The nice warmth of Summer can be a relief from a long, cold Winter. It’s also a nice break for your home, from the wear and tear that the colder seasons can wreak on your home.
But the Summer weather can bring its own set of issues. Extreme climates of any kind can potentially cause damage to the interior and exterior of your house.It’s important to understand how summer affects your home in order to better prepare for the season and to know when to take action.

The foundation of your home is designed to use the surrounding soil as a support system to remain strong and to be able to support the house. As the soil heats up the moisture will evaporate causing the soil to become dry and begin to separate and lose its integrity . When this happens it will separate from the foundation.
There are some things you can do to help prevent this from happening. Making sure you are keeping the moisture levels consistent around your house is crucial, utilising a sprinkler system can help with this.
Another way to prevent the soil from drying up is to minimise or eliminate any large trees around you home. Trees will draw up moisture from the soil and can leave the soil dry and cracking.

If pipes are not sealed correctly, they are much more likely to leak, or even burst, due to high water usage and pressure from swimming pools, garden hoses, automatic sprinklers and even day-to-day operations.

The excessive drying that can occur during a dry summer can cause shifts in and around your home’s foundation. That drying can cause water lines to disconnect or rupture, and water mains can crack or leak. This is preventable by making sure that the soil bordering your home is maintained and watered in hotter months.

Pipes are prone to sweating. Sweating occurs when the water inside the pipe is much colder than surrounding humid air. During the summer, the surrounding air is naturally hot, one effective way to control the moisture problem of a sweating pipe is to insulate the pipes

Roofs are especially susceptible to sun damage.High temperatures can cause your roof to expand and warp causing shingles to crack making them more likely to leak.
The heat can also dry out the caulk around flashing and weaken your roof structurally. This can be prevented by coating and sealing the roof to protect against harmful UV rays, choosing a lighter colour for the roof itself, and scheduling regular maintenance checks to make sure everything is in shape.

Like roofs, hardwood floors are can also warp from the humidity that comes in the hotter months. Rising moisture levels will impact you floors. Heat and humidity cause wood to expand, and as wood absorbs moisture, it causes the edges of the floorboards to push upward creating an uneven surface. Floors can also “buckle” meaning they will pull up and away from the sub-floor entirely.

The moisture that accumulates in wooden floors may dry up eventually allowing them to return to their original shape, but the prolonged humidity of summer can also cause floors to crack and result in some permanent damage.Hardwood floors are particularly susceptible to changes in moisture. To prevent any damage you can get your floors acclimated. This will maintain the integrity of your wood floors, increasing the lifespan as well as preventing the floors from warping and cupping . Maintain the indoor air quality with AC or a dehumidifier.

If the moisture levels in your home or the humidity get out of control for a long time, not only will the structure and character of your floors be impacted, but eventually, your floors could start to rot and mold . Once floors have sustained significant moisture damage, you may have to replace your floors entirely, instead of being able to fix the problem by sanding and refinishing.

Floors can be at risk of becoming discoloured if exposed to the sun for prolonged periods of time. If parts of the inside of your home are exposed to a lot of sunlight you may find that once you move furniture the wood that has not been exposed to the sun will be much darker than the rest of your floors. For your floors to age evenly and avoid discoloration from too much sun , you have to rearrange every now and again.

The best way to help thwart these threats is to stay ahead of them by having a professional check for vulnerabilities and making sure that your house gets the air flow and moisture it needs to provide your family with a happy, healthy home for many years to come.