Goff Home Inspections, LLC - Professional Home Inspections in Lansing, Michigan and surrounding areas

Small things gone unnoticed or unrepaired can lead to big problems once the weather turns cold, wet and windy. Here are 8 ways to avoid major damage.

Its mid-autumn, which means that the season of Atlantic nor'easters and Midwest blizzards, is almost under way.

No sweat, you say: I've already cleaned the gutters and tossed more insulation into the attic.

Those are solid steps toward basic winterization. But have you truly storm proofed your home?

We asked the experts to identify the easily overlooked issues that, when left unaddressed, cause major headaches once Old Man Winter rambles down the block. Here are their eight heavy-weather tips:

Don't let the small stuff go

The first thing you want to do this weekend is slowly walk around the outside of your home, keeping an eye out for anything amiss. You're looking for anything as simple as storm windows that haven't yet been put in place, to shrubs that have been allowed to grow in front of south-facing windows, which will block out much-welcome sunlight during the winter. But you're also looking for small damage that needs repair.

Researchers at Florida International University's International Hurricane Research Center found that even a few missing or loose roof shingles severely compromised the integrity of the whole house when winds reached 125 mph. Granted, those are hurricane-force blows. But "there are things that can fail at lower wind speed that are workmanship-only" related. Researchers have seen shingles and tiles dislodge at winds of 80 mph if there is shoddy construction and the bad workmanship wasn't evident prior to the simulated storm. And even a few shingles ripped away during a heavy storm can lead to serious water damage.

Time was, if you had some moisture weeping or water leaking around a window, the wood framing and sheathing around it could take some yearly winter-time wetting and, combined with summer-time drying, survive it. But today's lesser-quality buildings don't ventilate nearly as well. Since things are built more air- and weather-tight, there isn't that same drying that used to occur during the summer months.

Also, look closely at the wall siding. You're looking for places that wind can drive the precipitation into the wall and where that moisture can migrate down into the wall cavity, but also where water droplets can be drawn back into the adjacent balcony, deck, roof or wall by capillary action. Make sure that everything is properly flashed and sealed, and that the flashings are intact with overlaps sealed so that during wind-driven rain, water can't migrate into the wall cavity.

Leaks aren't always where they appear, either. Evidence of one sometimes pops up 20 or 30 feet from the actual leak. If you suspect a leak and can do the following test safely, train a garden hose on the suspected hole and see where water emerges. For covering the openings we recommend a durable flashing elasticized membrane that will "heal" around staples or nails and make a tight, waterproof seal.

The roof is a major point of vulnerability for a home. During your fall inspection, or when you're on a ladder cleaning your gutters, take a close look around. Pay particular attention to the following:

Faulty flashing: Make sure all flashings around such roof penetrations as skylights and chimneys are in place.

Damaged or missing shingles: A few missing shingles, as the hurricane center found, can quickly expose a home to water and wind damage. Water that gets under the roof shingles can quickly migrate down into the walls, creating all sorts of problems including leaks or flooding, mold, structural damage and damage to furniture.

Granules in your gutters: When composition roofing (the roofing many Americans have) gets old it crumbles, and a buildup of granules is a telltale sign.

Clogged roof vents: If those vents are blocked by bird nests or bee hives, for example, condensation builds up during the winter and mold develops. I've seen a lot of attics that have mold problems on their roof decking that's the wood under the shingles and caused thousands of dollars in damage or cleanup, or both.

Whether you want to tackle home-roofing repairs depends on how handy you are, how extensive the repairs are, and how steep your roof is. And remember, even a seemingly intact roof can cause big problems if it was constructed or repaired with shoddy workmanship, as the hurricane center found.

In colder parts of the country, ice dams are another concern for homeowners. Ice dams form when snow melts off a warmer rooftop, then freezes again when it reaches the colder eaves. The resulting mass of ice blocks the gutters and downspouts. Water that comes later can't drain, so it runs under shingles and enters the walls of a home and can cause serious damage before you ever notice.

What to do? If you've got electrified de-icing cables on your eaves (which many homes do in the upper Midwest, for example), check to make sure they're working. You should be able to switch them on and they should feel lukewarm to the touch enough to melt ice.

Keep your attic chilly so that snow doesn't melt in the first place. Do this by insulating under the roof, and blocking any places where heat rises into the attic.

During the winter, try to keep snow off the roof with a roof rake. And filling an old nylon stocking with snowmelt and placing it atop an ice dam (perpendicular to the gutter edge) will create a channel off the roof’s edge for water to flow.

Falling trees or falling branches severely damage houses. If it's hanging over a house, then the house is a target and the tree's a concern.

Homeowners should inspect trees each autumn keeping an eye out for any cracking branches. Another thing to note is the angle of the branches: If the branch crotch is sharply V-shaped, that tends to mean the branch is more susceptible to failure than a U-shaped branch. Pear trees, silver maples, some poplars and cottonwoods are all trees that homeowners should be more wary of, he says, because the limbs can break more easily than those of other trees in heavy weather.

Branches hanging over a house should be pruned back. But if you've got a tree that hasn't been tended to recently, branches can be selectively thinned on the main limbs to lighten their load and reduce the potential for breakage.

Can Joe Homeowner do this? If you can't prune it from the ground, I would call in an expert if only for the safety aspect. And poor pruning can have unintended consequences: If you don't prune a crabapple tree correctly you'll actually stimulate growth, and have to prune it again in a shorter amount of time.

If your town gets an early-season snowstorm, or an ice storm, and your trees still haven't dropped their leaves the extra weight of the ice or snow coated leaves can severely weaken limbs. Take a tall broom or rake outside, and bounce the branches to lighten their load, Jones suggests, and that will keep them, and your home, from more harm.

The best defense against a flooded basement or water-damaged foundation is a good offense. We want our water flowing away from our foundations. How to achieve that? Make sure you have the proper grading. If the ground looks like it's sloping down toward the foundation, it probably is.

Bring on the dirt-filled wheelbarrows! You'll need enough to get some slope in the other direction. Experts recommend at least one inch of fall per foot and we recommend six inches over four feet.

If you hire someone for this job, make sure he uses water-phobic clay, with only about an inch of absorbent mulch or topsoil atop it.

Repair stairs, seal concrete paths

In Ohio in the winter you get the most damage done to the exterior of the property because of the temperature changes and freeze-thaw cycles. Daytime rain insinuates itself into crevices in wood and concrete, then freezes at night, further weakening often-used places such as stairs.

It's similarly a good time to seal concrete steps and sidewalks. Concrete is not waterproof. It's porous, like a sponge. As a result, it soaks up water during warmer days, then freezes at night, expands and cracks. It also heaves with the ground below it. But sealing it as well as keeping the surrounding area well-drained will help reduce the amount of cracking and heaving, and prolong the concrete's life.

And once winter does arrive, treat your walkway kindly: Many people use sodium chloride (salt) to keep pathways clear. That's a mistake. It eats away at concrete and patching compound never quite matches when you try to fix it later. Instead, use a product with calcium chloride, which causes no damage and is safe for pets, she says. Simple steps can save you major, major work in the long run.

Goff Home Inspection encourages people to buy warranties when it comes to the service contract on your home's heating system. Why? Because there's never a good time for your heat to go out and when it does, the repairs are rarely cheap. When you're going to use that service contract, and it's going to be invaluable.