House Maintenance Checklist

Maintaining the health of a house can be a lot of tedious work. You should perform regular maintenance checks and inspections to ensure the safety and quality of your house over time. If you maintain your house, it will last a very long time. However, if you neglect regular maintenance, you're bound to end up in a bad situation down the road and have to spend thousands of dollars in repair. Houses are like cars: if you take proper care of it, it will in turn take care of you.

Now that I've owned my first house for over a year, I've learned a lot about the checkups that need to be performed to ensure the longevity of a house. If you're the owner of a condo, house, or even live in a long-term apartment, you should look into these things as well. Here is my personal house maintenance checklist.

Note: some of these may not apply to you depending on the climate you live in. I live in Columbus, OH, which experiences hot summers and cold winters.

Every Spring ¶

  • Clean your outdoor air conditioning unit. Over time the grilles of your central AC unit will get clogged with leaves, pine needles, and dirt. This reduces air flow and the overall effectiveness of your AC. Cleaning is as easy as hosing down the grilles with pressurized water. Doing so can lower your AC bill and save you money.
  • Mulch your flower beds. Mulching is great for health of your lawn and the health of your house because it can provide nutrients to surrounding flowers while simultaneously blocking weeds. If you buy synthetic or plastic mulch, it can also reroute moisture away from the house. If you don't feel like buying mulch from your local store, you can make your own mulch from compost, cardboard, or sawdust.
  • Caulk any concrete cracks. If you live in a cold area or a constantly fluctuating climate, your driveway, steps, patio, and other exterior concrete slabs are bound to crack over time. The best way to prevent further disrepair is to buy a concrete (polyurethane) caulk to fill hairline gaps once a year. If there are cracks larger than 1/2in you should first insert a foam backer rod to provide extra support. Before caulking, make sure that the temperature stays above 50 degrees Fahrenheit and that it doesn't rain in the next two days. You should also wear disposable gloves for this caulk.

Every Summer ¶

  • Mow your lawn every week. This is pretty self explanatory. If you want to help out your local wild rabbit community you can instead mow every other week to give them something to chew on.
  • Trim your bushes. Again, pretty self explanatory.

Every Fall ¶

  • Inspect your door and window weatherstripping. Most of your heating bill will come from hot air escaping though your doors and windows in the winter. It's a good idea to check the seams around these once a year and make sure you don't feel any cold air. If you do, you may want to replace your weatherstripping.
  • Inspect your window caulking. This follows the same line of thought as the weatherstripping above. Old caulk shrinks and cracks over time so you should always check to see if you need to apply or reapply caulk.
  • Set mouse traps. Fall is the most likely time for a mouse or other unwanted animal to enter your house because the weather is getting colder and animals look for warm shelter with a steady supply of food. It's a good idea to also inspect your exterior to look for any gaping holes or entrypoints where an animal might enter your home.
  • Rake your leaves. Raking your leaves prevents your grass from dying due to lack of sunlight, and it also gives you a fuel source for composting if you compost.

Every Winter ¶

  • Clean your gutters. After fall, you can expect your gutters to be filled with leaves and other debris. They need to stay clean to ensure they don't start leaking or overflowing. Otherwise, water will find a way into your house every time it rains or snows.
  • Run every faucet or shower once a week. Every drain in a house is built with a P-trap that fills with water to prevent sewer gas and flies from entering your house. However, in the winter, water can contract and evaporate, leaving a passage for sewer flies to enter your house. Don't ask how I know. If you run every faucet in your house once per week, it will keep the P-traps constantly filled with water.

Every 3 Months ¶

  • Change your air filter. Every HVAC unit has an air filter that passively removes dust and dirt particles from the air as it runs. I recommend buying commercial grade air filters rather than residential grade air filters and changing them every few months. The higher quality the filter, the more often you'll have to change it, but I think it's worth the cost to have cleaner air.

Every Year ¶

  • Inspect your sump pump. A sump pump is a pump in the bottom of your house that perpetually pumps water away from your foundation. Moisture is the number one enemy of any house, so the best way to keep your house from moulding, rotting, or flooding is to regularly check your sump pump to make sure it is functioning properly.
  • Inspect your radon meter. All modern basements are required by code to have a radon meter. Radon is colorless odorless gas that can have negative long term effects on your health when exposed in stale air, even potentially increasing your risk of lung cancer[1]. It's most commonly found underground or in basements. If you have an old basement without a Radon meter, try not to stay in it for long periods of time. If you have a basement with a Radon meter, be sure to check it regularly to make sure the fan is working and the Radon levels remain consistently low.
  • Test smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Every year you should test to make sure these work to keep your house safe. Nowadays you can buy all-in-one smoke and carbon monoxide detectors without batteries that last 10 years. I highly recommend switching to these as soon as you can. You might forget to replace the batteries in your smoke alarms and regret it in the future.
  • Test exterior lights. It's a good idea to make sure your porch, deck, garage, and side lights are working as intended. You may need to replace the bulbs every few years to make sure the area around your house is properly lit.

  1. See Radon: The Invisible Threat by Michael Lafavore. ↩︎