Houses rarely break without warning. They break after eighteen months of a small noise everyone agreed to ignore. Most of the expensive moments in home ownership — the burst pipe, the dead boiler on the coldest morning of the year, the quietly rotting window frame — are just maintenance that didn't happen, plus interest.
This is the whole year, in order. It's written for UK homes — our boilers, our weather, our leaves — and it errs on the side of jobs you can actually do or book, rather than vague advice to "inspect your property envelope".
The every-month five
Before the calendar: five things that are monthly, forever, regardless of season.
- Test the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Press the button. That's the whole job. Thirty seconds against the single most useful task on this page.
- Glance at the boiler pressure. Around 1–1.5 bar when the system is cold. If it keeps dropping, something is leaking — find out what before winter does.
- Take your meter readings. Estimated bills are how you end up owing your energy supplier a small fortune in February.
- Look for new damp. After heavy rain, walk the house once. New stains on ceilings and around windows are cheap to fix early and ruinous to fix late.
- Look up at your gutters. If something is growing in them, it's winning.
January
The month your boiler chooses.
- Know your condensate pipe. That white plastic pipe running outside from the boiler freezes in cold snaps, and a frozen condensate pipe is the single most common cause of winter boiler shutdown. If the boiler locks out in freezing weather, pouring warm (not boiling) water on that pipe fixes it more often than an engineer does. Lagging it now prevents the whole scene.
- Bleed any radiators with cold tops. Cold at the top means trapped air. A radiator key costs about a pound.
- Check the roof from the ground after storms. Slipped or missing tiles are visible from the pavement, and January insurance claims go smoother with a photo from before.
- Keep an eye on condensation. Wipe wet windowsills, keep trickle vents open, and don't dry washing on radiators with the windows shut unless you're actively farming mould.
February
Freeze-thaw is quietly working on your brickwork.
- Check gutters and downpipes while it's still wet. Overflowing gutters in the rain show you exactly where the blockage is. In summer you'll only be guessing.
- Descale shower heads and taps if you're in a hard-water area — vinegar, a sandwich bag and an elastic band. Peak glamour.
- Look at external walls for new cracks or spalled (flaking) bricks. Freeze-thaw damage shows up now. Small repointing jobs are cheap; ignored ones become damp problems with your name on them.
March
The house emerges from winter. Assess the damage.
- Clear winter debris from gutters, gullies and drains. Everything the storms delivered is sitting in them now.
- Check fences and gates before the neighbour's dog does.
- Service the lawnmower — or at least confirm it starts — before the grass notices spring has happened.
- Open the loft on a bright day. Daylight coming through the roof where daylight shouldn't be is the cheapest survey you'll ever do.
April
Dry enough to fix the outside.
- Get slipped tiles and roof niggles fixed now, while the roofers are between storm season and summer holidays.
- Wash the windows and check the frames while you're there. Flaking paint on timber frames is a rot invitation; catch it while it's a sanding job.
- Check external drains run clear — lift the gully covers, remove the horrors.
May
Painting weather, allegedly.
- Treat or paint exterior woodwork and fences in the first properly dry stretch. Wood you protect every few years lasts decades; wood you don't lasts until you sell.
- Reconnect the outside tap if you isolated it for winter, and check it doesn't drip.
- Trim anything growing against the house. Plants holding moisture against a wall are running a slow demolition project.
June
The single smartest booking of the year.
- Book the boiler service now. Summer engineers are available, unhurried and occasionally cheaper. December engineers are none of those things — and most manufacturer warranties are void without an annual service, which is a spectacularly expensive piece of paperwork to skip.
- Wasp patrol. Check the eaves, the loft and the shed while nests are the size of a golf ball and the wasps are still amateurs.
- Check sealant around baths and showers. Failed silicone leaks into the floor for months before the ceiling below mentions it.
July
Warm walls, easy fixes.
- Repointing and brickwork jobs want warm, dry weather. If February's inspection found anything, this is when it gets fixed.
- Going away? Find your stopcock first. Turn the water off for any holiday longer than a weekend. Every insurer's claims department can tell you why.
- Check passports and travel documents while you're at it — the renewal queue in July is entirely made of people who checked in July.
August
Book ahead of the autumn rush.
- Book the chimney sweep if you burn anything. September and October are their Christmas.
- Clean extractor fans and check they actually extract — a sheet of paper should stick to a working one. They're your main defence against winter condensation.
- Check doors and windows close and lock smoothly before the heating season makes every gap expensive.
September
The dress rehearsal.
- Run the heating for an hour — now, while you don't need it. The entire point is to find the failure in September, when an engineer can come Tuesday, rather than in November, when the whole street found theirs on the same morning.
- Bleed the radiators after the test run and check every one heats evenly.
- Top up loft insulation and draught-proofing before you're paying to heat the sky. 270mm of loft insulation is the current recommendation; many houses are sitting on half that.
October
Winterise the outside.
- Isolate and drain the outside tap, and insulate any exposed pipework. Burst pipes are a January problem caused by an October omission.
- First gutter clear as the leaves start. Yes, there'll be another round. The leaves don't fall by appointment.
- Clocks change, batteries change. The clocks going back is the traditional cue to change smoke alarm batteries — and to check the units' replace-by dates, because alarm sensors expire after about ten years even if the battery is fine.
- Garden furniture in, hoses drained.
November
The final sweep before winter settles in.
- Final gutter and gully clear after leaf-fall. This is the one that counts: gutters carry a winter's worth of water from here.
- Check the condensate pipe lagging you meant to do in January.
- Get the ventilation routine going — extractor fans on, trickle vents open, furniture pulled slightly off cold external walls. Condensation season runs to March.
- Test the Christmas lights now, while replacing them is an errand rather than an emergency.
December
The house knows it's Christmas. Mostly, hold the line.
- Away for Christmas? Leave the heating on low. A frost-protection trickle costs less than a burst pipe by a margin that isn't close.
- Make sure someone in the house knows where the stopcock is — the version of you that needs it will be standing in water.
- Keep an eye on ceilings under the roof after storms, and otherwise: rest. January's list is already waiting.
The once-a-year fixtures
Some things don't belong to a month — they belong to a date. These are the ones that bite hardest when forgotten:
| The fixture | How often | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Boiler service | Every year | Most manufacturer warranties require it. Skip a year, void the warranty, buy the next repair yourself. |
| Gas safety check | Every year | A legal duty for landlords (with a certificate to prove it); strongly sensible for everyone else with gas. |
| MOT | Every year, on its date | Cars over three years old. Driving without one invalidates your insurance, which is a bigger bill than the test. |
| Chimney sweep | Every year, if used | Chimney fires are a solved problem — the solution is a sweep. |
| Electrical inspection (EICR) | Every 10 years (5 for rentals) | The wiring you can't see, checked by someone who can. Required for landlords in England. |
| Alarm head replacement | Every ~10 years | Smoke and CO sensors expire as units, not just batteries. The replace-by date is printed on the back. |
General guidance for typical UK homes, not a substitute for a professional's advice about yours. If in doubt about anything gas, electrical or structural, use a qualified person — Gas Safe registered for gas, and so on. It's their job to be sure.
Or you could stop reading checklists.
This page is the manual version. The House Holder is the same calendar with a memory — it knows your boiler, your MOT date, your alarm batteries, and it reminds you at the right moment so you can forget the whole thing in confidence. It is, proudly, the most boring app in the world.
More from the boring shelf: How long to keep receipts, warranties and paperwork in the UK.