Your Spring-Cleaning Maintenance Checklist

Spring has sprung and the cleaning’s begun! While tidying your home, consider these smart ways to protect your property inside and out.

10 Home Maintenance Steps

• Inspect your roof. Shingles that are cracked, loose, balding, or downright missing need to be replaced. Have a qualified roofer repair flashing around plumbing vents and chimneys.
• Clean the gutters. Ensure April showers don’t funnel into your crawl space by clearing out dirt, leaves, and trash from your gutters. Downspouts should drain away from your foundation.
• Fill low areas of your yard. These can flood and damage your foundation — and become a hot spot for mosquitoes.
• Sweep the chimney. Call a certified sweep to inspect and clean your flue.
• Test outdoor faucets. Frost can destroy garden hoses and outdoor faucets. To test, place your thumb or finger over faucet openings and turn on the water. If you can’t stop the flow, you’ve got a leak.
• Schedule an A/C checkup. Regularly replace interior air filters yourself, but hire an HVAC tech to clean and service your outside unit once a year to ensure efficiency and safety.
• Test smoke detectors. Swap old batteries with new.
• Seal windows and doors. Your energy bill and the planet will thank you for weather-stripping windows and doors so that they’re airtight.
• Store firewood at least 18 inches off the ground and 20 feet from your nearest door.
• Replace worn window screens. Inspect window screens for winter damage and replace as needed to discourage pests.

3 Property Insurance Checkups

Meredith Campbell, a Texas Farm Bureau Insurance agency manager in Plainview, wants policyholders to remember three things this spring:

1. Cash Value vs. Replacement Cost. “People often opt for cash value policies to save on premiums; but they don’t always realize that when they make a claim, they receive the cash value of the items, with depreciation taken into account, instead of the cost to replace it.” Make sure you understand the details of your policy and how your claims will be paid.

2. Contents Coverage. “My own house burned down to the ground in November and even I underestimated my contents coverage. Take a thorough inventory of your belongings.” While you’re spring-cleaning, go through your home and take photos. That will make it easy to update your home inventory checklist (download it here), which you should do every year.

3. Contact Your Agent. “Take 15 minutes to review your declarations page every year and call your Agent to touch base. The more you know about your policy, the better you’ll feel.” Your Agent will be happy to sit down with you and go through everything in detail, too. Call them today to make sure you have the coverage you need.

Are you ready for storm season? Follow this guide to planning for emergencies.

Coverage and discounts are subject to qualifications and policy terms and may vary by situation.