Spring maintenance in Missoula is mostly an inspection job. Winter has spent four or five months working on the outside of your house, and the point of a spring walk-round is to find what it did while the repair is still small. Most of this list is an afternoon. The parts that are not, we will say so.
Gutters first, because of the snowmelt
Gutters take more abuse in spring than at any other point in the year. They spend weeks carrying meltwater, often while still holding whatever went in last fall, and often while partly frozen. A gutter full of wet needles and grit is heavy, and the brackets holding it to the fascia were not designed to carry that indefinitely.
Look for sagging between brackets, separation at the seams, and any section where water runs behind the gutter rather than into it. That last one matters more than it looks. Water running down the fascia gets into the soffit, and soffit repair is a different order of job from clearing a gutter.
Check that downspouts still discharge away from the foundation. Over a winter, extensions get knocked loose by snow, shovels and plows, and nobody notices until water has been running against the wall for a month.
What winter did to the outside
Freeze and thaw works on anything that was already slightly open. Caulk lines around windows and doors separate, trim lifts, and flashing that was fine in October is not necessarily fine in April.
Walk the perimeter and look up. Lifted or missing shingles, flashing that has moved at the chimney or at a roof junction, and anything suggesting ice damming happened: staining at the eaves, damaged gutter sections, paint failing on the fascia.
Inside, the attic tells you more than the roof does. Look for daylight, damp sheathing, or insulation that has been wet and compressed. Finding any of that is worth dealing with before summer storms rather than after.
Outside, roughly in order
- Clear gutters and downspouts of winter debris
- Check gutter brackets and seams for sag or separation
- Confirm downspout extensions discharge away from the foundation
- Walk the roofline from the ground for lifted or missing shingles
- Check flashing at the chimney and at roof junctions
- Inspect caulk around windows, doors and penetrations
- Look for frost damage to steps, paths and railings
- Reconnect and test exterior hose bibs after the last hard freeze
- Check the attic for damp, daylight or compressed insulation
Cooling, before the first hot week
Whether you run a swamp cooler or air conditioning, spring is when it gets sorted. Not July.
Swamp cooler prep is the more involved of the two. The unit has sat through winter: pads want replacing, the pan and float want checking for scale and corrosion, the belt wants looking at, and the water line needs reconnecting and testing for leaks before you rely on it. If the cover came off at some point, something has probably nested in there.
For air conditioning, clear growth and debris away from the outdoor unit, give the coil a gentle clean, and change the filter inside. If the system did not cool well last year, have that conversation now, while an HVAC contractor can still schedule you, rather than during the first properly hot week when everyone calls at once.
Inside
- Replace furnace or air handler filters
- Test smoke and CO detectors and replace batteries
- Swamp cooler: new pads, check pan, float and belt, reconnect water
- Air conditioning: clear debris from the outdoor unit, clean the coil
- Check under sinks for slow leaks nobody noticed over winter
- Open and close every window that stayed shut all winter
- Check weatherstripping on doors that stuck in the cold
If this list sounds familiar
The reason spring maintenance gets skipped is not that people do not know about it. It is that the weekend it needs lands in the middle of everything else, every year, reliably.
Putting it on a schedule takes the remembering out of it, which is most of the problem.
When to call a specialist
Clearing a gutter, replacing cooler pads and swapping a filter are homeowner or handyman work. A roof with structural damage, a cooling system that is not cooling rather than merely dirty, and anything at the electrical panel are not. We are not a licensed electrician, plumber or HVAC contractor, so a system that needs servicing goes to a licensed HVAC contractor. We will tell you that on the first call rather than after taking it apart.
Everything above is what our seasonal home maintenance service covers, and our maintenance plans fold it into a standing schedule so nobody has to remember it. We do this across Missoula, East Missoula and Lolo, and the rest of the towns around Missoula.
Rather not spend the weekend on it?
Send us the list and we will work through it in one visit, with photos and a written note of what we found.