Fall means vibrant red, orange, and yellow foliage, pumpkins, and refreshingly cool temperatures. Alas, it also means winter isn’t far away. From looking after your exterior to maintaining your heating system, here are a few projects to help your home brace for the cold and help you save some cash.
Get Your Entry Ready for Autumn Guests
Over time, door weather seals can wear out, allowing chilly drafts to enter. Lucky for you, making your door draft-free is straightforward and far cheaper and faster than installing a new door.
Expert Insight: As TOH general contractor Tom Silva puts it: “Just like a refrigerator door needs a good seal to keep cold air in, exterior doors need a good seal to keep cold air out.” He notes that a door’s weather seals, if it has any at all, can rip, compress, bend, or wear out over time, leaving chilly winter air free to enter.
Once that’s done, enhance curb appeal with aesthetic entry upgrades like adding exterior trim, flanking the door with sconces, throwing down a doormat, and swapping entry locksets.
Tom Silva’s preferred method for sealing the bottom of an entry door requires routing a groove in the bottom edge to accept a silicone gasket that remains hidden from view. But he has also used an easier-to-install version that works just as well: a visible flange that simply screws to the bottom face of the door and keeps vinyl fins pressed tightly against the threshold. For interior doors leading to uninsulated spaces like garages or basements, Tom recommends a wood sweep that you can stain or paint to match your door, with an attached nylon brush to follow the contours of irregular flooring or carpeting.
Install and Maintain Paths and Walkways
When crossing your yard to get the paper turns into an obstacle course of slips and slides, maybe it’s time to think about an alternative path—literally. Install a brick walkway over one weekend to provide a stable surface for you and your holiday guests.
While you’re at it, check your other sidewalks and driveways for cracks. If you don’t fill the cracks now, water can seep in and freeze, making the damage spread further. Resurfacing the worn concrete now will save you a lot of time and money later.
Light the Way with Autumnal Outdoor Lanterns
With daylight hours decreasing, your outdoor lighting will become more important. Some low-voltage landscape lights along your walkways and driveways can improve safety and curb appeal simultaneously. These fixtures are also ideal for illuminating steps, trees, stone walls, fences, and other prominent features in your yards and gardens.
Another charming upgrade is a lamppost to mark the start of your driveway.
Prep your Landscape for Fall and Start Composting
“Grassroots keep growing until the ground gets down to around 40 degrees,” says landscape contractor Roger Cook, “so this is a good time to feed them.” Apply a high-phosphorus (12-25-12) mix to lawns in fall to encourage roots and get turf greens growing earlier in the spring.
The fall is also a good time to seed new lawns and start a compost pile with fallen leaves and yard waste. Pruning trees and shrubs makes them look nicer. Your flowering shrubs will thank you by giving you more blooms in the spring.
Don’t Skip Aerating: Before you fertilize or seed, core aerate your lawn. A rented gas-powered aerator removes plugs of earth 2 to 3 inches deep, relieving compaction and allowing water and nutrients to penetrate down to the roots. While those holes are open, it’s the perfect opportunity to broadcast compost across the top — it’ll work its way down and improve the soil. And timing matters: if you aerate in the spring instead, you’ll end up with nothing but a lawn full of weeds.
Build a Trash Shed in Fall to Hide Unsightly Containers
Nothing mucks up your home’s holiday season curb appeal more than a bunch of beat-up trash cans and overflowing recycling bins scattered next to the side door. Build something to conceal them a little better. You can even paint it to match your home’s exterior if you’d like.
By following our instructions to build a sturdy storage house, you’ll have the space to hide two 32-gallon trash cans and a few stacked recycling bins. Flip-open lids give you easy access to toss something in the right place. When it’s garbage day, open the bifold front doors to move the trash cans out and to your curb.
This Old House has a long history with trash shed projects. When the Guinees—homeowners on the Salem, Massachusetts, project—needed to manage their family’s output of five people generating over three tons of garbage per year, Norm Abram designed a custom shed along a fence near their back door. As Norm explained: “I’d just built a large storage shed for a New Yankee Workshop project, so I had some design features in mind when the Guinees asked about a trash shed for their yard.” Kevin O’Connor suggested adding a shelf along the inside back wall for garden tools, turning the shed into double-duty storage.
Put Light Where You Need it with a Garage Floodlight
In the fall and winter, it’ll probably be long dark outside when you’re taking the trash out after dinner. A motion-sensor garage floodlight can guide you to the trash can and stop intruders in their tracks. It can also welcome you and your guests home if it’s placed near a garage or entryway door.
Speaking of garages, it’s a good time to tidy them up, too. In the summer, you moved yard tools and pool accessories in and out, but now, make some space to put the car inside. Make a garage storage plan and build a workbench to store tools if you have the space. Coat the stained concrete with epoxy to resist oil stains and bead water.
TOH Tip: While you’re in the garage, fuel up the snowblower so you’re not caught with low fuel when snow comes. You can also put your lawnmower to bed with a tune-up to work like new in the springtime.
An antiskid epoxy floor coating resists oil stains and wipes clean as easily as a kitchen countertop — plus color chips and paint disguise any slab imperfections. Plan to tackle the project when you’ll have a few days of temperate, 50- to 80-degree weather for adequate drying time. The key to success is diligent prep work, namely a clean, dry slab.
Freeze-proof Your Exterior Faucets in Fall
Even the most intrepid do-it-yourselfer shudders at the thought of a burst water pipe. If you don’t immediately notice it, the cleanup can be both expensive and time-consuming.
Your outdoor hose faucet is the most susceptible pipe to bursting in cold weather. It’s also one of the easiest to protect. Disconnect the drain your hose, then replace the faucet with a freeze-proof model. You can do it yourself in just a few hours.
Here’s why a freeze-proof faucet works: A standard hose faucet has its washer and valve seat located outside the house’s exterior wall, leaving water exposed to freezing temperatures. A freeze-proof faucet, available in lengths from 4 to 24 inches, extends back through the wall so its valve seat sits safely inside the heated house. When the faucet is off, there’s no water left in the portion of pipe exposed to the cold. Choose a length based on how thick your foundation wall is — they typically come in two-inch increments.
Pro Tip: Richard Trethewey, TOH plumbing and heating contractor, warns: “The exciting day isn’t the day it freezes. It’s the day it thaws, and you have a hydrant blowing water into your basement.”
Build a Mudroom Bench with Storage for Autumn Guests
Fall means back to school. Create a stopping area just inside the entry where everyone can leave the weather and dirt from their day behind. Build a mudroom bench that’s the perfect catchall, complete with an open-top shelf, coat hooks, and flip-top bench storage. You can also add a hose-down area, space to hold trash and recycling, and more.
Maintain Your Washer and Dryer in Fall
Washers and dryers aren’t as innocent as they seem. Left unattended, a burst washing machine hose can spill hundreds of gallons of water per hour. We don’t want to know how much that adds to a water bill.
Luckily, you can replace a washer’s old rubber hoses with steel-jacketed ones that can’t split open. Electronic valves can also control the flow so water only runs through during an active cycle. If their sensors detect a leak, they stop the water automatically and let you know.
Likewise, a dryer can burst into flames if lint builds up inside the machine or the ducts out of your home. To stop that from happening, hire a professional vent cleaner to do the dirty work for you. You can also discard a flimsy, flammable vinyl duct and replace it with metal.
Drape Away Autumn Drafts
Even after you’ve weather-stripped and caulked your windows, they can still be drafty. Blinds, shades, and curtains can be another line of defense against the chills.
The right window treatments will help you keep some portion of the estimated 10 to 30 percent of heat lost through windows in wintertime. They’ll also help you control the natural light in your spaces better.
Layer Up for Maximum Savings: Cellular shades can reduce heat loss by up to 31 percent when installed correctly, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Hang them inside the window frame, about a half-inch from the glass, with gaps of only a quarter-inch on either side. Raise and lower them with the sun to take advantage of solar heat gain, and wipe down any condensation that forms overnight.
Give Your Fireplace a Facelift for Fall
Chipped bricks, a stained hearth, and years of accumulated soot can turn what should be the focal point of a living room into an eyesore. Replacing a hearth and surround—with seamless stone slabs or with stone or ceramic tiles—makes a big difference in a fireplace’s appearance. Take a look at our eight steps to giving your fireplace a facelift. For added safety, add glass fireplace doors.
Adding an insert is a smart investment that’s a pure win—it’ll keep you warm and slash your heating bills simultaneously. Complete this energy-efficient upgrade before December 31, and you’ll score yourself a tax credit from Uncle Sam.
TOH Tip: The National Fire Protection Association recommends getting chimneys swept at least once a year at the beginning of the winter to remove soot and debris. Find a certified sweep in your area via the Chimney Safety Institute of America.
Add Warmth Underfoot with Cork or Carpet for Chilly Fall Evenings
Nothing’s worse than waking up to the icy shock of a cold floor. Cork floors are resilient and durable without compromising on earthy style. Adding them can turn any cool room into a cozy haven.
If cork isn’t your thing, traditional carpets can be just as effective. Here’s how to install wall-to-wall carpeting yourself with professional results.
Create an Efficient Autumnal Home Office
Few people today would remodel a house without making room for a home office. Chalk it up to the spike in part- and full-time telecommuting, after-hours e-mailing, and an effort to keep the Internet out of kids’ rooms.
Whether it’s a bare minimum desk off the kitchen or a full-blown study with custom cabinets, multiple work surfaces, and extensive file storage, here’s how to create a workstation that’ll work for you.
For added storage in your workspace, build a bookcase or put up wall-mounted shelves.
Get Your Heating System Serviced in Fall
Before the chill sets in, make an appointment for your furnace’s annual checkup. Without this yearly cleaning and inspection, a system can wear itself out quickly, pump deadly carbon monoxide into your home, or simply stop working.
If you have forced-air heating, don’t forget to change the furnace filter. You’ll notice a difference in the air quality, and your furnace will run more efficiently.
