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DES MOINES, Iowa  —  It may feel like winter already, but it’s not too late to winterize your home.

That starts on the outside by removing those garden hoses from their spigots to prevent bursting pipes and cleaning out gutters.

“I think it was last year we had a lot of issues with ice damming. Clean gutters help minimize a lot of that. Unfortunately, some of that stuff, when we have crazy winters, is really difficult to address some of that without redoing parts of the roof and things like that,” Wiemann Home Inspection Owner Chris Wiemann said.

Moving inside, Wiemann said it’s a good time to insulate your home.

“Insulating the rim joists on the foundation, so where the floor structure meets the foundation walls where the yellow fiberglass is a lot of older homes don’t have that,” Wiemann says

Cold air could also be leaking in through door knobs and outlets.

“So anywhere you can feel cold air blowing through door handles, on outside doors. Actually, electrical plugs are another weak point. They actually make an insulation piece that can go behind the cover plate to help seal those up and prevent air leaks there as well,” Wiemann said.

Schaal Plumbing Heating and Cooling President and Owner Randy Keys said it’s one of the best times to get your furnace serviced and replace the filter because if you don’t you could be looking at an even more expensive problem.

“It’s going to cause a lot of harm on your system if it’s running at a higher pressure and then the big thing is this if your furnace breaks down or you have a problem because of a filter not being changed or not being maintained properly likely it’s a higher repair bill than there would have been,” Keys said.

Keys said they also recommend getting a smart thermostat that can be installed on old and new systems.

“Every time we install a system we put a wifi thermostat on. If you’re not at home and your furnace breaks it tells you. If you’re not at home for an extended period of time you can make sure your furnace is working correctly,” Keys said.

Keys said it’s important to not let the temperature in your home drop below 50 degrees. If it does, pipes could freeze and burst and it can also hurt your heating and cooling system.