Is Your Home In Good Shape For The Winter Season?
Winter is here, and if you’re a homeowner, you will need to prepare your home for the cold weather. With strong winds, rain, storms, and snow all likely, we have put together our three top tips to help you get your home in good shape for the winter season.
Winter Tip 1. Maintain Warmth To Avoid Mould
A key thing to do when preparing your property for winter is to ensure it remains at a warm enough temperature to guard against dampness and the development of mould. Mould not only damages and devalues properties but can also have a negative impact on your family’s health due to allergic reactions that make respiratory problems worse. Your home should be kept at a constant temperature of 18-21 degrees celsius so that you won’t develop a damp problem.
While you’re looking at ways of keeping your home warm, bear in mind that cold air may be entering your property through your doors and windows. Use a draft excluder at your doors and hang thicker curtains to make a significant difference.
Winter Tip 2. Keep Your Home Watertight
If there’s one thing you can be sure of during the winter, it’s the fact that it will certainly rain! Ensuring your property gets rid of all the excess water effectively is essential during wet weather so make sure your guttering works as it should, and there are no gaps to cause leaks, as this could result in your property developing a damp problem. Make sure that water is draining away effectively through your drainpipes by removing any leaves, moss, twigs and winter debris.
Check your roof tiles too for any gaps. Look into your loft space and if you can see daylight shining through, arrange for someone to come and fix the problem.
Finally, ensure your water tanks and pipes are lagged. If there’s a sudden cold snap, pipes can easily burst, so ensuring they’re protected is the best way to guard against having to claim on your insurance.
Winter Tip 3. Stormproof Your Home
Storms are another common winter problem, so make sure you’ve tidied up and put away anything in your garden which could damage your property (or someone else’s) if there are high winds. Checking your roof tiles is imperative to ensure they don’t loosen and fly off during a storm.
Check whether your home is at risk of flooding. With more areas now experiencing flooding, you should check to see if your home lies in an at-risk area. You should also make sure that your home insurance is up to date and offers you sufficient protection if you need to make a claim.
Ready to move home this winter? Our team at Properly are here to help.
Take a look at our website at https://www.properly.space/ to see properties for sale or rent. Call us at 0207 459 4400 to discuss how we can help you sell, rent, or buy a property.
London Youth work to improve the lives of young people in London, challenging them to become the best they can, and last year helped over 27,000 young people through their sports development, youth action and involvement, arts and outdoor education programmes and employment prospects. We feel strongly that all young people should have an opportunity to develop themselves, and so are delighted to be able to support London Youth in their work, providing young people with access to opportunities they might not otherwise have had, to learn new skills, to make a positive change in their communities and to shape the city they live in.
Glass Door helps homeless men and women in London through their large network of emergency shelters and support services. These winter shelters provide a warm welcome, food, safety and shelter for up to 170 people every night. Properly feels passionately about the issue of homelessness. That is why we are delighted that together with our clients we can assist Glass Door in their fantastic work to help some of the most marginalised people in society.
Families become homeless for reasons we can all identify with. We are concerned about people who are struggling to keep things together in our fast-paced world – and we care about those who have no support. We chose the Doorstep Homeless Family Project because they are passionate and effective yet they are a small team with limited funding. They provide homeless families, living in temporary accommodation in London, with access to services to secure the emotional and practical support they require to enjoy a better quality of life.
We need nature and nature needs us. We support The London Wildlife Trust because we share its concern for the environment. We want to ensure that we keep nature in mind as we work in the property market – and crucially, with people’s homes. We also want our employees to engage with nature and benefit from the wellbeing this brings. London Wildlife Trust cares for over 37 of London’s spaces, and their vision is: “a London alive with nature, where everyone can experience and enjoy wildlife”.
Michael and Mariel have been very helpful from the time I contacted them on a property I was interested to rent and through the offer process. Mariel did a wonderful video call showing of the house since I was not in London at the time. I felt completely comfortable to sign the lease from the video call. Thank you Mariel!
Mariel & Michael have been amazing, very thorough, helpful and a delight to deal with, would highly recommend! Thank you both.
The service is outstanding. Mariel could not be more helpful and professional. Every individual I engaged with, was well informed and had the full history of conversations. First class service.
We did not feel rushed at all which was great as it really allowed us to really take the property in. We did put down an offer and Properly did a great job in securing a good outcome for both the sellers and ourselves.If you are looking for an agency that will do more than just open the door then look no further.
The level of customer service I received at Properly with Mariel and her team was frankly outstanding. It’s lovely when people genuinely care and go the extra mile which certainly they did. I couldn’t recommend them more highly, the most pleasurable property experience ever for me.
Both Michael and Mariel were extremely helpful with our questions going forward whether it be regarding referencing or the property itself. Definitely not the usual estate agent experience (in a good way) and I would recommend Properly to anyone.
Mariel and Michael have been absolutely great, by far my best ever experience with an estate agent. Properly is honest, upfront and friendly, responding really quickly to any and all queries and with a lovely personal touch.
I was very impressed with the service I received. Communication throughout was very good. I have dealt with many agents, but the clear, concise and personable approach I received made Properly stand out. I wouldn’t hesitate to use them again.