Getting a Santa Fe home ready for winter

Santa Fe winters are cold, dry, and sunny, with hard freezes from November to March and snow that comes and melts several times a season. The houses are built differently from most of the country, so the standard winter checklist does not apply. This one does. Do it in October, before the first freeze.

Clear the roof and the canales

Most Santa Fe homes have flat roofs that drain through canales, the wooden or metal spouts that stick out through the parapet. When they clog with leaves and pine needles, water ponds on the roof, freezes, and finds its way inside through the parapet. Walk the roof, or have a roofer do it, and clear every canale and scupper. Check the roof membrane for cracks and the parapet caps for gaps while you are up there. A splash block or a drain-pipe extension below each canale keeps the ice off the walkway.

If you have a pitched roof with gutters, clean them, but in Santa Fe that is the minority.

Check the stucco

Stucco cracks let water in, and water that freezes behind stucco pops it off in sheets by spring. Walk the exterior and look at the parapets, the bottoms of the walls, and around windows and canales. Hairline cracks get elastomeric sealant. Anything wider gets a stucco contractor before it snows. Real adobe walls want attention at the base especially, where splash-back wets them.

Service the heat before you need it

• Radiant floors. The common system in homes built since the 1980s. Have the boiler serviced, check the pressure, and bleed the loops. Radiant heat is slow: it takes a day to bring a cold house up, so if the house will sit empty, keep the thermostat at 55, not off.
• Forced air. Change the filter, have the furnace serviced, and check the ducts in the crawlspace, where they often pull apart.
• Baseboard and wall heaters. Vacuum them, and make sure nothing is stacked against them.

Have the chimney swept if you burn wood. Kiva fireplaces draw hard and burn hot, and a season of piñon leaves creosote.

Buy wood in October

Piñon and cedar sell by the cord along Cerrillos Road and from trucks on the roadside through the fall, and the price goes up after the first snow. A cord lasts most people a winter of evening fires. Stack it off the ground, cover the top, and keep it away from the house. Pack rats like a woodpile.

Protect the water lines

• Disconnect hoses and drain the hose bibs. Frost-free bibs still freeze with a hose attached.
• Blow out or drain the drip irrigation system, and turn off the water to it.
• Insulate pipes in crawlspaces and on exterior walls, especially in older homes on the Eastside with additions built over the years.
• If you have a well, insulate the pump house or the wellhead and leave a heat source in it.
• Know where the main shutoff is. Everyone in the house should.

Windows, doors, and the wind

Spring wind is worse, but winter wind through a leaky window costs money every night. Replace weatherstripping, caulk the exterior trim, and in older homes consider interior storm panels. Casement windows in adobe walls are notorious. Check that exterior doors latch tight; a door that does not seal leaks a surprising amount of heat.

Seal the house against mice

They come in when it gets cold. Steel wool and foam in the gaps around pipes and wires, door sweeps on exterior doors, and a look at where the kiva’s air intake enters the house.

If the house will sit empty

Second homes need more than a thermostat. Shut off the water at the main and drain the lines, or keep the heat at 55 and have someone check the house every week. Freeze alarms that text you are cheap and worth it. Snow should be cleared from the flat roof after a heavy storm, and someone needs to see that the canales are flowing when it melts. This is most of what our home concierge service does for owners who are away, and it is the difference between a house that is ready when you arrive and one with a burst pipe in the kitchen.

And the cars

Snow tires or all-weather tires if you live up Hyde Park Road or in the foothills. The city plows main roads; your driveway and the side streets are on you. Keep a shovel and a bag of sand by the door.

If you are buying a home here and want to know what the winter will cost, ask us before you close. We can tell you which houses in a neighborhood were built for it. Start with our guide for buyers or call us.