caring for your home during a snowstorm | Arlington Dirt Real Estate

Caring for your Home during #Snowmageddon #SnOMG #Snowzapalooza #Snowpocalypse…

February 5th, 2010 Categories: Arlington Dirt

Well if you’re in the DC metro area today, February 5, 2010 you are likely

Snow off my deck 4:30pm 2/5/10

hunkering down for what’s reported to be one of the worst storms on record. I’ve heard some reports that we are to expect 30″ of snow accumulations before all is said and done. UNBELIEVABLE – the grocery stores are cleared out, and everyone’s preparing to be in their homes for the next few days.

I just received a great email from a wonderful local builder – he builds contemporary homes with great style, so he and I get along really well!

Anyway here are some tips from him on preparing your home for this kind of weather:

1) If you have a heat pump, you’ll want to keep snow from piling up around its’ sides. Keeping at least 18” clear on all sides is recommended. If snow builds up on the sides of the heat pump it becomes more difficult for it to draw heat from the surrounding air which greatly reduces the efficiency. In the worst case, if the snow piles up too high, it can cause the unit to freeze up and it won’t provide any heat at all. Even in this case you will still have heat as there is always a backup heating element on the interior of the house, but it operates much less efficiently.

2) If you have appliance vents or air intakes, mainly for furnaces or water heaters, which exit the wall of your home and terminate near the ground you’ll want to keep snow from covering these as well. If these pipes become covered with snow the appliance will not be able to draw in the air needed for combustion or exhaust the combustion gases and will shut itself down. A worst case scenario would be the loss of heat or hot water. In most cases these pipes terminate well above the ground but in some cases they may be as low as twelve inches off the ground and an abnormally large snow event can cause a blockage.

3) The amount of snow we are expecting could cause major flooding issues in the days that follow. In order to minimize the possibility that water enters your basement it’s important to clear paths from your downspouts away from your foundation so the water that is melting off your roof will be channeled away from your foundation. You should also make sure that if you have a sump pump, the area where the pipe discharges on the outside of the house is clear and the water channels away from the house.

4) If you have doors and/or windows that are close to the ground, make sure you clear snow away from these areas as well. AREA WAYS WITH DRAINS SHOULD BE CLEARED OUT REGULARLY!

So thanks Yuri Sagatov, for providing such great advice to our local readers! Hope you’re staying warm and dry in one of your fabulous kitchens today! If I haven’t told you lately, you build really cool houses!

Happy Snow-zilla everyone!

Jennifer

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Arlington Dirt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.