What the house needs in September, south of the equator
16 jobs, in five groups.
September is spring and the month the outside work opens up. The rains are coming in the summer rainfall regions, so the priority is water: clear the gutters and the downpipes, check the water butt and the diverter, lift the drain covers and look for standing water in the gullies. Look the roof over from the ground and deal with anything the winter lifted. Clear the moss off the paths before the wet, check the pointing and the render after the cold, and wash the patio down giving it a couple of days to dry before deciding what needs repointing. Do the spring safety round: earth leakage test, carbon monoxide alarm, fridge coils, a hot empty cycle in the washing machine, and a proper look at the ladder before the year's work.
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.
- Look the ladder over before the outside work
- Feet, rungs and the locking catch. More people are hurt on a ladder at home than on any other tool in the shed.
Water and heating
- 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
- 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.
Outside
- Look the roof over from the ground
- Binoculars from the garden, twice a year. Slipped tiles, lifted ridge, a bird nesting in the flashing. Never from the ladder if you can avoid it.
- Clear the moss off the paths
- Twice a year, and always before the wet months. A mossy path is the commonest way people fall over at home.
- 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 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.
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.
- Check the water butt and its diverter
- Before the rains. Clean out the leaves, check the tap, and make sure the diverter is set to fill rather than to bypass.
- Service the mower before the mowing starts
- New plug, clean filter, sharp blade and fresh fuel. Everyone books a service in the first week of long grass.
- 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 September. 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 forSeptember, which covers what to sow, what to plant out and what is ready to pick.