Every year, winter rears its ugly head and levels its yearly assault on us. Everyone hopes to avoid the "Snowmageddons" of the previous years.
Just as we get our yards, pools, and porches ready for the winter, we can do the same for our garage. Here are a few tips to assist with safety, storage, and maintenance to prevent catastrophe. Most of these tips take only a few minutes, yet they can can save hours of headache and additional spending.
Check the Garage Door Seals for Issues
Take a moment to check the weather stripping on the bottom of your garage door and also the seals on the man door into the home. If any of these seals are damaged, it can allow cold air, debris, and rodents to enter your garage or home. Tight seals will keep those field mice where they belong: outside in the fields.
Tight sealers will protect your home from cold air, debris, and rodents.
Shield Garage Door Rails & Sensors from Damage
Keep items away or secured so that they cannot impede or damage the garage door tracks. If you're moving large items or equipment in and out of your garage, be careful not to strike the tracks or sensors. Bumping the sensors can cause the garage door to not open or close properly from the remotes.
Pre-position Snow Blowers & Shovels for Convenience
Have that snow blower or your tractor with a plow gassed up and make a clear path out the garage door. Moving the cars, contents, and storage items around during a snow storm is no fun. Make sure you need to only open one garage door and run the snow blower directly out the door.
Moving bags or containers of snow melt chemicals close to the man door makes it quick and safe to apply those chemicals outside. Also, have snow shovels out and ready.
Add Floor Mats for Safety
While most of us have a welcome mat at the man doors, winter makes for slippery conditions when entering/leaving vehicles and traversing the main walkway. Adding carpet strips or floor mats from the outside door to the entry into the main home not only removes debris from footwear, but prevents slipping on snow shoes and other footwear that lacks wet floor traction.
The addition of floor mats at the doors of vehicles also prevents slipping when entering/departing cars that are dripping snow and water onto the garage floor.
You may also want to put something on the stair treads (if present) to also increase traction and remove debris from footwear.
Safeguard Your Garage Investment
As a professional floor coatings company, we know this one sounds self-serving. But, a garage floor coating protects your garage floor from damaging winter salts, abrasive sands, and stones in snow. Our coatings can also protect from rust stains from snow shovels, tire chains, and snow blowers.
It's never too late. Our professional floor coatings can be installed in below freezing temperatures. Our teams have installed thousands of garage floor coatings at temperatures at or below freezing temperatures in all of our service areas.
Coated or not, sweeping the winter melt and debris out of your garage periodically will help protect your floor and keep you from tracking these items into your home.
Unhook & Drain Water Hoses
If your garage has a hose bib, ensure the garden hose is disconnected. Drain hoses of all water before wrapping them up for the season.
If your garage has heat, this step is probably not necessary. If you wish to add heat, check out our blog post titled 3 Ways to Heat Your Garage.
Mike can personally vouch for ensuring the snow blower is ready. For several years, he has forgotten this tip and been out in a freezing cold garage trying to jockey the snow blower around the garden tractor, push mower, and various other items.
Mike also suggests you ensure no items can get sucked up into the snow blower. He pulled in one of his Greyhound's play toys (a pony ball) and seized his snow blower's auger for the remainder of the winter.
Editors Notes:
Republished in 2019 after significant updates.
LAST UPDATED: Sep 16, 2025
