The Altrincham home maintenance checklist.

Spring

March – May

The damage the winter did, found before it gets worse.

• Walk the outside of the house after a heavy shower and look for water running down a wall rather than into a downpipe — that is a blocked or split gutter, and it is the single most common cause of interior damp.
• Check fence posts by pushing them firmly at the top. A post that moves at ground level has rotted and will come down in the first autumn gale, taking the panels with it.
• Look at decking and timber steps for soft boards and loose fixings before the season you actually want to use them.
• Open and close every window and external door. Anything that binds now has swollen or dropped over the winter and wants easing while it is dry.
• Check the shed roof covering. Felt that has lifted at an edge will be leaking within a month, and re-felting a sound shed is a fraction of the cost of replacing a rotten one.

Doing it yourself
Fine to do yourself: looking. Photograph anything odd — it makes a phone quote far more accurate.

Summer

June – August

The only reliable window for outside work in the North West.

• Exterior decorating — fascias, soffits, bargeboards, window frames, front and garage doors, fences and gates. Paint needs dry timber and a dry week, and this is when you get one.
• Repoint and re-lay any patio slab that rocks underfoot. A rocking slab is a trip hazard and a sign the sub-base has washed out, which spreads.
• Check that patios and paths still fall away from the house. Ground levels creep up over the years and water that used to drain away now sits against the brickwork.
• Get the roof looked at while the weather is kind: slipped tiles, cracked verges, loose ridge and failed flashings are all cheap in July and miserable in January.
• Re-seal baths and shower trays if the silicone has gone black or is lifting — water getting behind tiles causes damage you cannot see until the ceiling below stains.

Doing it yourself
Leave to somebody with proper access: anything above single-storey height. Almost all serious DIY injuries at home involve a ladder.

Autumn

September – November

The month of the year that saves the most money.

• Clear the gutters after the leaves have dropped — not before, or you will be doing it twice. Clear the downpipes and the gully at the bottom too, because a clear gutter into a blocked gully still floods.
• Check the loft on a wet day with the light off and look for daylight or damp staining on the timbers.
• Fit or renew draught excluders on external doors, and check the seals on double-glazed units. It is the cheapest thing on this list and the one you notice most.
• Bleed radiators and check for weeping valves before the heating goes on properly. A valve that seeps cold seeps a lot more hot.
• Test every smoke and heat alarm, and replace the ones over ten years old regardless of whether they still beep.
• Lag exposed pipework in the loft, garage and outbuildings, and turn off and drain the outside tap.

Doing it yourself
The highest-value hour you will spend on your house all year. If you only do one season, do this one.

Winter

December – February

Inside work, and watching for the warning signs.

• Internal decorating, joinery, fitted storage, plastering repairs and bathroom work — the jobs that do not care what the weather is doing.
• After every storm, look at the roof from the garden and the pavement. Slipped tiles are obvious from the ground if you look, and invisible if you do not.
• Watch the corners of ceilings and the walls under windows for new damp patches, and check inside the cupboard under the sink for swollen chipboard.
• Keep an eye on external render below a downpipe or a window sill — blown render in winter means water is already getting behind it.
• Know where your stopcock is, and check it actually turns. Discovering it is seized during a burst is a bad night.

Doing it yourself
Anything needing power tools near wet walls, or any fault that trips the consumer unit, is a stop-and-ring job.