A New Homeowner’s Guide to Monthly Home Maintenance

When your home is finally finished, and you can move in for good, the feeling that washes over you is unlike anything else. You finally have a house to call your own. Unfortunately, the work isn’t over once the construction is. Now you need to keep up with your house’s condition as time wears on it. To give you a better idea of what to look out for, we’ve come up with a new homeowner’s guide to monthly home maintenance. These are some tasks that you should try to complete about once a month.

HVAC System

Nothing quite makes a house a home like the HVAC system. You can’t beat the feeling of walking into AC on a hot summer day or warmth during winter. Every month or so, it’s a good idea to at least inspect your HVAC system’s filters. You don’t always need to change them every month, but checking on them is a good idea. You may need to change them more often if you have allergies to deal with or multiple pets that could make the system work harder.

Plumbing

You don’t want a plumbing problem to pop up out of nowhere; it will ruin your day extremely quickly. Monthly checks into your drains, sinks, and toilets are a good idea. Make sure you inspect any visible piping in your home to make sure everything works correctly. And don’t neglect your sewer line maintenance unless you want a nasty problem to build up over time. You also want to check for leaks around toilets and sinks.

Exterior Inspection

While it’s important to concern yourself with the guts of your house, a guide to monthly home maintenance wouldn’t be complete without mentioning an exterior inspection. You want to keep an eye out for cracks or other problems in your foundation and inspect your gutters and drainpipes regularly. The elements can do a number on your house faster than you might think, so don’t forget to do a thorough inspection of your home’s exterior.

Kitchen Vent Hood

The vent hood above your kitchen range is a part of the house that a lot of people forget about when it’s time to do some cleaning. That hood has a filter inside of it that you need to clean, and if you never have before, you might be surprised at how much gets caught up there. This is another task that you don’t need to do every month, but you should at least check it out every month to stay on top of it.

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors

Two extremely important parts of your home are your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. The batteries inside of these devices do last a long time, and they usually tell you when they need new ones. However, things can sometimes malfunction, so it’s not a bad idea to give them a once-over every month to make sure they still work properly.

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