February is the month I get the calls. A pipe burst. Water is in the crawl space. The HVAC stopped and the house is 48 degrees. The seller is frantic.
I would say 80% of those calls come from three things that could have been handled in October. Here they are.
Clean Your Gutters
East Tennessee has trees. Trees drop leaves. Leaves plug gutters. Water backs up under the roof line and finds a way inside. It does not take much. One clogged downspout can send water into a basement or crawl space for a whole season.
Go look at your gutters right now. If you see dirt and leaves up there, get a ladder or call somebody. It costs a hundred bucks and saves you ten thousand.
Service Your HVAC Before the First Freeze
Heat pumps take a beating in this climate. They run in the summer and they run in the winter. The thing you do not want is for it to quit on the coldest night of the year when every service company is booked three weeks out.
Get the annual tune-up done now. Change the filter. Make sure the emergency heat strips work. A service call in October is a hundred fifty dollars. A new unit in January is six thousand.
Check Your Crawl Space Vapor Barrier
This is the one nobody thinks about. Anderson County has a lot of houses on crawl spaces. If the vapor barrier on the ground has pulled up or has holes in it, moisture comes up from the ground. That moisture turns into condensation in the winter. Condensation turns into mold and rot and musty smells that show up on every home inspection.
Go down there with a flashlight. If the plastic is torn or pulled away from the piers, tape it back down or call a handyman. It is cheap and it stops a lot of problems.
Do these three things and I promise you will not be the one calling me in February.