Nearly every emergency call we take between December and February traces back to something that was visible, and fixable, in October. Freeze-thaw cycling along the Wasatch Front is unusually hard on buildings — warm afternoons, hard overnight freezes, repeated dozens of times a season. Water gets in, freezes, expands, and makes the gap bigger for next time.
Here is the walkthrough, roughly in the order it should happen.
Late September: water and irrigation
Blow out the irrigation. Before the first hard freeze, not after. A cracked backflow preventer is a few hundred dollars; a mainline break under a walkway is a great deal more, and you will not discover it until spring when the system pressurises and floods a lawn.
Shut off and drain exterior hose bibs. Including the ones on the back of the clubhouse nobody uses.
Locate and mark the main water shutoff. Then tell the board, the manager, and the on-call vendor where it is. At 2 a.m. with water coming through a ceiling, the difference between a soaked unit and a destroyed one is how fast someone finds the valve.
October: roofs, gutters, and drainage
Clear the gutters after leaf drop, not before. Timing matters — clean them in September and they refill by November. Clogged gutters are the leading cause of ice dams, which are the leading cause of winter interior water damage.
Inspect roof edges and flashing. Look at valleys, penetrations, and the flashing where roofs meet walls. Lifted or missing shingles at the eaves are where ice dams do their damage.
Check attic insulation and ventilation in buildings where the association is responsible for them. Ice dams are fundamentally a heat-loss problem: warm air escapes into the attic, melts snow on the upper roof, the water runs down to the cold eave and refreezes. Insulation and ventilation fix the cause; heat cable only manages the symptom.
Walk the drainage. Confirm downspouts discharge well away from foundations, catch basins are clear, and swales are not blocked by landscaping installed since last year.
October: the snow removal contract
This is the single contract most worth reading carefully before you need it. Confirm in writing:
- Trigger depth. At what accumulation does the vendor come out without being called? Two inches and three inches are very different service levels.
- Response window. How many hours after the trigger? Are overnight storms cleared before the morning commute?
- Scope. Drive lanes only, or sidewalks and entry walks too? Are guest parking areas included? Fire lanes?
- Ice management. Is salt or de-icer included in the base price or billed per application? What product — some damage concrete and landscaping.
- Snow storage. Where does it get piled? Piles blocking sightlines at intersections or covering fire hydrants create liability.
- Documentation. Does the vendor log service times? After a slip-and-fall claim, that log is your defence.
Mark hydrants, valve boxes, sprinkler heads, and curb edges with stakes before the first snow. It costs almost nothing and prevents a season of plow damage.
November: buildings and common areas
Seal exterior gaps. Caulk around windows and doors, and check where utility penetrations enter the building. This is also when rodents start looking for a way in.
Service heating equipment in clubhouses, corridors, and any shared mechanical spaces. Confirm freeze protection is working in unheated areas — pump rooms, stairwells, and parking structures with exposed lines.
Test exterior lighting. Sunset moves to just after 5 p.m. Walkways that felt adequately lit in July will not be, and lighting is a recurring theme in premises liability claims.
Prune deadwood and check tree structure. Wet snow loads bring down limbs that were structurally weak all along. A pruning visit in November is cheaper than emergency removal and a damaged car in January.
Winterise the pool properly, and confirm the safety cover is secured and the fencing and gate latches are intact. An off-season pool is still an attractive nuisance.
Before the first storm: tell the owners
Send one notice covering: where residents may and may not park during snow removal, who to call for an emergency versus a routine issue, what the association clears and what is the homeowner’s responsibility, and a reminder to keep heat on in units left vacant over the holidays. That last one prevents more burst-pipe claims than any other single message an association sends.
The economics
A thorough autumn walkthrough with a manager and a couple of vendors takes half a day. A single ice dam that gets into a top-floor unit means remediation, drywall, paint, flooring, a deductible, and an unhappy owner — comfortably more than the walkthrough, before counting the board hours spent managing the fallout.
Written by the management team at Premier Property Management. General information for Utah community associations — not legal, tax, or insurance advice for your association.