What the house needs in June, south of the equator
15 jobs, in four groups.
June is winter, and in the summer rainfall regions it is also the dry season, which makes it two different months at once. The cold jobs are the indoor ones: air the house daily, watch the corners behind furniture and in window reveals, keep the dryer lint clear because this is when it runs hardest, and clean the oven properly while you are using it most. The dry season job is fire, and it is the important one. Cut the dry growth back from the walls, two metres of clear ground is the usual advice, and clear what has collected in the gutters and against the fence. Keep the bird feeders clean and filled, clean and oil the tools while nothing needs them, and turn the compost heap. The shortest day, around 21 June, gives Cape Town and Sydney just under ten hours of daylight and Johannesburg about ten and a half. Highveld nights regularly drop below freezing now, and a burst outside pipe is a June and July problem there, not a coastal one.
Safety
- Test every smoke alarm
- Every month. See January for how.
- Clear the lint from the dryer and its vent
- Still due this month. See May for how.
- Cut dry growth back from the walls
- In the summer rainfall regions the veld dries out and the fire season runs through the winter, so June to August is when to clear dry grass and brush back from the walls; two metres of clear ground is the usual advice. The Western Cape is the other way round, with its fire season in the dry summer, so clear the growth there again in November.
Water and heating
- Lag the outside taps and any exposed pipe
- Lag any pipe that runs through an unheated space or up an outside wall before June. On the Highveld and in the cold interior, where frost is common on winter nights, that matters; a house on the coast seldom needs more than the outside tap covered.
- Drain the hose and bring it in
- Drain it and bring it in before the frosts of June and July. On the Highveld a hose left full on a frosty night can split, and the split only shows when you next water in spring.
Inside
- Watch the cold corners for condensation
- Still due this month. See May for how.
- Air the house for a few minutes a day
- Still due this month. See May for how.
- Clean the oven properly
- In June or July, when the winter roasts and stews mean the oven is working hardest. Clean it cold, with a proper oven cleaner, and give the cleaner time to work.
- Run a hot empty cycle in the washing machine
- Four times a year. See March for how.
- Wash the cooker extractor filters
- Three times a year. See February for how.
The garden edge
- Turn the compost heap
- Three times a year. See March for how.
- Clean, sharpen and oil the garden tools
- In the quiet winter months: knock the mud off, sharpen the spade and the shears, and wipe the metal with oil. Rust starts on tools that are put away dirty.
- Clean the feeders and keep them filled
- Through the lean winter months from May to July, when natural food is scarce. Scrub them properly every time you refill them, because a dirty feeder spreads disease among the birds that use it.
- Keep a hole open in the pond ice
- Only where the pond freezes, which means the Highveld and the cold interior in June and July; a coastal pond rarely does. Melt a hole with a pan of hot water rather than breaking the ice, because the shock of breaking it travels through the water to the fish.
- Turn off and drain the outside tap
- Where winter nights freeze, turn the outside tap off at its isolating valve in May or June and open it to drain. A frozen outside tap is a common cause of winter bursts.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for June. 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 June, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.