Landlord Winter Weather Safety: 10 Expert Winter Guide Tips
In the winter weather, many dangers pop up that can be costly—or lethal—to ignore. Even something as simple as piles of fall leaves can spiral into unimagined damage. So, we’ve created a winter guide to help landlords avoid these mishaps. Look below for winter holiday safety tips that protect your investment.
Main Takeaways
- To prevent fires and carbon monoxide poisoning, you should check your emergency detectors, clean your chimney, furnace, and HVAC, and warn tenants about flammable items.
- As winter weather strengthens, you should look at your roof and gutters, have a contractor cut your trees, get a snow removal service, deice the general area, and prevent pipes from freezing.
- For other winter holiday safety tips, you should check your (and your tenants’) insurance plans, monitor the property for squatters and thieves, and go over general safety best practices with tenants.
Table of Contents
- Advice for Preventing Fires and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning During Winter
- Winter Weather-Related Suggestions to Reduce Risk
- Other Winter Holiday Safety Tips
Advice for Preventing Fires and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning During Winter
First, let’s get into preventing fires and carbon monoxide poisoning in winter weather. Rental property management in Northern Virginia recommends:
1. Make Sure Your Emergency Detectors Are Working
As we transition to winter weather, tenants will also transition from air conditioning to heat. Unfortunately, this switch can increase the risk of fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. To worsen that risk even further, tenants may keep all their doors and windows closed. This can trap carbon monoxide in the home.
As such, you should ensure your emergency alert systems are working. Furthermore, you should check that your systems comply with local building codes. These points are often done as routine fall maintenance, so if you haven’t done them yet, get on them immediately.
2. Clean Your Chimney, Furnace, and/or HVAC System
If you have a fireplace on your property, it might be another area of concern. Dirty chimneys and vents can cause fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. So, clean these spaces to stop these problems in their tracks.
Furthermore, you also should have your HVAC system and/or furnace checked out. If these aren’t maintained properly, they could be carbon monoxide factories.
3. Warn Tenants About Flammable Items
Unfortunately, many holiday house staples can cause fires. So, you should send them their local fire code and tell them tips about these items:
Décor: Certain decorations can pose a fire hazard. For example, paper or cloth decorations hung on the walls can easily catch fire. Non-flameless candles, can, too. So, you should discourage tenants from having such décor.
Electric Items: Electric items can also cause trouble. Because of this, tenants should unplug electric appliances and décor whenever they can’t watch over them for safety. They should use fake fireplaces, electric heaters, crock pots, and other appliances very carefully.
Also, some electric items should be avoided altogether. For example, Christmas trees and other items can become enflamed when they’re strewn with lights. Using electric appliances that use a lot of oil, like turkey fryers, is asking for trouble. Similarly, tenants should swap traditional strand lights with cool LED ones.
On another note, extension cords and overloaded outlets can overheat. So, tenants should be judicious about how many devices they plug in at once. By following these winter holiday safety tips, tenants can stay safe.
Winter Weather-Related Suggestions to Reduce Risk
Next, we’ll delve into a winter guide about turbulent winter weather. These winter holiday safety tips can help save lives (and properties).
1. Have a Professional Cut Your Trees
Winter weather can break tree limbs. These limbs could fall on your roof, or even worse, your tenant. Because of this, you should hire a professional to examine the trees and cut any with warning signs. This may seem costly. However, it’s a small price to pay compared to the price of ignoring these issues.
2. Look at Your Roof and Gutters
Surprisingly, fall leaves can cause a lot of problems. They can hide damage that threatens your roof’s structural integrity. Additionally, they can clog the gutters. This, in turn, can cause water to leak into your property, which then weakens structural beams, drywall, and insulation. All these factors could turn dangerous if unchecked, so give them a look.
3. Prepare for Snow
Aside from getting a snow removal vendor, you also should secure materials to deice your outdoor areas. This can prevent tenants from falling or slipping on the ice in winter weather.
4. Prevent Pipes from Freezing
Frozen pipes can cause water leakage, which in turn can foster mold and electrocuting wires. Here’s a mini winter guide for preventing this:
- Shut Faucets and Hose Bibs Off: Shut off all outside faucets or hose bibs. Furthermore, drain them and make sure the faucets aren’t connected to any hoses.
- Run Pipes Slightly on Occasion: When your property has extremely frigid weather, let just a drop of water flow through your pipes. By running a bit of water through them, you can help stop them from freezing. Also, open the doors under the sink to bring heat in. As a tip, these techniques can also be useful when your property is unoccupied.
- Cover Exposed Pipes: Exposed pipes can freeze as temperatures do. So, get some pipe insulation foam and wrap it around the pipes for prevention.
- Keep the Temperature Warm: Ask tenants to set their temperature to at least 62 degrees in cold weather. This can further secure your pipes’ intactness.
Other Winter Holiday Safety Tips
Finally, let’s look at some general winter holiday safety tips. Even better, these winter guide tips can help you all year, not just in winter weather.
1. Check Your (and Your Tenant’s) Insurance Plans
You should make sure your landlord insurance is sufficient, of course, but just as important is renter’s insurance. As a rule, your tenants should have at least $100,000 in liability coverage. Moreover, it’s a good idea to ensure they have sufficient personal property coverage in case their items become damaged in winter weather. By doing this, you can ensure that everyone is financially and legally protected from any surprises.
2. Prevent Unwanted Guests
During the holidays, tenants may leave your property to visit family and friends. This gives thieves and squatters a chance to enter your property uninterruptedly.
As such, you should ask tenants to inform you when they’re coming and going for long durations. During these times, you can monitor the place carefully. Or, if you can’t get to your property then, you could hire a property manager to handle oversight for you. For boosted protection, you could set up a security system and/or outside motion sensor lighting
3. Go Over General Safety and Security Best Practices
It can’t hurt to remind tenants of common emergency procedures, like evacuation or carbon monoxide poisoning checkups. While you’re at it, give them important contact information, like your or your property manager’s info, electricity provider info, and others. You never know if tenants may be missing this information.
Also, remind tenants of standard safety best practices like always locking windows and doors and holding the mail in the post office when they’re away. Since winter is a prime time for package and property theft, these points are crucial. Furthermore, showing you care can boost your landlord-tenant relationship.
Enhance Holiday Safety with BMG Northern Virginia
You can enhance holiday safety in winter weather by preventing fires and carbon monoxide poisoning, reminding tenants of safety best practices, checking the roof and gutters, and other routine procedures. By taking these measures now, you can prevent costly disasters later.
However, implementing holiday safety can take a lot of work. Not everyone has the time to do all the maintenance and work through safety issues with all their tenants. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for it. That’s where professional property management comes in. BMG can handle:
- Property maintenance
- Safety standard compliance
- Legal compliance
- Tenant customer service
- Rent collection
- Lease renewals
- Tenant screening
- Accounting
- Inspections
…and more! So, call us today to do your due diligence without the effort.
