With about 90 days of snow on the ground and 147 freezing nights a year, winter is the hardest season on a Minnetonka home. Here is how to protect floors, air and windows until the thaw.
Winter around Lake Minnetonka is long enough that it deserves its own cleaning plan. The 1991 to 2020 airport normals show about 51.2 inches of snow a year, an average January temperature near 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and roughly 22 nights at or below zero. A house shut tight for that long collects dust, moisture and grit in ways a summer house never does.
The tips below focus on the places winter does the most damage: the first ten feet inside each door, the windows, the air and the rooms upstairs where unexpected visitors spend the season.
December and January are the snowiest months, at about 11.4 and 11.0 inches of normal snowfall, and the ground carries an inch or more of snow on about 90 days a year. That is roughly three months when every trip to the car or the mailbox ends with wet boots on the floor. Freezing nights number about 147 a year, which means the furnace often starts in fall and runs well into spring.
The lake is the local clock. Records since 1855 put the median ice-out on Lake Minnetonka at April 14, and plenty of households treat that as the real end of winter cleaning. Until then, plan for slush.
Snow brings three things inside: water, sand and ice melt. Sand acts like sandpaper on hardwood and vinyl, water swells wood seams and stains grout, and ice melt leaves a white film that dulls floors and carpets when it dries.
A simple layered setup stops most of it. Put a stiff scraper mat outside the door, an absorbent mat just inside, and a rubber boot tray beside it. Shake the outside mat when it fills, and vacuum the inside mat every day or two in heavy weeks so sand does not migrate further into the house.
Winter moisture is a quiet problem. The Minnesota Department of Health advises keeping indoor relative humidity between 20 and 40 percent in winter, and it lists condensation on windows and ice dams among the places mold shows up. When a humidifier runs high on a zero degree night, water beads on the cold glass and runs down into the sills.
Check the bottom of each window in the morning during cold snaps. Wipe away water, dry the sill and track, and turn the humidifier down if beads form every day. Stains on upper walls or ceilings near exterior corners after a heavy snow can point to an ice dam on the roof, which is a roofing question rather than a cleaning one.
With windows closed for months, the furnace moves the same air over and over, and dust drops onto the tops of door frames, ceiling fan blades, vent covers and baseboards. Older homes notice it most: about a third of Minnetonka housing units predate 1970, and many still have original duct runs and profiled wood trim that hold dust.
Change the furnace filter on its schedule, dust high surfaces before low ones, and vacuum after dusting so what falls gets picked up. A Recurring House Clean dusts reachable baseboards and blind slats on every visit, and a One-Time Deep Clean wipes fans, vents and light fixtures in place.
Some of the insects that came inside in fall are still there. University of Minnesota Extension explains that cluster flies settle into attics and upper walls in August and September and spend the winter there in large clusters. On sunny days they wake up and drift into bedrooms and onto windows.
Asian lady beetles, which gather on buildings from late September to late October, can do the same. Extension recommends vacuuming both rather than crushing them, and changing the vacuum bag often to limit the smell. Note where they appear so the gaps can be sealed before next fall.
Storms affect cleaning visits as much as anything else. Cities around the lake enforce snow rules: Wayzata bans parking on public streets starting at 2 a.m. after 2 inches or more of snow until the street is plowed to the curb. Keep a driveway spot clear for a cleaner, shovel the walk to the door, and expect a visit to move if roads are bad. The seasonal calendar covers what comes after the thaw.
The questions Minnetonka homeowners ask most often about this topic, answered plainly.
TotalCare Cleaning will service Minnetonka and surrounding areas with background-checked cleaners and is insured up to $1 million. Re-clean guarantee: if we missed something, tell us by the end of the next day and we come back to fix it. Beyond Clean. TotalCare.
