What the house needs in August, north of the equator
13 jobs, in four groups.
August is the month to look forward rather than around, because everything that matters in the winter is cheaper and easier to arrange now. Book the boiler or heat pump service in August and you get a date; ring on the first cold morning in October and you join a queue. Book the chimney sweep for the same reason. Finish the paint, the aerial and the sealant while the weather is settled, and do the twice yearly safety round: test the burglar alarm and its battery, check the gate motor battery and make sure everyone knows the manual release, oil the garage door track and test that the safety stop actually stops. Rinse the solar panels again if the summer has been dusty. Clear the sink and shower traps. The evenings shorten noticeably from here, and by the end of August London is losing more than three minutes of daylight a day. Outside jobs that need light after work are worth finishing this month.
Safety
- Test every smoke alarm
- Every month. See January for how.
- Have the chimney swept before the first fire
- Book it before everyone else does, which means late summer. A sweep will also tell you whether the cowl and the flashing are sound.
- Test the burglar alarm and its battery
- Twice a year. See March for how.
- Check the gate motor battery and the manual release
- Twice a year. See April for how.
- Oil the garage door track and test the safety stop
- Twice a year. Put something solid in the way and check the door stops and reverses, then oil the track and the rollers.
Water and heating
- Book the boiler or heat pump service
- Book it in late summer. Everybody rings on the first cold morning and that is the week you cannot get anyone.
- Change the washers on the dripping taps
- A tap dripping once a second is thousands of litres a year. It is one of the few plumbing jobs that is genuinely simple.
Inside
- Clear the sink and shower traps
- Twice a year. See February for how.
- Look at the sealant round the bath and the shower
- Black or lifting sealant is water getting behind it. Cutting it out and doing it again is a Saturday, and the floor below is not.
- Paint an inside room while the windows can stay open
- Warm dry weather with the windows open is the difference between a room that smells of paint for a day and one that smells for a fortnight.
Outside
- Wash the bins out
- Still due this month. See May for how.
- Cut the growth back off the aerial and the dish
- A branch across a dish is a picture that fails in bad weather only. Do it in the growing season when you can see what is new.
- Rinse the dust off the solar panels
- Twice in the dry season, with a hose from the ground and never a pressure washer. Dust costs a few per cent and is free to remove.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for August. The same list is tickable on the house through the year, where the ticks are kept on your own device and cleared at the start of each year. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The garden half of the month is on the almanac page for August, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.