The first-year homeowner maintenance calendar

Nobody hands you a maintenance schedule at closing. You get keys, a stack of paper from the title company, and a vague sense that some part of the house is probably already failing in a way you won't notice until it costs $4,000.

This is the calendar we wish we'd had. Twelve months, one focused task per month, none of them more than an hour. If you follow it, you'll have caught the small problems while they're still small, and you'll know your house in a way most owners don't until year five.

Month 1. Find every shutoff

Water main, gas main, electrical panel, water heater shutoff, each toilet's local shutoff, the dishwasher's, the washing machine's. Walk to each one. Take a photo. Label it with where it is. The next time something is spraying water at 2 a.m. is not the moment to learn this.

Month 2. Replace the HVAC filter and write down the size

The single highest-leverage thing you can do for your heating and cooling bill. The size is printed on the side of the old filter. Save it somewhere you'll find it again, not in your head.

Month 3. Test every smoke and CO detector

Press the button on each one. If it doesn't scream at you, it's not working. Replace batteries even if it does. Note the install date on the back, because most are only rated for ten years from manufacture, not from when you moved in.

Month 4. Clean the gutters before spring storms

Or pay someone $150 to do it. A clogged gutter is the leading cause of basement water you didn't budget for. While you're up there, look at the roof for missing shingles and take a photo of anything that looks off.

Month 5. Service the AC before you need it

Get on a tech's calendar in May, not in July when it's 95 degrees and they're booked three weeks out. A $120 tune-up catches a failing capacitor before it strands you for a week.

Month 6. Test the sump pump

Pour a bucket of water into the pit. The pump should turn on, drain it, and shut off. If you don't have a sump pump, walk your basement after the next heavy rain and look at the wall-floor seam with a flashlight.

Month 7. Drain a few gallons from the water heater

Attach a hose to the drain valve at the bottom, run it into a bucket, open the valve for 30 seconds. Sediment in a water heater is what makes them die at year eight instead of year fifteen.

Month 8. Walk the perimeter

Slowly, with a coffee. Look at every caulk line around windows. Look for paint that's lifting. Look for soil that's been pulled away from the foundation. Photograph anything that's changed since you moved in.

Month 9. Service the furnace

Same logic as the AC, but in September instead of December. Bonus: the same tech who serviced your AC in May usually offers a discount if you book both.

Month 10. Clean the dryer vent (the whole run, not just the lint trap)

Pull the dryer out, disconnect the duct, vacuum it from both ends. Clogged dryer vents start about 13,000 house fires a year. Yours probably has more lint in it than you'd guess.

Month 11. Disconnect the outdoor hoses

Before the first freeze. Drain them, coil them, store them. A hose left attached to a spigot is the single most common cause of a burst pipe in the first wall behind the faucet.

Month 12. Sit down with your records

Pull together everything you spent on the house this year. What's under warranty. What you photographed. What broke. What you fixed yourself versus what you paid someone for. This is the file that protects you when something fails in year three, and it's the file that adds value when you sell.

That's the year. Twelve hours of work, spread across twelve months, that will save you a $4,000 surprise. Holm exists to make sure the next month's task is already on your phone, but the calendar above works whether you use us or a sticky note on the fridge.