Action plan for preparing summer cottages for winter

Action plan

To keep your property and suburban buildings safe and sound, it is not enough just to put things in order in the rooms and hang a huge padlock on the door of the house. At the dacha, a lot of other worries await you: you need to prepare the land on the site for winter, protect bushes and fruit trees from rodents, and plant winter crops. A garden house requires special attention, which requires careful preparation for wintering.

Thinking about how to prepare your summer cottage for the coming winter, all work can be conditionally divided into internal and external.

Internal work

The optimal work plan for the house:

1. Putting things in order in the premises, carrying out wet cleaning.
2. Checking the windows. We carefully close them, if necessary, seal the cracks and seal them from drafts.
3. Big washing. Remember to wash all textiles, including bedspreads, curtains, and bedding.
4. Protection from moths. Place special tablets in dressers and cabinets, especially if you store woolen items.
5. We wash the dishes. We thoroughly clean all kitchen utensils, hide them in boxes if possible.
6. We protect furniture. We cover it with foil or special protective covers.
7. We prepare electrical appliances. We disconnect them from the power supply, wipe them from dust. If there is such an opportunity, we take them out of the country house, since there is a high probability of their failure due to dampness.
8. We remove or pour products with a long shelf life into airtight containers: pasta, cereals, sugar.
9. We protect the house from rodents - we spread wormwood branches in the rooms.

The more attractive your site and the house looks from the outside, the more the temptation to visit it will cause potential uninvited guests. The winter months are especially dangerous for summer cottages, even for those located in the Moscow region, since it is at this time that the number of thefts increases. But even the loss of property is not the main danger. Sometimes, as a result of the visit of thieves, you can completely lose your country house. Therefore, if the installation of an alarm or payment for the watchman's work is not yet included in your plans, insure your property against theft and accident. The most valuable things can be hidden by first organizing a special cache.

If not all construction work is finished yet, and you have a stock of any building materials (wooden beams or bricks), try to hide them away from prying eyes.

If your house has a cellar, then it must be cleaned and disinfected. Even if this room is not used for storing the crop, it still needs to be prepared for winter, since most problems with the house begin with the cellar.

Be sure to think about whether you plan to come to the dacha during the winter months. If the walls of the house are reliably insulated and a heating system is provided, a short-term stay in a country house will be appropriate. In this case, it is worth taking care of preparing firewood in advance, unless, of course, you have stove heating, not steam heating.

Outdoor work

The most important stage in preparing a summer cottage for winter, along with autumn work on the beds, is the insulation of the facades of outbuildings and especially a dwelling house. This is necessary to keep the room warm during the winter months (if you plan to winter here). In addition, you probably keep the harvested harvest of vegetables and fruits, which absolutely do not need to get acquainted with winter frosts. It is possible to provide thermal insulation of the country house with the help of mineral wool or sheathe the frame building from the outside with sheets of foam plastic. It is unnecessary to remind that you have to carry out insulation work only once, the main thing is to do it reliably and efficiently.

Now we check the roof: there are no places where the roof is leaking, whether the wooden elements have begun to rot anywhere, whether mold has appeared. If you find any problems, fix them immediately, as the roof can leak during short-term winter thaws or when snow melts in the spring, and this will inevitably affect the quality of the entire rafter structure.

Another important point is the likely presence of hornets' nests in the attic of the house. As a rule, these uninvited guests appear at the most unexpected moment. If there are any, get rid of them immediately, since insects are in a retarded state in the fall, and it will be easier to do this.

Also noteworthy are the gutters, which must be thoroughly cleaned of fallen leaves and small debris. You can cover them with tin sheets or even remove them - this way they will be protected from ice and large snow masses.

Examine canopies and awnings separately. Remember that a 50 cm layer of snow exerts a pressure of about 60 kg per square meter. If you are not sure that the visors will withstand such a load, it is better to remove them.

If you leave the cottage before spring, and do not plan to visit it in winter, take care of the windows. It is better to close them tightly with wooden shields so that the glass does not break with sharp gusts of winter wind. Carefully seal and seal all the cracks so that the draft does not chill the walls: because of this, condensation may appear on the inner surfaces of the house and, as a result, fungus.

Video "Rules for preparing summer cottages for winter"

From this video you will learn how to properly prepare a summer cottage for the winter period.

Not forget!

In addition to the mandatory preparatory work in the house on the eve of winter, you need to remember some more important nuances:

1. When leaving the cottage for a long time, be sure to turn off the gas and turn off the electricity for safety reasons.
2. If there is a water supply in the house, it is also turned off, and all the water in the system is drained. We leave all ball valves of the plumbing system slightly open so that the remaining water does not split them. The same applies to automatic irrigation systems.
3. If one of your neighbors in the country stays for the winter, be sure to exchange contacts and ask them to look after the site.
4. Be sure to check the heating system to avoid unpleasant surprises during winter visits.
5. Be sure to lubricate all locks and locking structures to protect them from moisture. Those of them that are on the street will be useful to protect with a simple cap cut from a plastic bottle.

The set of mandatory actions in terms of preparing a country house for wintering is not at all complicated. But in the spring you will return to a clean and tidy house, where there is no smell of dampness and there are no other problems.

Do not neglect these works, since it depends on them how well your summer cottage will spend a long winter alone, and how it will meet you in the spring.