Fall officially arrives at 12:06 a.m. UTC on September 23, 2026, which works out to 8:06 p.m. Eastern and 5:06 p.m. Pacific the evening before, putting the autumnal equinox a little more than two weeks out from today. That date is the unofficial deadline home-service companies and extension offices point to every year for the outdoor jobs that are easy to skip in the moment and expensive to ignore once the temperature drops: draining irrigation lines, storing patio furniture and shutting down outdoor fixtures that don’t hold up to a hard freeze.
Irrigation Lines Come First
Water left sitting in sprinkler pipes and heads over winter freezes, expands and cracks whatever container it’s sitting in, whether that’s a valve, a fitting, or a length of pipe buried where nobody can see it fail until spring. A professional “blowout,” which uses compressed air to clear every line in the system, typically runs $60 to $150, averaging around $85 to $93 depending on system size and number of zones, according to cost data compiled by Angi. Skipping it is almost always the more expensive path: burst pipes, cracked valves and full component failures from a hard freeze routinely cost more to fix than the winterization visit would have cost to prevent, and depending on where the crack ends up, the repair can mean digging up landscaping just to reach it.
Furniture and Cushions Next
Family Handyman puts the consequence of skipping this one bluntly: “Brand-new furniture can look 10 years old in just one winter season.” Left exposed all winter, metal rusts, wicker unravels, wood splits and plastic cracks, and that’s before factoring in what a freeze-thaw cycle does to cushions that soak up rain and never fully dry out. The best option, per their guidance, is bringing furniture indoors wherever there’s space for it, a garage, shed or basement, or failing that, using individual fitted covers rather than one shared tarp, leaving enough ventilation underneath that trapped moisture doesn’t turn into mold over the winter. Cushions should come inside no matter what; foam that spends a winter outdoors in freezing temperatures rarely bounces back to its original shape once spring arrives.
Outdoor Fixtures and Faucets
Outdoor spigots need the same attention as the irrigation system feeding them. Disconnect and drain every garden hose, since a hose left attached over winter traps water inside the spigot itself and can crack the fitting from the inside. Homes with a separate shutoff valve for exterior faucets should close it and drain the line, and any outdoor fixture without built-in freeze protection benefits from an insulated cover, sold cheaply at any hardware store, rather than being left bare through the season’s first hard freeze.
Gutters and Downspouts While You’re Out There
Since the ladder is already out for the outdoor faucet covers, it’s worth clearing gutters before the bulk of fall leaf drop finishes them off completely. A gutter clogged with the first wave of leaves and debris can’t move water away from the roofline, which sends it over the edge and down the siding instead, or worse, back up under roof shingles during a heavy rain. Downspouts deserve a quick check too: they should extend at least a few feet from the foundation so melting snow and winter rain don’t pool right where the house meets the ground, a slow-moving problem that shows up later as a damp basement rather than an obvious failure in the moment.
What Waiting Actually Costs
None of these jobs takes more than an afternoon combined, and none of them costs much compared with what happens if they’re skipped. A cracked sprinkler valve or a burst outdoor pipe can mean a repair bill well into the hundreds of dollars, on top of any landscaping that has to be dug up to reach it, and furniture replaced after a single unprotected winter usually costs far more than a set of covers would have. Two weeks out from the equinox is exactly the right window to get ahead of it, before the first real cold snap makes the outdoor faucet the last thing anyone wants to deal with. Most of this list can be split across two weekends rather than crammed into one afternoon: irrigation and gutters one weekend, furniture and faucet covers the next, so nothing gets rushed right as the weather turns. Homeowners who wait until after the first freeze warning tend to be the ones calling a plumber or a furniture retailer in a panic, paying rush pricing for a job that would have cost far less done on a normal schedule two weeks ahead of the calendar actually changing seasons.
