Hey, welcome to the U .S. The Pros Answer Podcast. Your questions answered by the

pros you trust presented by pro exteriors. Do you feel that? Yeah,

that's the season's changing. It's getting colder outside. I got my knit hat on. I'm

sitting indoors. I don't know where I'm wearing it inside. Anyway, last week, you

heard the first half of a conversation I had with Aaron Rogers where I was

peppering him with questions all about how to prepare my home, your home for the

winter months. Today we're going to finish that conversation. We're going to hop in

where I ask Aaron how we can be looking out for our home siding. And then we're

going to go inside. We're going to talk about the HVAC attic and crawl space and a

couple of other areas of your house. So let's hop into this conversation that's

already in progress that I had with Aaron Rogers. Let's move to what makes up the

side of our house. So whether it be the vinyl siding or brick or whatever is along

the side of our house. What are some of those things that we ought to be looking

for before it gets too cold out? Yeah. So kind of similar to the roof, you know,

doing a full walk around to your house and, you know, do you have any broken

siding? Do you have any holes in your Um, you know, if you have shutters on your

home or are the shutters, you know, properly affixed, uh, you know, do you have any

siding that's kind of pulled out? Um, if you see anything kind of that doesn't look

right on the siding, it typically the easiest thing to do is look for brown

staining. The plywood we have is has, has fermata hot in it, which is the glue

that's used to kind of put the plywood together. If it gets wet, it turns brown.

So if you have siding and you have brown stains on your siding. It's kind of a

red flag. This is a great time to kind of inspect and figure out exactly what's

going on. Again, siding butts up to the corners. It butts up to your socket. It

butts up to your windows. It butts up to your doors. They all kind of act as one

big ecosystem. So while you're inspecting one, 100 % spec the other. But yeah,

siding's not quite as important. Most people don't realize that, excuse siding is is

water resistant not waterproof so it is 100 % normal for rain and things to get

behind your siding depending on what type you have but when it gets behind there

you do have house wrap so the house wrap is really your your last line of defense

um so trying to keep as much moisture out from the house wrap is crucial with your

siding some stuff's going to get back there no matter what so Um, so yeah, just

looking for the same thing. You're looking for missing pieces, broken pieces, um,

pieces that aren't, you know, fully locked in before the wind gets to them. Um, I

will tell you that if you have vinyl siding on your house,

vinyl siding and cold weather don't mix, you know, in the summertime, we can pull

on your vinyl siding all day. We can, you know, twerk it in every single direction

and it's not going to, it's not going to have any issues in the wintertime, uh,

vinyl siding snaps really, really easily. So if you call me for a repair and we

come out there and we're pulling a piece off in order to do a simple repair and

another piece breaks, like that repair is going to expand and it's just going to

cost you more money.

But yeah, our winds tend to be pretty harsh here in the wintertime. This is a

great time to kind of make sure everything's nice and tight. So you don't have to

deal that in the winter. It's fall, good time to power wash it as well or is it

best to do that earlier in the or summer months or so realistically you can you

can power wash either time you know most people power wash once a year you know

even if your house is brand new the the green algae and stuff will kind of get a

few months and that's all it really takes for that stuff to build up oh that yeah

i'm Yeah. Perfect example. We have white siding on our house and with all the

construction going on. Yeah. It's already a mess. Yep. So it doesn't take long for

that stuff to grow.

And same thing with your roof like, you know, the black algae that kind of grows

on your roof.

Unfortunately, you either have it or you don't. I've seen 25 -year -old roofs that

look like they're brand new, no algae whatsoever. And I've seen two -year -old roofs

that look like they're completely black from the algae and the mold and stuff. So.

So let's move to some of the other, we've kind of hit the big,

big items. But I want to talk a little bit about hose bibs.

I talked at the outset of this episode about the plumbing for outdoor showers.

This time of year specifically, we have these huge temperature swings where it's 40

degrees in the morning. It's 75 in the afternoon yeah when do you i guess there's

no hard and fast rule but when do you shut those hose bibs off for the winter so

or do you i i usually say uh first frost okay so um you know farmer's almanac is

always usually pretty accurate as far as like telling you roughly when your first

frost will be um by that point your temperatures are already low enough consistently

that you're probably not using your outdoor shower you're probably not using your

pool and you know your hot tub's not really the same issue because it's hot water

but yeah if you're not using your outdoor shower consistently just shut the water

off and blow the lines out okay um yeah so you you talked about the shower valve

is ultimately what ended up breaking with your outdoor shower because the water sits

in there and and that doesn't drain out naturally um so this is a great time to

basically pull the shower head off and you can actually put an air hose in there

and clean the line out that way. I know down at the beach, we have a lot of

beach houses down here that are vacant the entire winter. And that's always one of

the things that we suggest is actually physically putting an airline on there,

blowing the lines out to make sure all the water's out. If you have PVC pipe,

especially if you have PVC pipe that comes out to your outdoor shower, that stuff

is super brittle in the wintertime. It does not take much for it to crack.

So Um, so yeah, so if exterior hose bibs, if you want access to your hose bib for

the entire winter, uh, they make these little booties. So you can get them at

Lozenum Depot. I think they're, you know, five, six, seven bucks. Uh, you can just

go on there and they basically put a little clip on that you pull the little

string type and it keeps them nice and insulated over the wintertime. Um, drier

vents. Same thing. Great time to put, uh, cages over your dryer vents if you don't

already have one. Again, it's cold outside squirrels raccoons all those things they

want to get inside you've got that hot air that good air that's what they want um

and they will go through some pretty extreme um some pretty extreme measures to get

inside your home if they feel that hot air um but yeah blow the lines out you

know turn things off shut the water off insulate which you can insulate um you know

it used to be when our homes weren't quite as condition as they were now used to

i don't know if you ever remember this cold we're not we're not terribly far off

in age but uh if you ever remember shutting the foundation vents you know most

block foundations have foundation vents um used to open and shut them winter and

fall or winter and spring uh so i don't know if you've ever had to experience that

but um but yeah you know shutting that down keeping your crawl space you know

warmer in warmer in the wintertime and allow the kind of the breeze to go through

there in the summertime but yeah it's a great time to do that as well cool deck

maintenance so let's say we don't have composite decking or like a cap composite

thing we have pressure treated lumber is it best to to clean it and do some kind

of a stain or weather seal in the fall or is it best to wait and do that after

the winter and do it in the springtime or is it kind of like power washing your

house do it whatever it seems like so with with the deck maintenance i would say

spring is the better time to do so you know if you if you have a wood deck that

has to be painted or stained um doing that as the temperatures are rising will give

you a better final product and we'll make sure that um not only does the actual

stuff you're putting on the top, you know, soak in and actually do its job

properly. But, you know, you want your wood decking to be as dry as it can

possibly be. And like you talked about in the fall, we have kind of these really

inconsistent temperatures where, you know, we did have a day. I think it was 49 the

other morning when I woke up. And then that same day, it was 81 as a high during

the day. So those extreme temperature fluctuations do put you in a situation where

that moisture will not really 100 % dry. So if you power washer during the day, you

know, it's going to take consistent, say, 60, 70 degree temperatures, you know, with

no additional moisture or anything over the next week to even come close to kind of

get in the moisture content of that wood to where you want it to be. So, yeah. So

I always recommend doing that in the spring. Do it, do it when, you know, at the

harshest time of the season for the exterior for coatings and stuff like that is

when the sun is at its worst, which is during the summer. Those UV rays really

cook the stain and the paint and all that stuff. So I would highly suggest,

you know, power washing, ceiling standing, all that stuff is better to do that in

the spring. If worse comes to worse, if you forget to do it in the spring or

let's say you bought the house over the summer and you know it needs to be done,

try to do it in the summer if you have to do it in the fall just do it you

know look at the weather do it when you have the best overnight temperatures to try

and keep that moisture content as low as you possibly can

i want to play this clip back for for my wife at dawn because i think our deck

needs something but maybe i can play this back and get a few more months until i

have to do it um All right. We're almost down to the ground. I want to talk HVAC

for a little bit. So many of us have heat pumps on the outside of our house.

Anything that we ought to be doing. I know we need to be changing our air filters.

I was told when I moved in here, we need to be changing it every month. But

that's just because it's brand new construction. But I'm assuming that's all going to

depend on the system you have. Yeah. So you have some systems that have filters

that are, you know, if you have a one inch thick filter you're going to replace it

every month if you have uh you know they make filters that are say two and a half

three inches even up to four inches i think is the thickest i've ever seen you

know those aren't quite as um they're not quite as cheap they don't need to replace

quite as often but yeah if you've got you know the standard little one inch air

filters i would say the maximum you're going to get out of those is three months

uh if you don't replace them every month or every three months you're going to put

yourself in a situation where especially if you have pets you're going to have so

much hair and dander that build up on that filter um that it's not really going to

filter much so yeah and in most situations work harder yeah and to be honest with

you like depending on where your system is if you have easy access to it if it's

in your garage where you park every day or if it's in your basement where you

literally you know you put a 12 pack next to it and once a month you go out

there and you do the thing So if it's easy for you, then do it once a month.

That's the best, that's the best maintenance you can do to your HVAC system to keep

it, you know, running smoothly. The issue you run into with filters is if they get

clogged up, if they get jammed up, the airflow ultimately makes the system work

harder. And if the system works harder, parts don't last as long. So, you know,

your blower motors can go, your thermostats can go. Your solenoids can all blow. And

in certain situations, you can kind of put yourself in this, you know, motherboards

could be bad. There's just a lot. So it's, you know, I think those filters are you

can buy a 12 pack for like 150 bucks. It's a very, very, very small price to pay

to if you have access to it. So. Yeah. And the winter months are not when you

want your, your system to fail value. Correct. Because then you end up with,

yeah, frozen pipes and frozen family members. Yep. What about like a heat pump

outside? Is there anything you need to do?

I mean, those things seem pretty resilient even with snow that, you know, yeah. I

mean, they're pretty much meant to be outside, you know, year round. That's the

expectation. So, you know, small things, uh, Cleaning them off,

you know, making sure that, you know, if you cut grass around your unit all the

time and the grass gets blown up, you know, that stuff can build up, you know,

doing something as simple as just hosing it off. Keeping it nice and clean is going

to give you your longevity out of the system. You know, look down into it. You

have a bunch of debris that's building up on the inside. You know, I wouldn't

suggest pulling it open and cleaning that out yourself. But, you know, if you see

that stuff building up on the inside of your unit then definitely call somebody out

and have them come out there and fix it up for you uh and then stuff like you

know your line set that goes from inside your house to your unit itself you know

most of that's going to have a little uh like a black plastic um insulation

covering on it uh if you see that getting dry rotter or you see a piece got

chipped off or you know rodents decided to chew on and use it for their homes um

now's a great time to get that little stuff fixed up uh you just want that stuff

to be as tight as you possibly can again it all comes down to saving you money in

the long run by keeping your units working out like its maximum efficiency yeah are

there so we we started at the roof and we've kind of worked our way down are

there any other uh nuggets of wisdom that you have as far as think like think

about your property what are some of the things that maybe you do this time a year

to prepare for the winter months, things you'd rather do now than, you know, in the

day of winter? I mean, based upon everything we've talked about, I would say kind

of the last thing would be your cross space and your attic. You know,

it's two areas that you don't typically, you know, you don't explore those spaces

that often. If you have a cross you know you most likely um you're going to have

one of two scenarios you're going to have a condition cross space where the walls

are insulated and you don't have any insulation in the in the floor joists above

you um or you have a non -conditioned cross space where you're probably going to

have that insulation above you um if you have insulation in the floor joys the

wintertime is when that stuff comes in you know that that's when it's most important

so it's always good to kind of poke your head underneath there if you feel

comfortable enough to kind of walk around or or crawl around or roll around whatever

you feel the need to do uh now's a great time to get underneath there and just

make sure everything's tight again sometimes you know the the little we call them

stays the little insulation stays are literally just pieces of a wire that you put

up there and it just kind of holds it in um in kind of a compression state uh if

you see a piece falling down most likely it's just because as you walked around and

bounced that little piece of wire just kind of fell. So now's a great time to get

underneath there and do any little maintenance like that. Same way with your attic

space, you know, if you have blown in insulation or bad insulation, get up there

and just make sure everything's nice and tight. See if you have any areas that you

feel like the insulation is lower in some areas or, you know, for bad insulation,

if it gets compressed over time, something falls on you know insulation your r

values there's our values only maintain that certain level if the insulation is

installed properly so you know if that insulation is supposed to be this thick and

i guess put down to this you went from like an r20 to an r10 so excuse me

i know there's uh such thing as baffles up in the eaves like in your attic yes if

you see daylight is that necessarily a bad thing or is that part of the design of

the house to allow it to ventilate yeah that's part of the design so if you're in

your attic space and you know you look down into your soffets um if you see

daylight coming through there then that means it's proper uh sometimes if you when

you have soffat baffles in there the way it's supposed to be done is you know the

baffle kind of goes from your softed area up above your insulation. The installation

should be tight there. You don't want airflow just free flowing through there. Okay.

So yeah. Cool.

All right. So Aaron, really the theme that I hear you sharing throughout this is

don't put off the things that need to be done. You're going to save a whole lot

of money, a whole lot of headaches if you get on top of it. And really all it

takes is, is wandering around your property, accessing places that you don't look

every day. And then if you don't feel comfortable or if you physically can't do it,

call on somebody who can. Yep. All right. I hope you feel more prepared now for

the winter months than you did before this episode started. That is all we have for

you today on the US The Pros Answer podcast. To everyone who's been sharing the

word about the show, thank you. Continue to do so. Would you please rate us on

Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or simply tell a friend? Also, if you are watching

this on YouTube, please be sure to hit that like button and subscribe to the

channel. Also, before I forget, happy Thanksgiving. Next week, we are taking the week

off because it's Thanksgiving. But we'll be back the following week with another

episode. If you are facing an upcoming home improvement project or just trying to

get your house ready for the colder months, we hope episodes like this help empower

you to tackle it with confidence. Remember, knowledge is power and a little bit of

research can go a long way. Until next time, happy home earning. The U .S.

The Proz Answer podcast is produced in -house by the Pro Exteriors team. Pro

Exteriors is the exterior contract and division of Empire Construction Group LLC.

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