Your Guide to Year-Round Home Maintenance

Now that we’re deep into October and fall is fading fast, I’ve started worrying about some of our neglected home maintenance projects. It’s not easy to keep track of when we last changed our smoke detector batteries, replaced our furnace filters or vacuumed our refrigerator coils. The good news is that if you Google “home maintenance checklists,” you’ll find lots of help. 

For example, here’s a free one that organizes tasks by season.

And here’s another free one from a moving company that’s organized by month.

From the looks of these lists, I have a lot of work to do, starting with removing debris and leaves from my gutters. I can do some of these projects myself, but that one entails going up on the roof, so I’m hiring a handyman. I also need to hire a chimney sweep because I’ve procrastinated about that for a long time, and I have to get a new awning installed over my back door to protect it from heavy rain and wind.

What’s first on my DIY list? Change the furnace filters, clean the dryer vents, check the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, change the direction of the ceiling fans, and store the lawn furniture.