What the house needs this month
84 jobs across the year, sorted into the month each one belongs in.
October, northern hemisphere. 0 of 32 ticked.
October is the fullest month in the year for the house, and it is worth writing a list rather than trusting your memory. It is the second hinge month, so the twice yearly jobs come round again: turn the mattress, swap the wardrobe, oil the hinges and locks, lift the drain covers. It is also the month everything gets put away and shut down. Lag the outside taps and any exposed pipe, drain the hose and bring it in, clean and store the garden furniture properly rather than leaving the cushions in a damp box, net the pond before the leaves go in, and take the last cut before cleaning and storing the mower with the fuel run out. Change the smoke alarm batteries. Get the grit in before it sells out. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October in the UK and the European Union, a week before they change in most of the United States and Canada, and the smoke alarm batteries can go with them. The first frost across lowland Britain usually comes between mid October and mid November, so the outside taps and the hose are October jobs.
Safety
- Test every smoke alarmPress the button on each one until it sounds. It takes two minutes and it is the single most useful thing on this list.
- Change the smoke alarm batteriesOnce a year whether they have chirped or not. Pick a date you will remember, such as the weekend the clocks change.
- Test the carbon monoxide alarmBefore the heating season and again in the middle of it. A carbon monoxide alarm has a sealed life of about seven years, printed on the back.
- Have the chimney swept before the first fireBook it before everyone else does, which means late summer. A sweep will also tell you whether the cowl and the flashing are sound.
- Check the heater flexes and plugsBefore the heaters come out of the cupboard. Look for cracked flex, scorched pins and anything that has been run under a rug.
Water and heating
- Bleed the radiatorsCold at the top and warm at the bottom means air. Bleed them before the heating season rather than in the first cold week.
- Lag the outside taps and any exposed pipeAnywhere a pipe runs through an unheated space. Foam lagging costs very little against the price of a burst.
- Check the water heater valve and its drip trayThe pressure relief valve should be dry and the tray should be empty. A wet tray is the first sign of something worth calling about.
- Descale the kettle and the shower headQuarterly in a hard water area, less often in a soft one. A furred shower head sprays sideways long before it stops working.
- Drain the hose and bring it inWater left in a hose over a hard frost splits it, and a split hose is not obvious until the first hot day of the next year.
Inside
- Turn or rotate the mattressTwice a year, at the same time as the wardrobe change. Most modern mattresses rotate rather than flip, which the label will say.
- Put the heavy curtains upA lined curtain over a single glazed window is worth a surprising amount, and it costs nothing once you own them.
- Look at the loft insulation before the coldCheck it is not squashed, that it reaches the eaves without blocking the ventilation, and that nothing has been storing itself in it.
- Feel round the doors and windows for draughtsDo it on a windy day with the back of your hand. Draught strip is the cheapest heating improvement there is.
- Replace the bulbs that have goneBefore the dark months rather than during them, and check the outside ones at the same time.
- Swap the wardrobe overTwice a year. Anything you did not wear at all last season is not going to be worn next season either.
- Wash the cooker extractor filtersThree times a year, in the dishwasher or in very hot water with soda crystals. A greasy filter moves almost no air at all.
Outside
- Look the roof over from the groundBinoculars from the garden, twice a year. Slipped tiles, lifted ridge, a bird nesting in the flashing. Never from the ladder if you can avoid it.
- Push on the fence postsBefore the windy months. A post that rocks will be flat by the spring, and it is a much easier job standing up than lying down.
- Oil the gate hinges and the locksA drop of oil twice a year keeps a gate closing properly. A lock that has gone stiff outdoors is usually water rather than wear.
- Clear the moss off the pathsTwice a year, and always before the wet months. A mossy path is the commonest way people fall over at home.
- Check the shed roof and doorBefore the wet months. Roofing felt fails at the edges first, and a shed that leaks in June has been leaking since March.
- Check the outside lights workBefore the evenings get dark. Clean the lens while you are there, because most outside lights lose more to dirt than to the bulb.
- Check the tyres, the screenwash and the antifreezeBefore the cold weather rather than in it. Tread and pressures take five minutes on a forecourt.
- Clean and put the garden furniture awayDry, clean and under cover. Cushions left in a damp box in October are mouldy cushions in April.
- Lift the drain covers and lookTwice a year. Standing water in a gulley means a blockage somewhere, and it is a great deal cheaper than a flood.
The garden edge
- Check the water butt and its diverterBefore the rains. Clean out the leaves, check the tap, and make sure the diverter is set to fill rather than to bypass.
- Last cut, then clean and store the mowerRun the fuel out or add a stabiliser, clean the deck properly and store it dry. Old petrol left in over winter is the commonest reason it will not start.
- Net the pond before the leaves fallLeaves rotting in a pond over winter take the oxygen out of it. A net for six weeks saves clearing it out in spring.
- Wash the greenhouse glass downBefore the low light months. Dirty glass in midwinter is the difference between a plant that holds and a plant that stretches.
- Get the grit or the salt inBefore you need it, because the shops sell out on the first icy morning. A bucket by the door is enough for most paths.
- Rake the leaves off the lawn and the pathsGrass under leaves goes yellow within a fortnight. Put them in a bag with a few holes and you have leaf mould in a year.
October, the northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
October is the fullest month in the year for the house, and it is worth writing a list rather than trusting your memory. It is the second hinge month, so the twice yearly jobs come round again: turn the mattress, swap the wardrobe, oil the hinges and locks, lift the drain covers. It is also the month everything gets put away and shut down. Lag the outside taps and any exposed pipe, drain the hose and bring it in, clean and store the garden furniture properly rather than leaving the cushions in a damp box, net the pond before the leaves go in, and take the last cut before cleaning and storing the mower with the fuel run out. Change the smoke alarm batteries. Get the grit in before it sells out. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October in the UK and the European Union, a week before they change in most of the United States and Canada, and the smoke alarm batteries can go with them. The first frost across lowland Britain usually comes between mid October and mid November, so the outside taps and the hose are October jobs.
October, the southern hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
October is the month to get the house ready for the heat and for the storms, and both are close. Wash the air conditioner filters, clean the ceiling fans, check the fridge and freezer door seals with a sheet of paper, and get the insect screens up before the windows start living open. Run every irrigation zone and watch where the water actually lands, which is rarely where you think. Outside, finish the gutters, wash the windows inside and out, bring the garden furniture out and check the joints and the bolts before anybody sits on it. It is a hinge month, so the twice yearly list comes round again: mattress, wardrobe, hinges and locks, drains, extractor filters, water heater valve and tray. Highveld storms can bring hail from October to January, and a hailstorm finds every loose roof sheet and every blocked gutter. Surge protection on the television and the router is worth checking before the lightning starts.
What this is
A house asks for about the same things every year, and almost nobody remembers all of them at the right moment. The list is not difficult and it is not long. It is just that the month a boiler service is worth booking is not the month anybody thinks about boilers, and the month to lag an outside tap is the month before the one where it bursts. This page holds eighty four jobs, each attached to the months it belongs in, and shows you the ones that are due now.
Tick them off as you do them. The ticks are kept on this device in the same way your plant list is, under a key called hh.home.v1, and they are cleared at the start of each year, because a maintenance list that still shows last February ticked is worse than no list at all. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is nothing to sign up for.
Why the two hemispheres are different lists
Most of what a house needs is driven by the weather rather than by the date, so the same job lands in opposite months on either side of the equator. Bleeding the radiators before the cold is September in the north and April in the south. Draining the outside tap is November in one and May in the other. The compass rose at the top switches between them and remembers your choice, which is the same setting the plant log and the almanac use.
Not everything flips, though, and that is the part a simple six month shift would get wrong. Testing the smoke alarms is a monthly job in both hemispheres and appears in all twelve months. Descaling the kettle, turning the compost and pressing the test button on the earth leakage unit are on the same months everywhere, because nothing about them depends on the season. Cutting dry growth back from the walls before the fire season is the one that looks like a flip and is not: in most of the north the dry season is summer, and across the summer rainfall south it is winter, so the job sits in June and July on both lists for entirely different reasons.
How the list is sorted
Into five groups, in the order they matter when something goes wrong. Safety first, which is the alarms, the extinguisher, the electrics, the chimney and the ladder. Then water and heating, which is the boiler, the pipes, the gutters and the taps, and which between them cause most of the expensive damage a house suffers. Then inside, then outside, then the garden edge, which is the tools, the mower, the compost and the pond: the jobs that belong to the house rather than to any plant, and which are easy to lose between the two.
None of this is a substitute for a qualified person on the things that need one. A gas appliance, a consumer unit, a chimney and anything on a roof are all jobs where the useful entry on the list is the one that says book somebody, and the value of booking in August is that you can still get a date.
What to plant this month is the other half of this, over in the almanac.