The Vermont Homeowner’s Spring Inspection Checklist — What to Catch Before Summer Project Season

If you live in Vermont, the first warm weekend in May feels like a gift. The snow’s mostly gone, the mud’s drying up, and you can finally walk around your property without slogging through six inches of slush. It’s also the perfect time to do something most homeowners skip: a real, top-to-bottom inspection of how your house came through the winter.

Vermont winters are hard on buildings. Freeze-thaw cycles, heavy snow loads, ice dams, road salt, frost heave, and rodents looking for warm shelter all leave damage that’s invisible from November through April. The damage shows up in May — but only if you look for it.

This checklist is written from the perspective of a working Vermont general contractor. We walk hundreds of properties every spring, and the same dozen issues show up over and over. Catching them in May means you can fix them in June or July, while crews are available and materials are in stock. Ignoring them means they get worse all summer and become emergencies in October.

Start Outside — The Five Things That Cause the Most Expensive Damage

1. The roof — look for ice dam aftermath

Walk around your house and look up at the roof edges, valleys, and around any chimneys or skylights.

Signs of ice dam damage:
– Stains on siding directly below the roof edge (running water during melt)
– Loose, missing, or buckled shingles, especially in the lower 3–6 feet of the roof
– Damaged gutters or downspouts (pulled away from the fascia, bent, or sagging)
– Visible ice or moisture marks inside attic eaves (check from inside the attic with a flashlight if accessible)

Why this matters: Ice dams form when warm attic air melts roof snow, which then re-freezes at the cold roof edge, forcing meltwater back up under the shingles. By the time you see damage on the siding, water has often already gotten into the wall cavity or attic insulation. Vermont roofs that get ice dams once tend to get them every year unless attic ventilation and insulation are corrected.

When to call a contractor: Any visible buckled shingles, water staining on the interior of an exterior wall, or daylight visible from inside the attic where there shouldn’t be.

2. Foundation — look for new cracks and frost heave

Walk the perimeter of the foundation. You’re looking for:

• New cracks that weren’t there last fall. Hairline cracks under 1/16″ are usually cosmetic. Cracks wider than 1/8″ or that have horizontal displacement are structural — get them looked at.
• Step cracks in block walls (cracks that follow the mortar joints in a staircase pattern). These indicate movement.
• Bulging or bowing in a foundation wall (use a long straightedge or string line to check).
• Frost heave damage at the base of stairs, walkways, or any concrete that was poured without proper frost protection. Slabs that have lifted 1/2″ to 2″ over winter usually settle most of the way back as the ground thaws but not always all the way.
• Soil grading — make sure soil and mulch slope away from the foundation, not toward it. Many properties grade reversed slightly over time, especially after landscaping.

Why this matters: A foundation crack that’s just cosmetic costs $200 to seal. The same crack ignored for three years and now leaking into a finished basement is a $5,000+ remediation.

3. Deck — check posts, ledger boards, and railings

This is the inspection that catches the most safety issues. Deck failures are a leading cause of home accident injuries.

• Posts: push hard on each post. Any wobble means the post is rotted at the ground line or the concrete footing has heaved. Use a screwdriver or awl to test for soft, punky wood at the base.
• Ledger board: this is the board attached to the house that the deck hangs from. Check for water staining on the siding above and below the ledger. Check the fasteners — should be lag bolts or structural screws, not deck screws or nails. If you see nails holding your ledger to the house, get this looked at immediately.
• Joists and beams: look at the underside of the deck (or crawl under if you can). Soft wood, mushrooms or fungus growing on framing, dropped joist hangers, or visible rot all need attention.
• Railings: push outward firmly on the railings around the perimeter. Any movement, any cracking sounds, any visible damage at the post connections — fix before guests use the deck.

Why this matters: A deck that fails causes injuries that can result in serious lawsuits. A homeowner who knew of a problem and didn’t fix it is in a much worse legal position than one who simply didn’t know. Spring inspection creates the paper trail too.

When to call a contractor: Any wobble on a post, any rot you can dig into with a screwdriver, any nail-attached ledger, or any loose railing.

4. Fence — check posts for heave and lean

Vermont’s frost-thaw cycle is brutal on fence posts. Walk your fence line and look for:

• Leaning sections — usually the result of one or more posts that have heaved or rotted at the base
• Gates that no longer latch cleanly — the post on either side has shifted
• Visible rot or insect damage at the base of wooden posts
• Loose pickets, rails, or boards that have pulled away over winter

A fence section with one heaved post can usually be repaired by re-setting just that post — a few hundred dollars. A whole stretch of leaning fence usually means multiple posts weren’t set below frost line originally, and partial repair will just delay the same problem.

5. Siding and trim — look for failed paint, rot, and gaps

Walk around the house one more time looking at the siding specifically:

• Failed paint or stain — especially on south-facing and west-facing walls that took the most sun and weather
• Soft wood at the bottom of trim boards, window sills, and door frames — probe with a screwdriver
• Gaps in caulking around windows, doors, and where siding meets trim
• Damaged or missing flashing above windows and doors
• Carpenter ant or rodent activity — small piles of sawdust on the ground below trim, chewed siding edges, or visible nests

Why this matters: Failed paint is cosmetic; failed caulk and rotted trim is a moisture entry point that’s going to cost 10× more to fix in two years than to caulk and repaint now.

Move Inside — The Three Things Spring Reveals That Winter Hides

1. Look for water staining on ceilings and around windows

Spring is when winter ice dam damage becomes visible inside. Check every room’s ceiling, especially along exterior walls. Check under and around windows for staining, peeling paint, or soft drywall.

A small brown ring on a ceiling that wasn’t there last summer is a clue, not a conclusion. It means water got in somewhere during the winter — usually an ice dam, possibly a failed flashing, occasionally a plumbing leak. Trace the source before patching the visible damage.

2. Check the basement and crawlspace for spring moisture

Spring melt and rain push groundwater up against foundations. Walk through the basement and look for:

• Damp spots on the floor or walls (especially in corners and where the slab meets the wall)
• Efflorescence — white powdery deposits on concrete or block, indicating water passing through
• Musty smell that wasn’t there in fall
• Active water entry during a heavy rain

A small amount of seasonal moisture is normal in Vermont basements. New moisture, large stains, or water actively coming in needs investigation.

3. Run all the things that sat unused all winter

Outdoor faucets, hose bibs, sprinkler systems, septic alarms, sump pumps, AC condensers. Anything that was winterized or unused for months. Run it for at least a few minutes and listen for problems. A hose bib that’s been split by an unexpected freeze will leak the moment you turn it on — better to find that on a Saturday afternoon than during a July cookout.

What to Do With Your Findings

Once you’ve walked the property and made a list, sort the issues by urgency:

Immediate (this week or two)

• Any structural concern (deck wobble, foundation crack with movement, ledger board issue)
• Any active water entry
• Anything that’s a safety hazard (broken railing, soft step, exposed nails)

This summer (June–August)

• Roof or shingle repair
• Painting, staining, and sealing
• Fence post repairs
• Window or door reseal
• Driveway/walkway frost heave repair

Plan ahead for next year

• Larger projects revealed by inspection (re-siding a wall, replacing a deck, full roof replacement)

Vermont contractors get busiest from late May through October. The earlier in spring you call for any of the summer category, the better your shot at fitting it into this year’s schedule. By July, most reputable contractors are booked through August or September.

When DIY Inspection Isn’t Enough — Get a Professional Walk-Through

A homeowner walk-through catches most major issues. It doesn’t catch everything. A few things that usually need a trained eye:

• Structural issues in framing — bowing walls, cracked headers, sagging floors. Often invisible from the outside.
• Hidden water damage — moisture meters, infrared cameras, and experience reading building patterns find damage drywall hides.
• Electrical or plumbing issues — outside the scope of this checklist but worth getting checked every few years.

If you found three or more meaningful issues in your walk-through, or if your house is over 50 years old and you haven’t had a real inspection in 5+ years, scheduling a contractor walk-through is worth the small cost.

Prop Ready offers free property assessments throughout Chittenden County and surrounding Vermont towns. We’ll walk the house, talk through what we see, and give you a written list of what needs attention now and what can wait — without trying to sell you a project you don’t need.

Schedule a free spring property walk-through →

If you’re a landlord, second-home owner, or property manager juggling multiple Vermont properties this spring, our property management service handles seasonal inspections and repair coordination across portfolios.

Once you’ve got your list, our service pages cover the most common spring-discovered work: decks and fences, renovations and remodels, and small projects and repairs.