Finally, in most corners of the country, the last vestiges of winter are melting away, and spring is just beginning to give way to the summer season. Summer is the time of year when you can truly enjoy all areas of your property, as the warm sunshine and cool breeze combine to make your spaces feel comfortable and fun.
Yet, after more than half a year of cold weather and vicious precipitation, your home might not be in tip-top shape for the summer season. If you want to take full advantage of the warmth and light in the upcoming months, you might plan to complete a few of the following simple maintenance and improvement projects before June.
Pressure Wash Your Exterior
During cold and wet seasons, moisture seeps into all sorts of materials around the exterior of your home; then, when temperatures warm, mildew and other unsightly growths can stain your exterior surfaces in unsightly colors while generating an unappealing smell. Fortunately, most exterior materials can be pressure washed to remove mildew as well as any other type of unpleasant grime that is difficult to remove.
You can rent a pressure washer from your local home improvement store, but you would be wise to learn how to use the tool from someone with more experience. Though pressure washers use only water, no harsh solvents, the intense pressure of the water can cause damage to softer materials when applied improperly. You should be careful when directing the spray of the water and prepare your surfaces and materials properly to protect your home’s exterior from harm.
Fill Concrete Cracks
Concrete and other hardscaping will crack over time, and during the cold season, those cracks are apt to widen during freezing and thawing cycles. When cracks become large enough, they not only look unattractive but they can negatively impact the function of your surfaces, becoming trip hazards or introducing a space for weeds.
Every summer season, you should inspect your concrete for new cracks and work quickly to fill them to prevent them from becoming more difficult (and more expensive) to fix. For cracks that are less than 1/8-inch wide, you can use epoxy compounds and latex patching materials found in home improvement stores, but for larger cracks, you may need to use a mortar mix or even chip out some of the concrete to repour patches.
Trim Outdoor Greenery
Most outdoor plants go dormant during the cold seasons because they cannot take in enough nutrients to grow. However, by the end of spring, most plants have returned back to life — but rarely in a neat and orderly manner. Domesticated plants used in residential landscaping tend to benefit from pruning during certain stages of growth, which can help the plants concentrate their nutrients and remain healthier and stronger year-round. The end of spring and beginning of summer is a good time to prune because the plants are alive and growing but likely out of their flowering stage, so they have plenty of energy to heal any cuts you make to their branches. You might look up pruning techniques for specific plants in your yard, but in general, you should avoid removing more than one-third of any one plant’s wood in a single session.
Install Ceiling Fans
Ceiling fans are some of the most energy efficient fixtures you can place in your home. In warm seasons, like summer, the air circulation they provide makes spaces feel up to four degrees cooler, which can drastically lower your energy bill inside and make your outside living spaces usable all day long. In rooms with shorter ceilings, you can use small, low-profile ceiling fans to achieve the same effect.
Installing a ceiling fan is easiest if you already have a light fixture in your ceiling. You can cut a hole to accommodate a ceiling fan mounting bracket, onto which your fan will affix and through which wires will run to supply power. If you do not already have a light fixture in the space where you will hang a fan, you will need to run wiring from the nearest outlet — which might be a job better suited for an electrician, unless you feel comfortable and confident working with your home’s electrical system.
You want to make the most of your summer season, and that means thinking critically about the maintenance tasks that take advantage of the good weather. The above chores are best done at the start of the warm months, so you might want to make space in your schedule for them soon.
