What the house needs in March, south of the equator
18 jobs, in five groups.
March is the turn of the year for a house in the south and the month to start looking ahead to the cold rather than back at the heat. Book the boiler, the heat pump or the geyser service now and you get a date, whereas everybody rings in the first cold week of May. Book the chimney sweep for the same reason. Do the twice yearly safety round: press the test button on the earth leakage unit, test the burglar alarm and its battery, test the carbon monoxide alarm. Vacuum the dust off the back of the fridge and run a hot empty cycle through the washing machine. Look at the loft insulation, check the shed roof and the outside lights, and wash the greenhouse glass before the light drops.
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.
- Test the carbon monoxide alarm
- Before 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.
- Press the test button on the earth leakage unit
- Every six months. It should trip immediately. If it does not, that is an electrician rather than a job for the weekend.
- 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.
- Check the heater flexes and plugs
- Before the heaters come out of the cupboard. Look for cracked flex, scorched pins and anything that has been run under a rug.
- Test the burglar alarm and its battery
- Twice a year. Most alarm faults are a backup battery at the end of its life, which is a part rather than a call out.
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.
Inside
- Clean the windows inside and out
- Twice a year is enough, and one of those should be just before the dark months, when every bit of light through the glass counts.
- Vacuum the dust off the back of the fridge
- Twice a year. Dust on the coils makes the compressor work harder and run longer for the same cold.
- 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.
- Look at the loft insulation before the cold
- Check it is not squashed, that it reaches the eaves without blocking the ventilation, and that nothing has been storing itself in it.
- Replace the bulbs that have gone
- Before the dark months rather than during them, and check the outside ones at the same time.
Outside
- Push on the fence posts
- Before 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.
- Check the shed roof and door
- Before 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 work
- Before the evenings get dark. Clean the lens while you are there, because most outside lights lose more to dirt than to the bulb.
- Look at the window frames and sills
- Press a screwdriver gently into the bottom corners. Soft wood there is where rot starts and it is much cheaper caught early.
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.
- Wash the greenhouse glass down
- Before the low light months. Dirty glass in midwinter is the difference between a plant that holds and a plant that stretches.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for March. 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 forMarch, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.