Winterproofing a Home

There is an entire category of household maintenance no South African has ever done, because South African houses never have to survive months of freezing. Canadian homes do, and the preparation happens in autumn, on a checklist, while the weather is still pleasant. Skip it and the consequence is not discomfort but burst pipes, ice damage and a very expensive January.

The mental shift

Back home, winter maintenance means checking the geyser and maybe clearing the gutters, because nothing freezes. In Canada, water is the enemy: it expands when it freezes, and a house is full of water in pipes, gutters, downpipes and snow sitting on the roof. Almost every winter home disaster is water finding somewhere to freeze that it should not have been. The second shift is timing — everyone does the same jobs in the same few weeks of autumn, and by the first hard freeze the plumbers and heating technicians are booked out.

If you are renting, read your lease and your provincial tenancy rules first. Responsibility for heating, snow clearing and seasonal maintenance splits differently by province and by lease, and settling it in writing at the start saves an argument in January. Provincial tenancy boards publish the rules where you live.

Draughts and the cheap wins

Start here, because it costs least and you feel it immediately. On a windy day, walk the house with the back of your hand out — around doors, window frames, letterboxes, loft hatches and where pipes enter walls. Anywhere you feel moving air is costing you heat all winter.

• Weatherstripping around door and window frames, replaced when it has gone hard and flat.
• A door sweep at the bottom of exterior doors. That gap is usually the biggest single leak in a house.
• Caulking around window frames and exterior penetrations, applied before the cold — most sealants need a reasonable temperature to cure.
• Window film kits — plastic sheeting taped over the inside of a window and shrunk tight with a hairdryer. It looks like a student's solution and works well on old windows.

The bigger-ticket item is attic insulation, where most heat escapes. Many provinces and utilities run energy-efficiency rebates for insulation and heating upgrades — check with your provincial energy authority or utility before paying for work.

Outdoor taps and pipes: the one that floods houses

This is the job newcomers most often skip and the one with the worst consequences. Water left in an outdoor tap or the pipe behind it freezes, expands and splits the pipe. You do not find out in January, because the ice plugs the hole. You find out in the first thaw, when the water pours into the wall or the basement.

The autumn routine: disconnect and drain every garden hose and store it inside — a hose left attached traps water in the tap and is the most common cause. Then find the interior shut-off valve for each outdoor tap, usually in the basement, close it, and open the outdoor tap to drain. Leave it open all winter. Frost-free hose bibs behave differently and mainly require the hose be disconnected — ask a plumber which type you have, once, and you will know for life.

Related tasks: drain any irrigation system, and make sure everyone old enough knows where the main water shut-off is and how to close it — in a burst-pipe emergency the difference between thirty seconds and ten minutes is measured in ruined flooring. Pipes running through a crawl space, an uninsulated garage or an exterior wall are the vulnerable ones, and insulation sleeves are cheap.

One more thing: if you leave the country in winter, do not turn the heat off. Leave it low but on, have someone check the house, and read your insurance policy — insurers commonly have requirements about heating and inspection of a vacant home, and a claim can turn on it.

Gutters, roofs and ice dams

Clear the gutters and downpipes in late autumn, once the leaves have finished falling. Blocked gutters fill with water, the water freezes, and the ice pulls the guttering off the house. Make sure downpipes discharge well away from the foundation and not onto a path that will become an ice rink. While you are looking up, check the roof and trim branches that could come down under ice load.

Ice dams are the phenomenon nobody arrives understanding. Heat escaping a poorly insulated attic warms the underside of the roof and melts the snow on it. That meltwater runs to the cold overhang at the roof's edge, refreezes and builds a ridge of ice — and water then backs up behind it, under the shingles and into your ceilings.

Chipping the ice off with a hammer damages the roof and is dangerous on a winter ladder. The real fixes are upstream: attic insulation so the roof stays cold, attic ventilation, and sealing air leaks into the attic. A roof rake used from the ground pulls snow off the lower edge before a dam forms. Those picturesque icicles are the signal.

Snow clearing is a legal duty, not a chore

In most Canadian municipalities, the owner or occupier of a property must by bylaw clear the public pavement in front of it within a set period after a snowfall, and keep it reasonably safe. The requirement varies — find yours and read it, because the fines are real and so is your liability if someone falls. Practical preparation:

• Buy the shovel in autumn. Hardware shops sell out during the first storm. A lighter shovel saves your back; many people keep one at the door and one in the car.
• Decide about a snow blower or a clearing service early. Seasonal contracts book up, and for an older household or a long driveway this is money well spent.
• Stock ice melt or sand by the door and treat before the ice forms. Know what your product does — some damage concrete, harm plants and irritate dogs' paws, while plain sand gives traction without chemistry.
• Watch your heart. Shovelling heavy wet snow is strenuous work in cold air, and anyone with cardiac risk should talk to a doctor rather than finding out the hard way.

Also: never pile snow against the house, keep the gas meter and all exhaust vents clear, and keep the nearby fire hydrant visible.

The furnace, the filters and the alarms

Whatever heats your house — furnace, boiler, heat pump, electric baseboards — should be serviced before the season by a qualified technician, booked ahead of the rush. A wood stove or fireplace needs inspection and chimney cleaning before first use, and your insurer may have its own requirements about wood-burning appliances.

The filter on a forced-air system is the item homeowners forget for years. A clogged filter reduces airflow and makes the system work harder for less heat. Learn where it is, learn the size, and change it on a schedule through the season.

Carbon monoxide detectors are a genuine life-safety matter in a country where houses are sealed tight and heated by combustion. The gas is colourless and odourless and the symptoms resemble flu. Detectors are required by law in many Canadian jurisdictions, with rules about placement — check your local requirement, install and test them, and change the batteries on a date you will remember. The same goes for smoke alarms, and if you are renting, confirm they work at move-in and report it in writing if they do not.

Humidity: too dry and too wet

Heated Canadian air in winter is extremely dry, and you will notice: static shocks off every door handle, cracked lips, nosebleeds, dry skin, creaking floors. Many households run a humidifier, and some heating systems have one built in. The opposite failure is more damaging. Too much indoor humidity condenses on the coldest surfaces — window glass and frames, exterior wall corners, unheated cupboards — and that condensation grows mould. Water running down the inside of your windows is a signal, not a nuisance. The balance is managed by ventilating rather than sealing: run the bathroom fan during and after showers and the cooker hood while cooking, avoid drying laundry on indoor racks all winter, and if the house has a heat recovery ventilator, learn what it does and use it. A cheap humidity gauge tells you which problem you have, and the right winter level is lower than most people assume — it drops as the outside temperature drops, precisely to stop condensation.

The power-cut kit

South Africans arrive as world experts in power cuts, which genuinely helps — but Canadian outages are a different animal. They are unscheduled, caused by ice storms and wind bringing down lines, they can last days, and they happen while the house is losing heat fast. Load-shedding taught you to keep torches charged; winter storms require more.

A warning on generators, because South Africans are likelier than most to buy one: petrol generators and fuel-burning heaters produce carbon monoxide and must never run inside a house, garage or basement, or near a window or air intake. Every winter this kills people. Have backup power installed and vented by a professional.

The short version

Do the work in autumn, before the trades are booked out and the ground freezes. Disconnect the hoses and drain the outside taps — that one job prevents the most expensive failure. Clear the gutters, seal the draughts, and fix ice dams with attic insulation rather than a hammer. Service the heating, change the filter, check the carbon monoxide detectors. Learn your municipality's snow-clearing bylaw and buy the shovel early. None of it is difficult; all of it is unfamiliar. Every Canadian household simply learned it, and by your third autumn so will you.