What the house needs in June, south of the equator
15 jobs, in five 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.
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.
- Clear the lint from the dryer and its vent
- Every few weeks in the months you use it most. Lint is what turns a dryer fault into a fire, and the vent matters as much as the filter.
- Cut dry growth back from the walls
- Before your own dry season, which is summer in most of the north and winter across the summer rainfall south. Two metres of clear ground is the usual advice.
Water and heating
- Lag the outside taps and any exposed pipe
- Anywhere a pipe runs through an unheated space. Foam lagging costs very little against the price of a burst.
- Drain the hose and bring it in
- Water 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
- Watch the cold corners for condensation
- Behind wardrobes, in window reveals, on the north or south facing wall. Black spotting is mould and it starts as water on the glass.
- Air the house for a few minutes a day
- Even in the cold. Ten minutes of open windows costs very little heat and takes out the moisture four people breathe out overnight.
- Clean the oven properly
- Do it in the season you use it most, which is when the spills happen. Cold oven, proper cleaner, an hour of waiting.
- Run a hot empty cycle in the washing machine
- Quarterly, at the hottest setting with a machine cleaner or a cup of soda crystals. It is what stops the door seal smelling.
- Wash the cooker extractor filters
- Three times a year, in the dishwasher or in very hot water with soda crystals. A greasy filter moves almost no air at all.
The garden edge
- Turn the compost heap
- Three or four times a year. Air is what turns a heap into compost rather than into a wet layer of grass clippings.
- Clean, sharpen and oil the garden tools
- In the quiet months. A sharp spade is half the work of a blunt one and rust starts in the week they go away dirty.
- Clean the feeders and keep them filled
- Through the hard months, when it matters most. Clean them properly each time, because a dirty feeder spreads disease among the birds it feeds.
- Keep a hole open in the pond ice
- Stand a pan of hot water on it rather than breaking it, which sends a shock wave through the water that fish do not survive well.
- Turn off and drain the outside tap
- At the isolating valve inside, then open the tap outside to let the water out. It is the single commonest winter burst.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for June. 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 forJune, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.