Bad weather can make the process of renovating your property's exterior a lot more challenging. If you should find yourself in this situation, here are some tips that you might find helpful.

Protect your construction and landscape supplies

Adverse weather conditions could inflict serious damage on your construction and landscape supplies if you do not take steps to keep these items safe. For example, if you leave your metal landscaping tools outdoors during a long period of heavy rain, they could potentially corrode. Likewise, if the rainwater lands on an open bag of fertiliser or paving mortar, it will turn these materials into unusable sludge.

Similarly, if you leave your decking timber outside whilst it is raining heavily and the wood has not yet been treated with waterproofing chemicals, wet rot may set in (as this fungus thrives in moist environments), in which case the timber will end up damaged beyond repair.

As such, if the weather forecast indicates that rain will occur soon, you should put your landscape supplies, tools and construction materials somewhere safe. Ideally, you should put them either inside your home or in a dry, secure shed. However, if you need to leave them outdoors, you should seal up any open bags of fertiliser or mortar and lay a waterproof tarp over your metal tools and decking timber.

Don't take risks when it comes to your personal safety

If you need to get your renovation work completed by a specific date, then you might be tempted to continue working, in spite of the bad weather. Whilst this is understandable, it's important not to risk your personal safety, just so that you can finish off your project.

For example, if it is extremely windy, you should avoid any work that needs to be done whilst standing on a ladder (such as installing new guttering or repainting the exterior walls), as just one strong gust of wind could blow you off balance. If this should happen, you could end up with a severe injury. Furthermore, any equipment or materials that you were holding at the time of the fall (such as an open tin of paint, for example) could be dropped and damaged as a result of the impact.

As such, if you want to carry on working whilst the weather is bad, it is best to stay on the ground and take extra precautions to keep yourself safe. For example, you might want to buy a waterproof, portable construction tent so that you can stay warm and dry whilst you do things like mix cement or saw timber.