Preparing your home for winter not only helps you clear clutter and debris but goes a long way toward saving you money and energy. Take advantage of the mild and dry weather to tackle important maintenance tasks inside and outside your house in preparation for the harsh winter months.
1. Clean and Organize Your Garage and Basement
Over the course of spring and summer, your garage and/or basement may have become overrun with all kinds of seasonal accessories, including gardening gear, inflatable pools, camping supplies, and bikes. It might also have become a temporary storage space place for old, unused, broken, or damaged objects, like old toys and exercise equipment that haven’t quite made their way out the door, or leftover material from summer renovation projects.
In any case, while the weather is still relatively mild and dry, an effective way to tackle the organization of this space is to firstly clear everything out of the basement or garage onto your driveway or lawn. This way, you can see everything clearly and make informed decisions about what’s worth holding onto and what you need to discard. It’s also helpful to arrange the items into separate piles – one for things you’re planning to keep, one for things you’re planning to donate or give away, and one for things you need to get rid of.
Survey the number of things you need to throw away – if it’s more than you can bring to your curb for regular collection, consider renting a temporary dumpster bin from Miller Waste. You can use it to dispose of:
- Household waste (paper, glass, textiles)
- Wood waste
- Construction waste (concrete, cement, bricks, tiles, ceramics)
- Yard Waste
Just choose the bin size that best meets your needs and tell us when to drop it off or pick it up. Rental bins give you a safe and secure location to dispose of waste right on your property, saving you trips to your local drop-off centre and wear and tear on your vehicle.
Also, Miller’s bins are easy to fill. They are outfitted with double rear doors, meaning you can walk, drag, or wheel waste directly into the bin and seal the doors when you’re done.
Pack up the items you want to donate and transfer the things you’re planning to keep to their appropriate place in your house or install extra storage or organizational accessories in your garage – such as shelving, storage boxes, hooks, and racks – to keep things from piling up.
2) Prepare Your Garden for Spring
Did you know that fall is one of the best times to add compost to your garden? It’s an incredibly effective way to preserve essential plant nutrients over the harsh winter season, and help ensure luscious blooms come spring!
As temperatures drop and sunlight becomes more scarce, the lack of foliage in your garden leaves many parts of the soil exposed, making it easy to apply compost while attending to other winterization tasks, including pruning, raking leaves, and removing annuals.
The bacteria, fungi, microbes, and other micro-organisms present in compost need time to break down organic matter and produce readily available nutrients for plants. Fall and winter provide the ideal stretch of time for compost to assimilate into the soil before planting season rolls around again.
Also, the cool, dry fall climate make it easier to work compost into your soil. The overly saturated soil we tend to encounter in spring tends to be more compact and difficult to amend.
Our sister company, Miller Compost, produces an array of compost products to help professional and home-gardeners alike improve the quality of their gardens while making a positive impact on the environment. Our products are available to delivery or pick-up across Southern Ontario. Browse our product catalogue today, and feel free to reach out to our soil and compost experts for more tips.
3. Decorate for the Season with Low Waste Options
Decorating your home for the fall season and Halloween is a great outlet for creativity and resourcefulness, but it can also generate tonnes of waste in the form of shoddily constructed plastic accessories. However, its entirely possible to craft low-waste decorations from natural and recyclable material.
Consider straw bales, fallen leaves, and corn stalks for our outdoor décor. At that end of the season, be sure to toss them out in your organic bin or with your leaf and yard waste. To learn how Miller processes and repurposes organic waste, check out this blog post.
It’s also easy to fashion decorations from paper, old clothing and bedsheets, coat hangers, mason jars, and wax paper. This material can easily be recycled at the end of the season or stored away for next year.
Though it may seem overwhelming, fall home maintenance is essential to protecting your home from harsh winter conditions and keeping you and your family safe and healthy. With the right tools and techniques, your home will be winter ready before you know it!