Tis the season to stay inside, bundle up in blankets, and stay cozy. But as any suburban dad can tell you, it’s also the season to winterize your home.
Winterizing is simply the process of preparing your home and its systems for the cold weather. If you have sprinklers installed in your lawn, you don’t want water freezing in those pipes.
Winterizing your aluminum fence
“Hang on, I thought aluminum fences were super durable and low maintenance. Why do I need to prepare my fence for winter?”
That’s a very legitimate question. Low maintenance does not mean no maintenance. You wouldn’t ignore your car’s maintenance for a decade and still expect it to run properly, now would you?
So we recommend aluminum fence maintenance at least once a year, but ideally twice a year. Once in the fall and again in the spring.
Secondly, winter might not break your fence, but it can create and exacerbate smaller issues. And if left alone, these smaller issues can snowball into expensive issues. As IT professionals like to say, “schedule maintenance or your equipment will schedule it for you.”
Winter can loosen your fence posts.
Remember your DIY installation? You dug holes for your fence posts and then filled them in with concrete to create a strong foundation.
Well, these post foundations might have gotten loose during autumn, especially if you received a lot of rain. The freeze and thaw cycle of winter can also loosen these posts. A weak foundation diminishes the security of your fence.
My big golden retriever once leapt right into a fence post trying to get at a squirrel. She knocked the post off center, causing the two connecting panels to lean. At first I thought, “Holy cow! Is my dog hurt?”
Thankfully she was not. As it turned out, that fence post was already pretty loose and it just needed a little push. But imagine if it had been an angry deer or determined coyote on the other side.
So how do you fix this? First, give each of your fence posts a good shake and see if the base moves at all. If it moves two inches or more, you should probably reset the foundation with more concrete.
Secondly, you should check your gates, specifically their latches, locks, and hinges.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but that squeak often turns into background noise. So take this time to check your hinges for any signs of tightness or stiffness. And if it squeaks like a haunted house door, some WD-40 can fix that.
Check your locks and latches as well. One winter I noticed that my gate was extremely hard to open and close. The latch was just too tight, I needed to exert a lot of force to get the latching mechanisms to fit together.
As it turns out, one side of the gate was leaning so much that the latch became misaligned. It happened so gradually I didn’t even notice. And once again, it was caused by a loosened fence post.
Hinges can freeze and seize up as the temperature drops.
If water gets into the hinge mechanism, either through rain or melting snow, it can freeze and seize up. You can prevent this by lubricating your hinges before winter or by applying a weatherproofing treatment. The idea is to apply a protective layer that repels moisture.
If you do walk out one winter day and cannot open your frozen gate, don’t worry. Don’t try to force your way out because that will only damage the gate. Go back inside and heat up some water, then pour that warm (but not boiling) water directly on the hinge. Once the ice is melted, quickly dry it off so it won’t refreeze. This is only a temporary fix, but nonetheless can help.
Once you winterize your home and aluminum fence, don’t forget to enjoy the holidays!
The whole point of a fence is to protect your home and family. So cuddle up this holiday season and enjoy the time together!