makes more sense to do that first than bury everything under another foot of material and pay to remove all of it later.

The goal isn’t to have the most insulation.

The goal is to have a house that’s properly sealed, insulated, and ventilated.

One Mouse Is Usually Telling You Something

Cold weather also sends pests looking for someplace warmer.

Unfortunately, your garage, basement, attic, and kitchen look pretty inviting.

A mouse can squeeze through an extremely small opening, so walk around the house before winter and look carefully at the places where they’re most likely to get in.

Check the weather stripping around exterior doors.

Look at the bottom and sides of the garage door.

Inspect openings where utilities enter the house.

Pay attention to gaps around the foundation and siding.

If you can see daylight through a gap, there’s a pretty good chance something smaller than you can use it too.

Also think about what’s attracting pests once they get inside.

Bird seed, pet food, grass seed, snacks left in the garage, and even food forgotten inside a vehicle can become a food source.

And mice in a garage aren’t just annoying.

One caller described finding a large mouse nest under the hood of his car after it wouldn’t start. The mice had damaged the wiring harness, turning a pest problem into a roughly $1,500 repair.

Another homeowner had rats damage automotive wiring twice.

The lesson isn’t to panic every time you see a mouse.

It’s to figure out how it got there.

Trapping mice without sealing the openings can turn into an endless cycle because another one can simply follow the same route inside.

And be careful with homemade solutions.

Spraying substances around an engine compartment or scattering chemicals because somebody on the Internet said rodents dislike the smell can create a different problem.

Fix the access point first.

Your Furnace Shouldn’t Have to Prove It Works During a Cold Snap

There’s no magic date when you have to service a furnace.

But there is a really bad time to discover it doesn’t work: the first seriously cold night of the year.

Turn it on before you need it.

Let it run.

Listen to it.

Make sure warm air is actually coming through the vents.

If the system hasn’t been professionally cleaned and inspected in a while, fall is also a good time to have that done.

And there’s a difference between somebody glancing at the equipment and a real inspection.

A proper service should look at the components that affect operation and safety, including burners, sensors, the blower, filters, venting, electrical components, and the heat exchanger.

If a technician tells you that you need an entirely new furnace because the heat exchanger is cracked, don’t be afraid to ask for proof.

Ask to see the problem.

Ask whether the heat exchanger can be replaced.

Ask whether the part is still under warranty.

And if you’re not comfortable with the explanation, get a second opinion.

A 20-year-old furnace with a serious failure may absolutely be ready for replacement.

But an old furnace isn’t automatically a dead furnace.

Maintenance matters.

So does the filter.

A more restrictive filter isn’t automatically better. A filter that restricts too much airflow for the system can create operating problems.

Use the type and rating appropriate for your equipment, and replace it on the schedule recommended for that filter.

The expensive mistake is assuming that because the furnace made heat last February, it’s guaranteed to make heat next February.

Concrete Problems Don’t Fix Themselves Over Winter

Driveways, sidewalks, patios, pool decks, and front steps take a beating in our climate.

If part of the concrete has settled, cracked, or become uneven, winter usually isn’t going to improve it.

Water gets into openings.

Temperatures drop.

The ground freezes and moves.

Then spring arrives and that little problem may be a larger one.

Uneven concrete also creates a trip hazard long before it becomes structurally serious.

That doesn’t mean every cracked slab needs to be ripped out and replaced.

Depending on what caused the settlement and the condition of the concrete, it may be possible to raise sections by injecting material underneath and filling the void that allowed the slab to drop.

The important part is understanding why it moved.

Was soil washed away?

Did the ground settle?

Is a downspout dumping water where it shouldn’t?

Are unsealed joints allowing water underneath?

Simply correcting the height without addressing the water or soil problem can leave the underlying cause in place.

And unlike a furnace or attic problem, some concrete repairs are weather dependent.

Once the ground freezes hard, certain repair methods may need to wait until spring.

If you already know the sidewalk is sinking or the driveway has developed an obvious low spot, now is a much better time to have someone look at it than after another winter.

Fall Is Your Warning Period

You don’t need to spend October replacing everything in your house.

That isn’t the point.

The point is to use this part of the year to find out what needs attention before the weather takes away your choices.

Check the attic before adding more insulation.

Seal the places mice can enter before they move in.

Run the furnace before you actually depend on it.

Look at the driveway, sidewalk, and front steps while repairs can still be done.

Most expensive home emergencies aren’t completely unpredictable.

There was usually a warning first.

The homeowner who pays attention to that warning gets to schedule the repair, compare options, and make a decision.

The homeowner who waits gets whatever solution is available at 10:00 at night when it’s 5 degrees outside.

I know which position I’d rather be in.