Winter in Eagle County is a joyous time for winter sports enthusiasts, but it can be a disastrous time for buildings that haven’t been properly winterized. 

Whether you’re a business owner, commercial property owner, property manager or homeowner, every building that exists in this alpine climate needs to be checked out before winter weather is consistently upon us. These inspections also need to occur throughout the winter. 

We asked the team at BluSky Restoration Contractors in Gypsum how to handle winterization for homes and commercial buildings. Here are some of the key takeaways.

Visually inspect your property

Whether you personally walk your property or hire a property manager to do it, it’s important to inspect properties before winter sets in. You want to look for weak spots on the building envelope, weak points in building systems, and cold areas in the building with active pipes that run through. Look at the vented crawl space to ensure it’s not reaching temperatures that could cause pipes to freeze. 

Commercial properties usually take more time to inspect than most residential properties, but the process is very similar. 

“We can walk a property with a homeowner or property manager and we’ll see things from a different perspective,” said Patrick Hibler, vice president of the Gypsum office at BluSky Restoration Contractors. “We can see problems in the architecture or design of buildings that may create problems. We can identify potential hazards and offer up solutions just based on our experience over the years in what we see regularly each winter.”

Be prepared for freeze-thaw cycles

In Eagle County, winter weather can be all over the map. We’ll have a single-digit temperature blizzard one day, followed by sunshine and temperatures in the 50s or 60s. These freeze-thaw cycles can wreak havoc on buildings that aren’t prepared. 

“You have to stay on top of the weather and understand what it’s going to do to your property,” Hibler said. 

Do you know where your snowmelt drains? Is it properly draining away from the property? Make sure you know the answers to these questions and how to mitigate concerns before it’s too late.

Watch for standing ice

A lot of winter water intrusion occurs because of standing ice. It’s critical to keep an eye on any area where ice builds up and keep that ice to a minimum. 

“Look for big overhangs where snow gets loaded that could fall and hurt a person,” said Fletcher Groff, project director at BluSky Restoration Contractors. “It’s also a prudent thing to do to minimize the amount of snow that’s on your roof throughout the winter.”

If you have a lot of skylights, which can be fairly common on commercial buildings, you might want a plan in place to shovel around those skylights to minimize water intrusion and failure. 

Have a plan

For homeowners, a plan might be as simple as keeping a few emergency phone numbers on hand. For commercial buildings, property managers and businesses, have an internal plan that you can share with your staff so if there’s a leak or an emergency, they know the basic steps of how to react, Groff said. 

“Include the locations of the main water shut-offs or isolation valves inside units since the first step is to shut off that valve and minimize damage,” he said. “You want to have a plan that alleviates any time delays in the process that would cause further damage to the building.”

When these emergency situations do come up, the property managers, engineers, homeowners and any other relevant stakeholder should always have a phone number handy for the resource to call during that emergency.

“If it’s a plumber, a restoration company like BluSky — make sure they’re ready to make that phone call when something happens,” Groff said.

Hibler pointed out that these crises never seem to happen at 11 a.m. 

“It seems like it’s always 3 a.m., so having a plan ahead of time really helps lessen the damage and speeds up the process of getting back into your building,” he said. 

Consider historical trends 

If you know there’s a pipe that has historically frozen, make sure that pipe is ready with pipe insulation, heat tape or perhaps a fix to the building itself. 

“If it’s something you don’t look at every day, make sure you’re checking those points consistently,” Groff said. 

The supply lines to the dishwasher and refrigerator are common points of origin for floods. Hibler said BluSky has seen a bad supply line flood an entire house countless times. 

When a crisis such as a weather event, flood or even a Covid-19 outbreak occurs, do you know who to call or what to do?

Crisis communication planning is a tool that helps you deal with an emergency from a place of organization and relative calm. When you’re in the moment, you don’t want to be worrying about details you could have had planned beforehand. 

“When there’s water pouring down, the building is on fire or there’s a hazardous materials spill, in the midst of all of that is not the time to be searching Google or through your rolodex trying to determine who to call,” said Chuck Lane, director of training and education at BluSky Restoration Contractors. 

Lane has a long history of experience in emergency management and shared the following tips for coming up with a solid crisis communications plan. 

Who needs a plan?

In short, everybody needs a crisis communication plan, but Lane breaks planning into three categories:

• Organizational
• Departmental
• Personal preparedness 

“The more prepared an individual is in day-to-day life, it makes them that much more prepared for a company/business emergency,” he said. 

What’s the goal of the plan?

The more you can plan in advance to remove stress from the emergency situation, the better. The goal of every plan should be to have enough information prepared in advance, and for it to be readily accessible when needed. 

“A plan needs to be clear and concise — someone needs to be able to read this quickly in an emergency. Use bullet points and keep it simple,” Lane said. 

Another tip is to keep it in a place where it’s seen consistently, or you need to actively share it with the appropriate people regularly. 

“People need to be truly educated on what it is and what it’s for,” he said. “If it’s a personal plan, sit your family down and explain why you need to have this plan. If it’s at an organization, maybe check in once per quarter to make sure everything’s up to date.”

What type of emergencies should you plan for?

In Eagle County, homeowners and business owners need to consider wildfires and any type of severe weather such as hail storms, thunderstorms and blizzards. 

“As you’re doing a risk assessment or hazard vulnerability analysis, think about how these things would impact you,” Lane said. “What is the true risk from the hazard and how prepared are you to deal with it?” 

Lane recommends doing research for information from the state or federal offices of emergency management. Then, take the top three to five things that really concern you that could pose a risk and spend time on how you’d manage those emergencies if they were to arise. 

Know who to call 

Different emergency situations require different points of contact. 

On the personal level, do you know who to get in touch with at your child’s school if the facility were to be evacuated? 

Organizations are no different. If you’re in a certain position or role at work and assume you know who to call in an emergency just based on hierarchy, what about if it’s the middle of the night or that person is on vacation?

“There should be a call-down list — here’s who you call if this type of event occurs,” Lane said. “We don’t think about this stuff as often as we should, and deep down you hope it never happens.”

Plan for alternative communication methods 

It’s important to plan for events in which communications could become difficult. What happens if cell towers are down? You’ll need to think about alternate ways to communicate, Lane said. 

“Disasters can get really scary if you can’t get in touch with your loved ones,” he said. “If you can’t communicate, where would you meet up with people? If you couldn’t get to work or get home, or couldn’t find your family, what’s the plan?”

Crisis communication plans often overlook these scenarios and assume the best. Lane said plans may list a name and a phone number and that’s it, assuming cell phones and landlines will be working. 

“Not everybody is going to buy a satellite phone, a ham radio or an 800 MHz radio, but it’s worth looking into at least one other method of communication if your plan A doesn’t work. Communication is everything and we often take it for granted, especially as a society that’s so plugged in.”

Update your plan frequently

One of the biggest mistakes people make with a personal or organizational crisis communication plan is to create it and then let it sit. Once you create a plan, you can’t just check it off your list and never revisit it.

“It has to be someone’s responsibility to review it and take ownership of it,” Lane said. “You need to make sure it’s up to date so you don’t have issues when you need this information.”