Every year owners ask about the snow removal on the driveways.  Many want to only have it done when they are going to be using the house.  While a nice idea — it just doesn’t work that way.   If you don’t keep up with the snow, you won’t be able to clear it at all. 

With the temperature swings we have in Central Oregon we have a constant thaw and freeze cycle.   Each time we get any snow the roads are plowed and a berm of snow is left blocking your driveway.   Not a problem until it warms up and starts to melt and just before it melts, the temperatures drop and we get a nice block of ice.  Then nothing but a pick axe can remove the pile.  And of course each time the street is cleared (every 2 inches of snow fall) the berm gets bigger. 

Of course this same melt freeze cycle happens on the driveway and the walkways as well.  So you have a nice ice skating rink to the front door.  Now you are probably thinking — just use ice melt.  Well all studies say no!  Ice melt will eat away at the concrete or bricks and leave you with some year round damage.   So again — you just have to wait out the entire season. 

In some areas you are fined for not clearing the public walk ways and held liable for any slip and falls.  In other neighborhoods you are fined for leaving a car out on the street.  So you really have to have the driveway clear. 

Another factor is the advertisement that the house is empty.  No better way to tell what is going on traffic wise then to look and see if the snow and walkways have not been cleared. 

So please make it easier for everyone and have your walk ways, driveways and path to the garbage area cleared on a regular basis.  We clear only if it snows more then 4″.    

There is a lot of discussions that go on about if the water should be turned on or off in a home when the owners are away.   It really depends on the amount of time the house will be vacant.   

With the water off there is a possibility of seals drying out in the toilets as well as the dishwasher and the insta hot.    We recommend running dishwashers, insta hot and flushing toilets regularly. 

If you do turn the water off – don’t turn the heat off unless you have all the lines cleared.  When you turn the water off there is still water in the shower cartridges, in the area between the handles and the shower head and in the toilets to name a few.  Unless all these areas are cleared out – the heat should be kept on that the house should not be allowed to freeze.   

Installing a simple on/off switch that can be easily accessed is a great way to limit water damage.  The key is to make the switch simple to access.  Too many times the water shut off is under a house in a crawl space or under a couple of feet of snow. 

So the debate continues with no real answer.  It is all about personal preference.

A few dollars for prevention and maintenance cost or the big ticket for replacement of total failure.  At Home Fridays we are big believers in annual maintenance especially with the furnace and air conditioners.  Every year we have a few home owners that don’t want to have annual maintenance performed on their units.  Some make it through the winter with no problems – their gamble paid off.  They saved a few dollars. But at this moment, with the winter only begun we already had 3 furnaces fail (none of them had an annual maintenance).   Of course the furnaces never fail in the middle of the work day when it is warm out.   They fail on a holiday, in the evening when it is below freezing out.  In our extreme temperatures it only takes a short while to cause serious damage in the home.   Lesson to be learned — regular maintenance is a must and a much cheaper alternative!    

It is cold out – no doubt about it.  Here is what the Sunriver Homeowners Association sent out to all their owners earlier this week.

COLD weather alert for Sunriver homeownersSunriver temperatures took a drastic drop yesterday with area highs in the teens and overnight lows in the single digits. We got a few inches of very dry snow and had wind all day. The dangerously low temperatures are forecast to continue until Thursday. Link to Sunriver area forecast.If your home is unoccupied, you will want to have someone (neighbor, friend, contracted service) check on it this week, probably more than once. Here are a few ways you can help protect your home: Increase the “unoccupied” temperature setting on your heating system. Make sure to run water daily at all faucets and appliances (refrigerators/dishwashers/clothes washers, etc. – particularly those near or against outside walls. Open cabinet doors below sinks. Check the home’s foundation vents and outside faucets to make sure they have Styrofoam covers in place.The November Sunriver Scene contained an article about damage to unoccupied homes – and discussed the possibility that your homeowner’s insurance policy may not cover damage to an unoccupied home (depending upon certain conditions). Here’s a link to the November issue on our Web site. You’ll find the article on page 19.Your association Web site includes a list of contractors registered to do business in Sunriver. So if you are looking for someone to do a variety of home-related tasks – from plowing your driveway to plumbing repairs, this is a good place to start. Please note that inclusion in this list does not imply endorsement by SROA. When you consider hiring someone, you might want to check with a neighbor for a “recommendation.” SROA Registered Contractors list.

With our severe weather in Central Oregon, there is a lot of things that should be done.   Here is a partial list of what we go through at Home Fridays for all our client.

1) Winterize the sprinklers by turning off and blowing out.  If there is a water feature drain it or make sure it has a heater for running through the winter (and turn on the heater). 

2) Gutters should be cleaned out and repaired.  Leaking or packed gutters can be major problem for ice dams during winter.  Gutters falling away from the house are also a convenient place for ice to build up.  Often times plastic clips are used to attach the gutters to the house.  These clips can not stand up to our rough winters and often break.   A metal clip is a safer bet.   If you use heat tape in the gutters or on the eaves – be sure it is turned on.   

3) Foundation vents should be closed and I like to use the styrofoam blocks.  I also cover most of the outdoor faucets.  The hoses should be removed (and moved into the garage).  There are so many faucets here that are not freeze proof – and why not spend the $6 for a little piece of mind.

4)  Annual furnace inspection.  By doing this you can extend the life of your furnace by 30%!  And the amount of damage that can happen when there is no heat — well lets just say a working furnace is priceless.

5)  Fireplaces – chimney’s should be cleaned regular.  All the wood should be ordered and chopped for the year.  Make a visual inspection of the fireplace to make sure no tuckpointing is in order. 

6) Take off the screen doors and window screens and store for the winter.

7) Check garage and other areas for outside pipe exposure (such as sinks, back bathrooms, or pump houses).  Make sure there is a method to heat the area - electrical tape and space heaters are common methods.

Stake out the driveway, walk ways and path to the garbage for snow removal.  Nothing is worse then trying to find the driveway under 2 feet of snow.

9) Change the batteries in the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.   Also, thermostats should have backup batteries replaced (some of them actually shut off when the batteries go dead).

10) Fall yard clean up.  The needles should be cleaned  so the grass does not die.  Trim up the bushes and trees and make sure nothing is on the roof.  Move dirt away from the foundation – making sure it is not on the siding. 

11)  Move the paint out of the garage, making sure it is in a warm place so it won’t get ruined.

12) Move the pots to the garage if they are not freeze proof.

13) The spa should be drained if not using it or checked to make sure the motor is in good condition.  Make sure the lid is in good condition.  A hot tub can evaporate in as little as 24 hours if the lid is left (or blows) open.  So it is very important to have all the tie downs in good condition.

14) Ceiling fans can be changed to run in revers and push the warm air down. 

15) Open all the doors and cupboards getting the ambient temperature of the house consistent. 

16)  We usually turn down the water heater as well if the house is not going to be occupied.

So as you can see there are a number of items to focus on when winterizing the home.  Let Home Fridays take care of winterizing for you!

It is that time of year when the critters are anxious to become your house guests.  It is not uncommon to find the mice trying to get in or the squirrels, even the birds.  We are busy at Home Fridays making sure the houses are secure and all the animals are excluded.  We have found a few interesting guests this year on our regular home wellness visits. 

At one house a racoon has moved in under the 2nd floor deck, above the hot tub.  He has found a perfect dry warm condo.  Unfortunately he likes to tear through the garbage in his free time.  The best way to get ride of ‘Ricky’ is to exclude him from his new condo and allow him to move on to a new area.  We hope Ricky finds a nice new home.

In another home the result of poor building practices allowed the birds to get inside the dormers.  The builder had left openings between the roof and a decorative dormer.  The birds and who knows what else, wanted to move in.   Imagine my surprise when I saw a bird on the inside of the window,  pecking to get out!   Thankfully, we got the bird out and the openings closed off. 

Most recently we have been combating squirrels – in a total face off!   They had a great hole in the ground with full access to the home crawl space.  When we closed off the access, they where not happy.  They went all around the house tearing up the foam foundation inserts and faucet covers – all in an effort to find a new point of entry.  It actually looked like snow with all the torn up styrofoam.   At this point the squirrels are going to need to find a new home.

If you don’t have Home Fridays checking on your home and making sure the critters are moving in – then be sure to check yourself and exclude all those unwanted residents. 

It is that time of year when we shovel, shovel keep on shoveling the snow.  If you are inside the city limits of Bend it is the homeowner’s responsibilty to remove the snow on walkways and sidewalks around the house.  It is the owners responsibility if someone slips and falls and is injured on your property.  This law goes into affect when we have 6 inches or more of snow.  Each homeowner had 24 hours to clear the walkways and sidewalks around their home (this includes fire hidrants as well).  The fine is $165 for anyone not complying.  This also includes clearing the berm that is created when the street is cleared.   At Home Fridays we try to make sure our home owners are in compliance with the ruling.  It can be hard to keep up with the snow and still be efficient when spending money for snow removal. 

It is that time of year and the snow is falling and not stopping.  We are at 14 inches in some parts of Bend and even more in Sunriver.   Weather forecast is calling for 7-20 inches through Christmas.  So we are keeping busy at Home Fridays.  Houses need to be watched, roofs checked and of course the constant lookout for ice damns.  Poor roof design, poor insulation and sometimes even exhaust fans can cause ice damns.   It is important to keep an eye on them and sometimes have the roofer up there to clear the freeze and give the melt a path off the roof (instead of back under the tiles and into the house).  Here is a link to an interesting article from The Bend Bulliten on the subject.   During this heavy snow period we schedule regular roof inspections to keep the ice issue to a minimum.  Nothing worse then water inside!!!

I had a plumber tell me that hose bib’s do not need to be insulated earlier this week.  And then last week I had a different plumber tell me that hose bib’s should be insulated.  So who do you believe?  The bib cover costs all fo $6 – the broken hose bib can cost thousands.  I am going to choose to go with the $6 cover and put off the potential cracked or burst in the hose bib.  Last year we took care of a home that had a cracked hose bib which had been leaking inside the walls for years.  Once it was found we spent over a month in repair with the walls torn out, carpets replaced and the works.  Could the bib cover have prevented the problem – who knows.  Insurance wouldn’t cover the problem because it had obviously been going on for a very long time.  But for $6 I am more then willing to spend the dollars on prevention.  In another family I heard about, their hose bib burst and flooded into the house ruining the entire first floor.  So why not $6 for prevention and of course a weekly visit from Home Fridays to make sure everything is in order.

Lots of owners tell me stories about what awful things have happened on their homes.  One that I really hate to hear about is getting taken advantage of by greedy vendors.  I heard about a home owner who paid over $1,000 to have her roof cleared of snow.  That is really too much (unless her home is very very very large and has a flat roof)!  She was called by the neighbor who told her she needed to have the roof cleared and they had 7 guys in the driveway that could do it.    Were they roofers?  Were they licensed?  How are their references?  Who knows in an ‘urgent’ situation such as this – neighborhood  peer pressure.

What would Home Fridays do?  First we would be checking on the roof regularly (we look 2x per week to inspect the roof snow levels and ice damns during extreme weather).  We would call in a licensed qualified roofer to remove the snow.  We want the folks on the roof to be experienced with roofs, understand how roofs are built, where it is safe to walk and what needs to be cleared.  We look at what is necessary to clear.  It is almost always necessary to clear the eaves – this clears the way for snow melt and helps minimize ice damns.  Then depending on the shape, slope and ice damns we figure out what else needs to be cleared.  Many times you can get the valleys cleared, the eaves cleared and around the sky lights.   This will create a safe roof and minimize your cost.  In the clearing process we make sure the decks and other key areas are not burdened.  Some snow removal companies just do the roofs and then you end up with a deck that has over 5 feet of snow built up – which is over the structural load for the deck. 

It is hard to get these items taken care of when you are far away.  That is why it is better to have a local contact who can manage everything.  You shouldn’t find yourself in a pickle with last minute ‘urgent’ needs and at the mercy of unknown ‘guys’ clearing your roof in the seventh hour.