Winter Is Coming

HOOBOY, what a weekend!  I think that was, what, our fourth day we got over 80?  Sheesh, summer sure took it's sweet time and now it's looking like it's on it's way back out.  Which is the perfect segue into the subject that is near and dear to my heart: WINTERIZING.  

For those of you thinking, "It's too early to start winterizing and thinking about winter!". BOOHOO, I say back.  It's never too early to start thinking about winterizing.  As they say, "Winter is coming".  In this vein I began winterizing early this summer starting with restaining my deck.

We were lucky a few years ago we got a small windfall that we decided to use to take out our old deck and put in a new one.  We changed the design up a bit and added to it since we had the money.  Turned out great!  The thing is that you have to wait a month or two before you can stain it for the first time.  While it looked great that summer I knew that with winter approaching I needed to get that thing stained.  The first time I did it all by myself (Les was pregnant) with a hand brush.  Big mistake as it looked like crap by the next summer, but since that summer was so lousy I could never get the three days in a row to do it.  So early this summer (remember those three days in a row in July that it was sunny?) I decided to restain the deck and do it right this time.  

The best tip I got for restaining a deck is to get a cheap sprayer from your local hardware store.  They are $14 or so so it's not a huge deal when you throw it away when you are done.  The first thing to do is to clean your deck.  Sweep off as much debris as you can.  Then use a deck cleaning solution in your sprayer and spray it down.  Follow it up with a deck brush to get rid of mold and mildew.  Rinse it all off and let it dry overnight.  If you can let it dry for two days, but I know that's hard around here.  The next thing you want to do is to get some good stain.  We used TWP as that's what the people who built the deck said to use.  You'll also want to put up some plastic along the side of the house so you don't get stain on it.  I found this stuff that already had masking tape on it so it went up really fast.  Now you spray.  The easiest thing is to spray a small section and then go over it with a deck pad.  The pad makes sure the stain gets into all the cracks and down the sides of the wood.  Do this until the deck is covered and let dry overnight and repeat the next day.  All done, now you can enjoy your beer!

The next thing I winterized was our roof.  I had neglected it last year so there was a lot to do.  The first thing I did was to get some moss killer at the hardware store and sprayed down the roof with it.  This kills and dries out the moss so it comes off easy. It basically turns to dust.  The day after spraying I went back up on the roof and swept all the dead moss, pine needles and whatever else is up there off.  Use a softer brush to make sure you don't damage the shingles.  Once I swept I took a power wand (don't use a pressure washer, it's too strong) I got from the hardware store to really wash things down.  I got inbetween all the shingles to get out the pine needles that make the perfect bed for the moss to grow in.  It was dirty, wet, and long work but my roof looks almost new now.  The last step is to get the moss killing granules to put up on the roof line so that when it rains it flows down and keeps new moss from growing.  While you are up there clean out your gutters too!

Well that's it for my two winterizing tips.  I hope the tips were helpful for you.  If you have any winterizing tips of your own I'd love to hear them in the comments.  As the Starks say, "Winter is coming".