What the house needs in October, south of the equator
21 jobs, in five groups.
October is the month to get the house ready for the heat and for the storms, and both are close. Wash the air conditioner filters, clean the ceiling fans, check the fridge and freezer door seals with a sheet of paper, and get the insect screens up before the windows start living open. Run every irrigation zone and watch where the water actually lands, which is rarely where you think. Outside, finish the gutters, wash the windows inside and out, bring the garden furniture out and check the joints and the bolts before anybody sits on it. It is a hinge month, so the twice yearly list comes round again: mattress, wardrobe, hinges and locks, drains, extractor filters, water heater valve and tray.
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.
Water and heating
- Check the water heater valve and its drip tray
- The pressure relief valve should be dry and the tray should be empty. A wet tray is the first sign of something worth calling about.
- 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.
- Wash the air conditioner filters
- Before the hot months, and again halfway through if it runs daily. A blocked filter costs more in electricity than the machine costs to clean.
- Clear the gutters and the downpipes
- After the leaves come down, and again before the rainy season. A blocked gutter puts water down a wall rather than into a drain.
Inside
- Turn or rotate the mattress
- Twice a year, at the same time as the wardrobe change. Most modern mattresses rotate rather than flip, which the label will say.
- Wash and put away the winter bedding
- Wash it before it goes away rather than when it comes out, and store it somewhere dry with the door left ajar.
- 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.
- Swap the wardrobe over
- Twice a year. Anything you did not wear at all last season is not going to be worn next season either.
- Fit the insect screens and check the mesh
- Before the windows start living open. A hole the size of a fingernail is a mosquito door for the whole season.
- 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.
- Check the fridge and freezer door seals
- Shut a sheet of paper in the door. If it pulls out easily the seal has gone, and the machine will fight the hot months for you.
- Clean and check the ceiling fans
- Before the hot months. Dust on the blades unbalances them, and a wobbling fan is a loose fixing rather than a design feature.
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.
- Oil the gate hinges and the locks
- A drop of oil twice a year keeps a gate closing properly. A lock that has gone stiff outdoors is usually water rather than wear.
- Wash the patio down
- In the settled weather before you start using it. Give it a day to dry properly and look for the joints that need repointing.
- Bring the garden furniture out and look at it
- Check the joints and the bolts before you sit on it, and give timber its oil while the weather is dry.
- 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.
- Look at the pointing and the render
- After the frosts or the storms. Cracked pointing lets water into a wall and shows up inside a year or two later as damp.
- Lift the drain covers and look
- Twice a year. Standing water in a gulley means a blockage somewhere, and it is a great deal cheaper than a flood.
The garden edge
- Check the irrigation timer and the sprinklers
- Run every zone before the dry months and watch where the water actually lands. Half of most systems waters a fence.
Tick them off as you go
This page is the plain list for October. 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 forOctober, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.