Seasonal Maintenance - Summer and Fall

Speaker 1: [0:00] Hello, hello, and welcome to another edition of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum, of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty, and today's topic is about home maintenance. And we're gonna split it up into seasons to make it a little easier for you to manage throughout the year. So as a real estate agent and a homeowner, I know that there's a lot of things that go into keeping your property up to date as the year progresses. We're gonna be breaking this down by season to make it more manageable, and maybe even a little more enjoyable at time. So before we dive deep into it, let's say hi to the team. We have the one and only Seattle native here. It's not the one and only. I'm actually a Seattle native as well. I don't know why I said it like that. But let's talk to the other Seattle native, Ms. Reed Watson.

Speaker 2: [0:42] There can only be one.

Speaker 1: [0:43] There can only be one. We have the dog whisperer, Mr. Les Cutting.

Speaker 3: [0:48] Woof, woof, woof.

Speaker 1: [0:52] And we have the data guru, Jason Saldarriaga.

Speaker 3: [0:55] Hi.

Speaker 1: [0:57] All right, now we got those intros out of the way. Uh, so when we sat down to prep for this topic, it became even more clear how important it is to be organized and strategic about home maintenance. And in my experience, some people won't even consider buying a home because they just don't wanna deal with the upkeep that is involved with it. I hope today that we can remove some of that fear and really just show you how simple it is as long as you plan ahead. So a great way to approach home maintenance is to break up tasks by the season, and to keep an annual upkeep to-do list. The great news is we actually created a home maintenance checklist based on the information that we're gonna present today, and we organized it by season, and you can download it for free right on our website at awesomeNossum.com/homemaintenance. We'll put a link in the, uh, description for this podcast, so you can always refer to it there. This list is a great tool for staying on track and ahead of the game when it comes to keeping your home up to date so that you can spot some issues before they become really big issues. So today we're gonna be covering summer and fall. We're gonna be doing winter and spring, uh, in another episode coming up, but for today, summer and fall. Let's get into it. So summer is a key time for home maintenance tasks, especially here in Seattle where rain and moisture are such a big factor. Uh, because, you know, it's actually dry here in the summer and there's a lot of things that you have to do when it's dry. So Jason, what are some of the most important upkeep tasks that are best addressed during the summer?

Speaker 4: [2:26] Mm, summer. There's little rain, a lot of sun, the temperatures are warmer. I think it's important to take advantage of that fact, right? And, uh, as such, doing stuff in the exterior can be kinda prioritized or should be prioritized over the summer. Stuff like painting the exterior of the house and any roof work that needs to be done. After all, you know, less rain, more sun, hotter temps. That works well with painting, that works well with being on a roof, although you don't want it to be like 100 degrees when you're on a roof. But you also don't want it to be wet. You know, it's a great time also to prep your home to be ready for the rain and the moisture that we tend to get here in Seattle during the winter months. So go around the house caulking your windows as needed. A lot of people, um, don't realize this, but most newer windows have weep holes, like W-E-E-P, like crying holes, weeping holes. And these are little holes you'll see on the corner, uh, the bottom corner of your windows on the outside. You might not see these on w- wood windows, but you'll see these definitely in vinyl. This hole is to allow any water that gets in, like, into the window to exit from that weep hole as opposed to just going down the siding of the house behind your, your siding or, worse, inside the house. And so this could be as simple as just going around, opening each window from the inside and just pouring a little bit of water carefully into the bottom tray of each window and seeing if it exits the exterior of the home. Over time, just if you think about this, over time dirt and pieces of vegetation get into these holes and just clog them up. So you don't want that. You want water that comes in to exit, and you want these weep holes to work. A lot of people cover those weep holes thinking, "Hey, there's this hole, this little blank space in the window frame. This needs to be filled in." No, wrong choice. You wanna leave them clear so water can exit and the weep holes can function as intended. Now, let's do the opposite here and- Talk about a slight disadvantage, I would say, of the amazing summer weather that we tend to have here, and that is it can be very dry, and you need to make sure that your landscaping doesn't die, that it's properly watered and it can last during those dry summer months that we have been getting more and more of as years go on. So every yard is different here, but it is not a bad idea when you get a home to go through and spend some time m- taking an inventory of the landscaping that you have, the various plants, and then you can sit down and go through Google basically and find out what each plant kinda needs, what kind of water needs they require, what kind of sunlight they require, and that will really help you know if you need to focus on watering a certain area during the summer and whatnot. And of course, you can even install drip irrigation if you wanna kinda automate this. I spent some of this summer doing that, and it's been awesome having my landscaping just kind of Managed without me having to pull out a hose. So lots of options there, but, um, definitely focus on the exterior and make sure that the house is in good shape for the weather.

Speaker 1: [5:47] Yeah, I was just gonna bring that up. Like, you had mentioned that you were thinking about doing a drip irrigation system, so that's been working out well?

Speaker 4: [5:54] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5: [5:55] I sh- And my preference is I love to wake up at the crack of dawn and put my hose out, and then do it all around my yard.

Speaker 1: [6:03] That's- that's the other way to do it. All right. So making the most of the break from rain is obviously crucial in our area, and if you do set yourself up for success during the summer, you're gonna thank yourself the rest of the year. What other summer home maintenance tips are there, Reid?

Speaker 2: [6:20] So there are a few things that can easily slip through the cracks because they're not as easily spotted as things like paint or roof work. One of those is cleaning your dryer vents. Dryer lint can become a fire hazard as it builds up if the vents aren't regularly cleared out.

Speaker 1: [6:36] Yeah, this is… I got a little story for you. We were just remodeling a bathroom, and next to the bathroom was the washer and dryer. And we noticed that the… We were testing our dryer vent on the exterior to make sure air was going out as you should do, like we're talking about, doing this home maintenance thing. And we realized that no air was coming through, which led me to believe that the vent might be completely plugged. So dug deeper and found out that at some point the dryer vent going into the wall, directly out of the dryer into the wall, right where that 90-degree angle was, had become un- or unstuck, and the dryer vent had just been going into the wall for who knows how long. So we had to tear out the drywall, completely vacuum that area. Thankfully, there was no mold or anything like that growing in there. But I'm glad because we were doing this yearly maintenance, um, we actually caught this, uh, before it became an issue, and it could have definitely become a big issue, so.

Speaker 4: [7:38] Yeah, they're… It's very flammable. You have to be very careful- Yes … let alone the moisture and that sort of thing. I can't believe that happened. Wow. I

Speaker 1: [7:46] know.

Speaker 2: [7:46] Yeah. I

Speaker 1: [7:46] know. Mm-hmm. Out of sight, out of mind.

Speaker 2: [7:49] Exactly. Speaking of out of sight, out of mind, it's important to look up once in a while and check the trees. If you have any trees around your property, make sure there aren't any limbs touching the house, and if there are, trim those back because you don't want rodents to use that as a way to get onto your roof or enter your attic and stuff like that. So Christian, don't you have a summer suggestion for bees as well?

Speaker 1: [8:18] Oh, man. So a couple weeks ago we were hosting a backyard summer barbecue for our youngest daughter's preschool class. Uh, so we were gonna have, like, eight or nine families over one afternoon in the summer, and the day before I was grilling and we were like, "It's so nice. Let's eat out- outside for dinner tonight." Within two minutes of sitting down to eat, I don't even think anyone had taken a bite yet, we were swarmed by yellow jackets. So we had to run in and eat inside, and that is when it hit me that, oh my gosh, tomorrow we're supposed to host a bunch of people in our backyard for a barbecue. How is this gonna work? So I ran to the hardware store, I picked up two different bee catcher type things, the kind that kind of hang from your tree and you put different liquids in it, and it attracts the different types so you can kind of figure out which type of bee it was. Found out that it was yellow jackets, and then I got to do the fun task of trying to figure out where their nest was. Thankfully, yellow jackets generally like to be near fern bushes and underground. And we have a few rock walls on our property, and that's where they were. So I got to find that, then I got to wait until it got dark. I got to spray the pesticide inside of there. So that's my story about bees. All right, let's finish up with summer and let's move into fall. Les, you love fall. I know it's your favorite time of year.

Speaker 5: [9:44] It sure is.

Speaker 1: [9:45] Fall and

Speaker 5: [9:46] spring, baby.

Speaker 1: [9:46] What do we need to do in fall to keep our house protected and, uh, up to shape?

Speaker 5: [9:51] Well, you gotta start transitioning. So what do I mean by that? Things that may not be obvious, like so for springtime, you may wanna plant that, you know, put plant flow- flower bulbs such as, you know, tulips and that kind of thing so when spring comes, they'll blossom nice and beautifully in the spring. You need to do that in the fall. Um, you also need to keep your lawn healthy. You guys know I am the grass king. I love my grass. So you may wanna start aerating and dethatching the grass. They say early fall, but for me, I've found, you know, that week, you know, right before Halloween or two is probably the best time to reseed and, um, you know, put your fertilizers down to keep your grass nice and green. You wanna protect your grass, uh, during the wintertime, so it's a great, it's a great time to dethatch and aerate. Um, during the fall, you should always definitely prep your exterior fixtures. For example, as it gets colder, you may wanna put, uh, covers on your faucets and hose spigots, wrap all your hoses up so they don't freeze in the wintertime. You also wanna figure out what plants you need to cover, um, before the first freeze so you aren't scrambling in the wintertime. I don't necessarily do this or cover any of them. I just cut them back, and then I find then in the springtime they come back even stronger and better if they're perennials. So that's my fall tips.

Speaker 1: [11:09] Those are good tips. Mm-hmm. You always tell me stuff that I have no clue about, 'cause I know nothing about yard work. So thank you for giving me- You

Speaker 5: [11:16] know… Yeah, I, I knew nothing about… And I tell everybody this, 'cause a lot of apprehension to a lot of our buyers. Like, we don't wanna do yard work, but I swear it's the most therapeutic thing. I knew nothing about yard work. And, um, my fiance, she planted this whole big garden, but she didn't take care of it. So I got into it because she didn't wanna maintain it, and I didn't want it to look ugly, and that's how I got into it. So YouTube University is a great teacher.

Speaker 1: [11:41] So now that we've got the exterior covered, we've done the painting in the summer and the roof work in the summer, what are some interior things that we can do to keep the house, uh, ready for the cold weather?

Speaker 2: [11:52] So inside the house, you can kind of get ahead of the game by servicing your furnace in the fall to prevent any issues in the winter when you really want it to be working. And if you have a fireplace, definitely sweep your chimney as well before you need to. Servicing your furnace is a pretty obvious way to prepare for the winter, but another great thing to do is to have your AC serviced as well.

Speaker 1: [12:17] Yeah, I'll also add that you can usually get a little bit of a discount if you get your furnace and your AC or your heat pump serviced at the same time versus doing it separately throughout the year.

Speaker 2: [12:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1: [12:28] So. And getting your furnace serviced only costs, you know, 200 to 300 bucks. You should do it once every year or two, depending on how much you use it. And a chimney sweep's usually a couple hundred bucks as well, and you should do that every year or two as well.

Speaker 2: [12:43] Yeah. You should also evaluate your downspouts on the exterior of the home. The downspout is what connects the gutters to the ground. So over time, stuff like wind, rain, debris, just life can knock those out of place. So you wanna just walk around the house and check to make sure that all of your downspouts are connected to the gutters, and also make sure that they're draining properly. So it's important to make sure that, you know, water's actually coming out of them, they're not clogged, but also that that water that drains out is angled away from the foundation, whether it be with some help or just the slope of the ground. You don't want any of that water coming out of the downspouts to pool around your foundation or around the siding of your home.

Speaker 1: [13:30] All right, so that's it for summer and fall. And again, we're gonna be doing winter and spring in another episode coming up, but that's it for summer and fall. The main thing I want to highlight is this does not need to be overwhelming. It's really not that hard if you just break it down. We have tried to assist in that by creating a one-page this is what you need to do each season of the year. Uh, and you can get that for free right on our website, awesomenossum.com/homemaintenance. It's easy, it's free, it just breaks it down right there. What I would do if I were you is go through your home, and then like we suggested earlier, put these things as calendar reminders so that they just pop up and you go, "Okay, I need to do that now." It's very, very simple. Thank you so much for listening. We hope this has been super helpful. Team, you guys did great. Wonderful job, everybody. Until next time, this is Christian Nossum with the Awesome Nossum Group. And thank you, team. Great work.

Speaker 4: [14:30] Bye.