Looking for ways to improve your property before the weather turns? With such a short window of summer weather in the UK, it’s hardly surprising that we’re a nation of opportunists. As soon as the sun shines, we’re outside getting things done!
Whether you’ve got an upcoming renovation project, or you’d like to add those finishing touches to a new build, we’ve listed our top five essential home and garden tasks for the summer. With some light preventative maintenance in the sunshine, you’ll keep your home looking pristine.
- Inspect and clean your gutters
During summer, maintaining and cleaning your gutters makes a lot of practical sense.
Over the autumn and winter months, your gutters will naturally accumulate leaves, twigs, and other debris. These can cause blockages, and if they’re not caught early enough, these can cause water to overflow and damage your walls, roof and building foundations.
Remember, if you’re doing this work yourself, knowing how to practise the safe use of ladders could save your life. Always make sure you’ve got someone else to supervise on the ground.
- Refresh exterior paint and sealing
Clean, bright, and unmarked exterior paint and sealing makes more of a difference to your home’s exterior than you might expect. Summer weather provides ideal conditions for a simple refresh, or you could wait for a good weather window if you’re planning a bigger redecoration project.
This not only improves the aesthetic appeal of your home and garden but adds a useful protective aspect against the elements. Pay close attention to exposed areas like window frames, doors, and any tired-looking trim. Plus, sealing any cracks or gaps now will prevent potential damp problems seeping in over winter.
- Service your HVAC system
Summer is the perfect time to call in the professionals and thoroughly service your heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Since these systems work so hard over winter to keep the household running, summer is the perfect time to check for any issues.
Trained professionals will also quickly and easily change the filters and ensure that the system is running efficiently. If your current system isn’t as economical as it could be, upgrading to a combi boiler could give your household cost-effective heating, as and when you need it.
- Prune flowering plants
Feeling green-fingered? If you’re lucky enough to have a great selection of shrubs and flowering plants in your garden, summer is the perfect time to keep them tidy.
Larger perennials like wisteria should ideally be trimmed back at this time. This keeps them strong and healthy, boosting the chances that they’ll flower for longer too. The Royal Horticultural Society has a great list of suggestions for gardening in August, which explains how to prune different types of shrubs in more detail.
- Clean your doors and windows
Finally, a beautiful Sunday afternoon makes a fantastic time to get started on cleaning your external glass at home. Your doors and windows naturally take a beating in winter, standing strong through hailstorms, driving rain, and strong winds too. At that time, there’s not much point in trying to make them look new and shiny.
But during the summer, cleaning your windows could add a new lease of life to your property façade. If you’re planning a party or you’ve got friends coming over, your efforts certainly won’t go unnoticed. And once your friends go home, you can enjoy smudge-free views from the window.
