For South Carolina homeowners, preparing your home for winter might appear intricate, particularly if you’re new to the process. Follow these guidelines to ensure your residence is ready for potential snow, sleet, or hail – ideally, well in advance of their arrival.

1. Inspect your roof

Your roof gets a lot of battering from Mother Nature. Inspect any issues and fix them before winter arrives.

2. Clear your gutters

Full gutters and a rain or snowstorm add up to a really great way to damage your roof.

3. Check windows, doors, and vents for air leaks 

If your house feels drafty or uncomfortably cold during winter, it’s often due to insufficient sealing around windows, doors, or air vents.

4. Add storm doors

Adding a storm door acts as a barrier against the cold outdoors. Although they can be costly, storm doors are highly effective in preventing drafts and air infiltration through your main entrance.

5. Caulk and weather-strip 

Once you have an idea of where the drafts are around your windows and doors, one way to postpone replacing the window or door is by reinforcing the caulking or adding weather-stripping.

6. Clean (and consider sealing) your chimney

If you have a chimney connected to a fireplace, then cleaning it out before winter can improve the air flow throughout your entire home; on the other hand, you may want to seal it to prevent drafts. 

7. Flush your water heater

Water heaters can accumulate sediment over time, and the sediment can interfere with the heater’s operation.

8. Change your furnace filters

When was the last time you replaced your furnace filter? Most furnace filters should be replaced at least twice a year, and some of them as often as six times a year.

9. Drain and store any window air conditioning units

Unplug the unit, drain it (there will be water inside it), and stash it in a storage space until you’re ready to re-install it next spring.

10. Reverse your ceiling fans 

You may have learned in science class that hot air rises. Take advantage of that fact in the wintertime by reversing your ceiling fans, if you have them, so that they spin the opposite direction.

11. Change your thermostat (and keep it there)

Keep your house at more or less the same temperature throughout the winter. Big fluctuations up and down increase the chance that you might experience a problem like a pipe freezing.

12. Increase your insulation

If you’re starting the winterizing process early enough, it might be a good idea to assess your current level of insulation and beef it up if you think it’s inadequate.

13. Insulate your pipes and/or your water heater

One way to increase your home’s efficiency and keep pipes from freezing is to insulate them. This can be a smart thing to do for pipes that travel along outside walls if your house isn’t well-insulated and the winters are very cold in your area.

14. Protect your plants

Even some perennial bulbs are so sensitive to the cold that you need to dig them up and bring them inside in the wintertime or they’ll die. Do a little bit of research around what the plants in your garden prefer, and then treat them accordingly.

15. Prep your pipes and blow out your sprinkler system

In areas where winter temperatures are typically below freezing, there’s a risk of frozen pipes. If you have a sprinkler system and the winters are cold where you live, it’s a good idea to get it blown out with air in the wintertime so there’s nothing in the pipes to freeze.

16. Drain and store garden hoses

Like pipes, garden hoses with water inside them can freeze and burst. When you’re finished with the garden hoses for the season, disconnect them, drain them, and store them somewhere safe.

17. Check your toolbox

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