Winter home maintenance checklist

Detectors first

This is the season the alarms are actually for. Heating systems, fireplaces, generators and cars idling in attached garages are all in play, and carbon monoxide has no smell.

• Test every smoke and CO alarm monthly. Use the test button on each one. An alarm that won't sound needs attention.
• Replace the batteries twice a year. The daylight saving weekends are the easiest anchor there is. Sealed ten year units have no battery to change.
• Check the date on the back. Most alarms are rated for around ten years from manufacture, not from installation.
• Know what the chirp patterns mean for your models before one starts at three in the morning.

Air moving the right way

• Reverse the ceiling fans. Clockwise in winter, on low, pushes the warm air that has collected at the ceiling back down the walls without creating a draft. Counterclockwise for summer.
• Change the filter more often than you think. The system is running most of the day, and a restricted filter costs more in the season it works hardest.
• Clean the air vents and registers. Vacuum the supply and return grilles, and make sure a rug or a sofa hasn't been moved across one.
• Run the bathroom fan longer. A sealed house has nowhere to put shower moisture, and winter is when it shows up on cold surfaces.

What to watch for

The attic, twice a year

• Inspect the attic. Look for roof leaks, pests, disturbed insulation, and daylight where there shouldn't be any. Insulation pushed aside or flattened is doing nothing.
• Check that the vents are clear. An attic wants to be cold. Blocked soffit vents are one of the common reasons a roof melts snow unevenly.

The plumbing nobody is using

Cold weather and empty rooms are a bad combination for pipework.

• Run the seldom used fixtures monthly. A trap that dries out stops sealing, and what it was sealing against is sewer gas. A guest bathroom or a basement floor drain is the usual culprit.
• Keep unheated spaces above freezing where there's plumbing in them, and open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls during a cold snap.
• Insulate the pipes that run through unheated space. A crawlspace, an attached garage, the back of a cabinet on an outside wall. Foam sleeves cost very little and go on by hand, and the pipes worth doing are the ones you would struggle to reach if they split.
• Know where the main shutoff is, and that it turns. This is the season it matters most.
• Go easy with de-icer on new concrete. A slab poured within the last year hasn't finished curing, and salts drive freeze-thaw damage into the surface while it's still vulnerable. Sand gives grip without the chemistry.
• Check under the sinks while you're at it. A slow leak behind a cabinet is easier to find in a house you're spending more time in.

Write down what the house is

Patina keeps the monthly checks monthly and reminds you on the day, which counts for most in the season when nobody wants to go up into the attic.

Seasons here are northern hemisphere, as they are throughout the app.