2.  Fix the cracks in your driveway

Fixing any small cracks in your driveway during the fall season, before it gets too cold out, is important for several reasons, but primarily because any crack that’s currently in your driveway will almost certainly get worse during the wintertime when it snows, and the slabs of concrete that make up your driveway will shrink and expand, causing the cracks in your driveway right now to expand, and even create new ones. This task can be a bit more daunting than #1, but actually, many DIYers will be able to fix most - if not all - driveway cracks themselves. Black Jack makes a blacktop crack filler that fits easily into a 10 oz. caulk gun, which we sell here at Kefauver Lumber True Value, that will easily fill most smaller cracks in your driveway. After applying the filler, wait about an hour until it dries. It’s as simple as that!

3.  Plant the necessary shrubs that need to be planted in the fall

There are quite a bit of different shrubs that need to be planted in the fall season if you want to ensure your lawn is gorgeous come the springtime. For example, forsythia is a beautiful, easy-to-maintain shrub that looks amazing year-round (except in the cold winter perhaps, when almost no shrubs look good) and can grow up to around ten feet high, making it the perfect shrub to border your lawn with for some extra privacy without having to build a fence which is far more costly. This process is actually easier than it sounds too - it just takes a little elbow grease. You’ll need to purchase seeds (or you can buy some young plants that have already grown a little bit from many nurseries, and replant them), and some basic garden tools, which can be purchased in our lawn & garden section here at Kefauver’s. 

4.  Drain all your exterior faucets around your home

This will be one of the most important tasks on this list to ensure your home is kept safe during the colder months. All of the exterior faucets around your home must be drained completely before mid-November, when temperatures in Maryland can drop below the freezing point overnight. Luckily, this is a simple and easy task that almost any homeowner can accomplish, and with minimal time investment. Locate the water supply line into your home, and turn it off. Then, go around to each faucet around your home and turn the knob so that the faucet lets out all the water that’s just sitting inside the pipes that connect them. Once the water stops draining, move on to your next faucet. When you’ve hit all of them, you’re done! This will prevent any outdoor faucet pipes from bursting, and will help to prevent your basement from flooding. 

5.  Mulch the fallen leaves on your lawn with a push mower

We’ve written on our blog before about the importance of mulching your leaves in the fall, as well as the easiest way to do so. Use the dried, fallen leaves to help naturally fertilize your lawn, and make your lawn prep job a lot easier come the springtime, and make your leaf-raking job a lot easier now (or, virtually non-existent)! The catch here is that you will need a push mower to do this job, but if you don’t have one, we have them available here at True Value, and we can get most of them ordered in a moment’s notice! You can stop in today and have us help you get one ordered, and you’ll be able to pick it up here at our store in no time. 

6.  Get your furnace and heating system inspected by an HVAC professional

This is one of the few, or possibly the only, task on this checklist that you will probably not be able to do yourself, but is nonetheless one of the most important ones. You’ll want to get this done as soon as you read this, because the longer you wait to have this done, the more you’ll probably end up paying the HVAC technician to do it as they get busier and busier (and they will get especially busy during the wintertime, so we strongly recommend you don’t wait until then to do so). Getting your HVAC system and furnace inspected before any problems will not just save you a lot of stress when something breaks, but will also save you money, because simple maintenance on systems that aren’t broken is far less expensive then fixing or replacing a system that has broken. 

7.  Overseed and fertilize your lawn

This is another topic we’ve written in some detail about on this blog before, and the beginning of the fall season is the most appropriate time to rehash this topic. Almost all lawn care experts (as well as the most green-thumbed of homeowners) agree that the single-best time to overseed your lawn is right at the beginning of the fall season. There’s all sorts of science to support this theory, but really, the most important point is that most types of grasses germinate the best as the temperature slowly cools down leading into the winter months. Take care of this job now and it’s all but guaranteed to make sure your lawn looks amazing come the springtime (and your neighbors jealous, of course). 

8.  Clean out fallen leaves from gutters and downspouts all throughout the season

If heights tend to freak you out a little bit (or if you don’t have great balance on a ladder), then this task would best be left up to a professional. But if heights are no big deal to you and you’re quite graceful on a ladder, then this task should be easy for you. We would rank this up there as one of the more important tasks on this list, because it’s done to ensure no damage is done to your house during the winter months. When leaves start to pile up in your gutters (as they tend to do in the fall season, for obvious reasons), it creates a hazardous condition that can potentially flood your basement. That’s why you’ll want to keep your gutters completely empty if possible, throughout the fall season. You may have to do this job two or three times throughout the fall, but the extra labor will be worth your peace of mind that your basement will remain flood-free throughout the wintertime. This will also save you extra time right at the beginning of spring, when the chances of a flooded basement due to clogged gutters dramatically increases. Get the job done now, and remain stress-free until next fall when it’ll come time to do this again. 

9.  Store away any outdoor furniture and your grill

The freezing temperatures in the winter, as well as the snow, can ruin your outdoor furniture, along with Dad’s beloved grill. You might be able to delay this task though - but only until the end of autumn at latest. Storing these in your garage or basement until spring will save you a good bit of money. The last thing you’ll want to do is make another purchase to replace something that was once perfectly fine.

10.  Wrap your pipes and sump pump

We’ll rank this as the #1 most important task on this list. We cannot stress enough how important wrapping your pipes is before the weather drops below freezing temperatures, especially for those of you that have very small basements that don’t have heating systems. These sorts of homes are particularly vulnerable to freezing pipes in the freezing weather. Taking a day out of your busy schedule to wrap all your wipes could save you a small fortune. Removing water from a flooded basement while also having to hire a plumber to fix a broken pipe gets very costly, very quick. And as well as the pipes that lead into your house, you’ll also need to wrap the pipes that run out of your house. Be sure to wrap your sump pump pipes. Basements without heating systems flood all the time because the pipe for the sump pump freezes up, because once the pump sucks water from the sump, it will spurt water from the pipe that burst from freezing all over your basement. Save yourself from having to handle a dire emergency in the wintertime, and wrap all your pipes before the end of the fall season. 

And there you have it! These ten easy steps will take you a maximum of ten days to complete, assuming you’re able to set aside just one day for each task. Once your done, you’re free to enjoy the beautiful autumn season with your family! Happy fall!