Prep Your Home For Winter With Andy's Hardware!

Andy's Hardware says Fall is a great time to prep your home and landscape for the harsh Winter. These are 6 Fall chores you should never skip....

1) Clean And Sharpen Gardening Tools. There’s nothing worse than heading out to the garden shed in the spring only to find your tools rusty, broken, and useless. Avoid the heartbreak and frustration by taking the time, now, to clean and sharpen tools. Make a list of any that are broken beyond repair so you can replace them. Store your tools safely away until spring.

2) Drain and Store Garden Hoses: The plastics used in garden hoses quickly wear down over the exposure to heat and sun in the summer. Save yourself money by draining, rolling up, and storing hoses somewhere indoors; garages, greenhouses, and garden sheds are perfect. Turn off Sprinkler Systems. Leaving your sprinkler system connected will cause those pipes to burst. 

3) Remember to mulch.  Mulching involves putting cardboard or other biodegradable material such as compost around your plants to keep their roots from freezing and dying in the snow. About four inches of mulch is usually sufficient to keep most gardens safe over the course of the winter. 

4)  Winterize Windows with Caulk. Clean off any old caulking and properly seal windows closed. Clearing gutters and downspouts are a crucially important part of preparing for the rains and snows of Cleveland. Water that gets trapped in gutters and downspouts can cause damage both to your roof and the foundation of your home. Ensure that the path water takes moves away from your home and is free of obstruction. 

5) Weatherstripping helps prevent heat loss during the winter which, in turn, lowers your electricity bills. Check doors and windows to make sure weatherstripping is free of cracks or rips and doesn’t need to be replaced.

6) Clean Your gutters. Before all the leaves have turned and fallen. Also, put off this chore when the ground is wet or slippery, which makes using a ladder unsafe.

Andy's Hardware, 6658 Pearl Road, in Parma Heights is worth a look and they will help you with your Fall chores. This hardware store is absolutely packed with a little bit of everything. There's no better time to get outside and spruce up the yard and prep your home for Winter.