Preparing Your Park Home For Winter

As the season changes, it’s a good time to begin thinking about preparing your park home for winter. Before that, high winds and changeable conditions throughout Autumn also bring challenges. Preparing well can help reduce the risk of damage to your park home and it’s a condition of your park home insurance that you maintain your home to an adequate standard. Good preparation can also help you keep warm and comfortable, while possibly saving you money and inconvenience along the way.

Park homes are generally well built for energy efficiency and warmth. As a detached property, with four sides exposed to the outside, your park home can present a challenge to keep warm throughout winter.  Here are a few things that we hope can help you to reduce the risk of problems arising when you least need them – in the middle of winter.

  1. Gutters and drains

Beginning on the outside, you may benefit from checking and clearing out any debris in your gutters and drains. Summer rains, autumn winds, the occasional storm are sometimes all enough to cause a build-up of leaves and twigs and other debris, which if left can lead to leaks, water damage and other problems.

  1. Vents

Good air circulation is essential for a healthy living environment, for heat control and for reducing condensation and damp in your park home. If you make regular checks on your vents and clear them of debris when necessary, this one thing can help prevent numerous issues arising.

  1. Preparing paths, decking, gates and fences for winter

While there are enough pleasant days to work outdoors, this might be the right time of year to have a look at your fences, paths, decking and gates, if you have them. Damage  can let cold weather into the fibre of wood or corrosion on metal hinges. This can all be repaired or treated by the DIYers among you or a professional, before the winter weather makes a small problem worse. It might also prove timely, with more changeable weather, if you remove or replace anything loose, that could be picked up in a strong wind.

  1. Trees

Similarly, it is a good time to think about cutting back or making safe any overhanging tree boughs or nearby trees. It is also worth clearing debris from below trees too, to prevent it being thrown around in stormier weather. If you want to leave a small pile of twigs for wildlife, then find a corner where it will naturally settle and be undisturbed.

  1. Draughts

As the temperatures drop, it’s a good time to seek out any places in your park home that are letting in a draught. You could start with the window and door seals, round the outside of your frames, sealing any gaps as necessary. You may find simply deploying a couple of well-placed draught excluders makes a big difference. You might also benefit from slightly rearranging furniture to make sure there is the maximum air circulation all around it, which can help with more efficiently heating a whole room.

  1. Pipes

Keeping pipes warm throughout winter, can help to avoid burst pipes and escape of water when the weather turns cold. Ice freezing and thawing in pipes can lead to major problems and potential emergencies. Making sure your pipes are properly insulated where they can be now, is a small measure compared to dealing with an active leak in your home.

  1. Radiators

In these days of rising energy costs, you may find ways to increase the efficiency of your heating come into their own. Checking your radiators for trapped air and bleeding them to release it can help. You can tell if you need to do this if there is an uneven heat distribution when your radiator is on (usually when the top remains cool while the bottom heats up).

  1. Boiler

Finally, don’t forget to regularly get your boiler checked and serviced. Maybe now, before winter arrives, is a good time to check everything is working as it should. A faulty boiler can lead to numerous problems, not least escaping carbon monoxide and hot water and heating loss if it completely fails. Make sure that your boiler is regularly serviced by a registered gas safe engineer.

This is a marketing article from Park Home Assist, multi-award-winning providers of residential park home insurance.  If you would like to speak to an advisor regarding insurance for your park home, please contact our friendly team in our Northampton office on 01604 946 796.

Please note that all insurance cover is subject to acceptance of terms and conditions.

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Published – 27/10/23