Home Buying Tips
Lessons From a First-Time Home Buyer: Preparing for a Snow Storm
Like much of the country, it seems that we in Springfield, Missouri are in for a winter storm this weekend (sidenote: I’m very relieved to be flying home on Thursday and not any later). With this being the third winter since we bought our house, we have some idea of how to handle snowy conditions in terms of managing our property. Yet, you never truly know what to expect — and the bitter cold coming in addition to the precipitation could add some more challenges to the equation.
With that, here are a few ways we as homeowners are preparing for a potentially messy snow and ice storm.
3 Things I’m Doing to Prep for Snow as a Homeowner
3 Things I’m Doing to Prep for Snow as a Homeowner
Clearing a Spot for the Dog
Let’s start off with something a bit more frivolous. Last year, when we had a heavy snow that stuck around for a while, we noticed that our neighbor had a piece of cardboard in her yard that was being held down by heavy objects. As it turns out, the idea here is that they could then lift the cardboard and have a spot for their dog to do its business.
This struck me as brilliant — especially since I was in the process of carrying my dog up the hill to find a tree with exposed ground under it instead. When it’s snowy and brutally cold, the last thing I want to do is wait around for my dog to go to the bathroom. So, this time around, we’ll definitely be attempting this trick and giving Rigby a spot of ground to properly sniff among the snow.
Watching the Pipes
While enduring a snow storm is never fun, I am very glad that we’ll be home instead of away. That’s because I’d worry about things, such as freezing pipes if we weren’t around to take preventative measures. But, since we will be hunkering in, our natural usage of the heat and water should hopefully prevent issues. That said, should it get really cold, we might also let some of our faucets drip to further prevent freezing.
Considering that we had no issues the last time we had a deep freeze, I’m not terribly worried this time around. Nevertheless, it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on.
Preparing for Power Outages
The thing about being where we are on the map is that there’s a fine line between getting snow and getting ice (or perhaps some “wintry mix” as they call it). As mentioned, since moving to our house, we’ve had at least one significant snowfall. Yet, we haven’t yet had to deal with any ice storms — and those can be far worse. That’s because it doesn’t take a lot of ice accumulation to pull down power lines or tree limbs and cause damage.
Having seen articles about a really bad ice storm that hit Springfield years before we moved here, I’m always mindful that we could well lose power if we end up on the ice side of the storm (or for other reasons, honestly). Thus, I’ll be sure to have our important devices charged ahead of time and be ready to deal with the cold inside the house should heating no longer be available to us. Of course, this would be a great time for us to use our fireplace… if we had our chimney inspected like we had planned to, but haven’t yet. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come down to that!
As I look to the weekend forecast, it looks as though an undetermined amount of snow — accompanied by single-digit temps at best — will soon be impacting our home. And while this isn’t our first rodeo, each winter storm brings its own challenges. Despite that, between my wife having grown up with winter weather and with us having picked up a tip or two from last year’s event, I’m more confident in our ability to weather (no pun intended) this potential storm. Of course, should things go sideways, you’ll surely hear about it in a couple of weeks.
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