What the house needs in July, north of the equator
15 jobs, in five groups.
July is the middle of the summer and the month to get the water jobs done. Change the washers on the dripping taps, because a tap dripping once a second is thousands of litres a year and it is one of the very few plumbing jobs that is genuinely simple. Look at the sealant round the bath and the shower, and cut it out and redo it if it is black or lifting, which is a Saturday against a ceiling below. Defrost the freezer in the month it holds least. Finish the decking and the outside paint while the weather holds. Cut the growth back off the aerial and the satellite dish now, when you can see which branches are new, and wash the light fittings while the days are long.
Safety
- Test every smoke alarm
- Press the button on each one until it sounds. It takes two minutes and it is the single most useful thing on this list.
- Check the extinguisher gauge and the fire blanket
- The needle should sit in the green. Make sure the blanket is still where it was and not behind something.
- Look in the roof space for a wasp nest
- Early in the summer, while a nest is still small and quiet. A nest found in June is a small job and one found in September is not.
Water and heating
- Descale the kettle and the shower head
- Quarterly in a hard water area, less often in a soft one. A furred shower head sprays sideways long before it stops working.
- 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
- Wash the curtains and the blinds
- In the warm months, when they will dry the same day and the windows can stay open while they are down.
- 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.
- Defrost the freezer
- Once a year, in the month you have least in it. Every centimetre of ice makes the motor run longer for the same cold.
- Deep clean the carpets
- In the season the windows can stay open all day, because a carpet that dries slowly smells worse than it did before.
- Wash the light fittings and the lampshades
- Once a year in the light months, when you can see the dust and can work without the lights on.
- 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
- Touch up the outside paintwork
- In dry settled weather with a few dry days behind you and a few ahead. Bare wood left over a winter costs far more than a tin of paint.
- Wash the bins out
- In the warm months, when it matters and when they dry in an hour. A rinse and a splash of disinfectant is enough.
- Clean the decking and oil it again
- Wash it, let it dry for two or three days, then oil it. Decking left bare goes grey and then splinters, and neither can be undone.
- 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.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for July. The same list is tickable onthe 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 forJuly, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.