Cold weather preps around the house as the temperature drops outside

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - As the temperatures fall with the change in the season – now is the time to make changes around your home for the colder weather.

This is a week of action for homeowners and plant lovers preparing for the colder weather.

Some people will be turning on their heat for the first time meaning it’s probably time to bring some plants indoors.

“Plants know what time of year it is and they know its time for them to start going dormant or time for them to come inside if they are plants that need to come inside,” said Steven Moorman, the Garden Center Manager at Roundtree Nursery & Supply in Charlotte.

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If you’re unsure about your plants, you should consider bringing the following indoors:

• Hanging Ferns.
• Citrus plants (Lemon and Orange trees).
• Succulents.
• Tropical plants.
• Anything considered a house plants placed outside for the summer.

Moorman tells WBTV that cold weather doesn’t mean all plants will die, some could be damaged by the colder temperatures.

“They may sustain some damage to their foliage that could take a while to repair, a lot of foliage will drop off so some of it might be insignificant that it’s a short amount of time that the damage is there, but if it’s a plant that tends to hold its foliage most of the year, you don’t want to get some damage on there that you have to look at for the rest of the winter with the plant not being attractive,” said Moorman.

Roundtree Nursery & Supply tells WBTV your perennials and mums should be fine outside.

The cold temperatures does not mean your time in the garden has come to an end, “now is the best time of year actually to plant, especially perennials and trees and shrubs, those plants will definitely thrive this time of year,” said Moorman.”

Although some plants are native outside and to cold weather, it may be best to cover them when frost is in the forecast.

As the cold weather settles in this week, HVAC companies will start to see more calls come in.

“These drop in temperatures mean a lot of people are turning on their heat for the first time this season, which typically brings us a lot more breakdown calls than normal, we’ll see an influx of breakdown calls from equipment that broke over the summer that people don’t know are broken until them turn them on for the first time.”

As for doing things on your own, Erica Cline with Morris-Jenkins says people should only change filters and batteries, you likely need to call a technician for everything else.

Cline said, “This time of year, we get a lot of smell calls, one of the biggest things that happen when you turn your furnace on for the first time is you get a burning smell, usually that’s nothing to worry about, a lot of dust settles in that equipment over the summer.”

Cline tells WBTV that if that smell continues for a few cycles or more than a couple of days, it’s best to call someone to get it checked out.

“A lot of other things we get calls for are dirty filters, pilot lights and igniters not working, the heat strips burn out, fans not workings, it’s a laundry list of things that can go wrong,” said Cline.

Since some heating systems deal with fire and gas, the next step is changing batteries or replacing your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors to make sure you’re safe in your home.

Experts say those detectors should be replaced every 10 years.

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