The east coast sees a gauntlet of extreme weather systems throughout the year. Hurricane season, flooding, and winter snowstorms all grace our neighborhoods in constant cycles of unpredictable mayhem. However, even with all this uncertainty, there are still ways to protect your home from damage and clean up after an event to get your family and your home back on track after a disaster takes its toll on your area.
Keep current with your homeowner’s insurance.
Staying up to date with your insurance company is the best way to ensure that your home sees the repairs it needs after an emergency situation descends upon your hometown. Some of your patio or indoor furniture may come with a warranty, but many other aspects of your home that could need repairs will not have this same guarantee of replacement without the added layer of protection that insurance brings to a homeowner.
Your roof, windows, door, and walls — speaking just of the exterior — will all need to be covered by something beyond a simple warranty. Homeowner’s insurance is the gold standard for these fixes, from pool screening to roof replacement, when an extreme weather system strikes your home and causes damage to the structure that is meant to keep your family and belongings safe, you will need the security brought only through a great insurance policy.
Start with the roof.
After a hurricane or snowstorm, you should always check your roof shingles for damage that can be fixed easily. Many homeowners have extra tiles in their attic or basement and a quick swap out of a broken shingle for a new one might be all it takes to keep your home in good order for the time being. For more extensive repair work, find a professional Chantilly roofing contractor to take care of the job for you.
Roofing repairs or a full replacement can be done quickly by a professional firm with years of experience in the industry. By contrast, you simply cannot conduct the required work on your own under nearly any circumstances. When it comes to the roof, there is no room for chances. Shoddy workmanship will result in leaks and gaps that will only grow with time. A professional knows how to seal up corners, tie-down edges, and smooth out the shingles or tiles so that they can’t be blown off by a strong gust of wind when the next weather patterns begin to develop.
Leaks not only cost you a pretty penny in heating and cooling costs throughout the year, but they also expose your stored belongings to an increasingly dangerous level of elements from the outside. This may be ants, mice, or raccoons, or it could be the incessant rain and humidity that can destroy your most precious paper documents in the blink of an eye. Keeping your roof in good working order is essential to maintaining the integrity of the rest of your home.
Check on foundation damage.
Moving from the roof to the ground and maintaining the integrity of your foundation is the next big-ticket item that can expose your home to increasing danger after storm damage. Erosion to the foundation or directly under it can lead to sinkholes or other problems that can end in devastating losses to the property beyond some simple damages to your possessions. Keeping the foundation in good order is crucial to maintaining the interior of the home and keeping you and your family safe in the process.
Begin from top and bottom in order to ensure the remainder of your house is safe and secure. Insurance will cover any major repairs, but these big-ticket items will keep you in your home during any refurbishment that is required after a storm.