The seasonal walk around a house
Four times a year, walk the outside of the building and then the inside, in the same order, looking for water. Most household repairs begin as something you could have seen.
Section
Upkeep
Nearly every expensive household repair began as something visible. A gutter joint dripping down a wall for two winters, a sealant bead that shrank away from the bath, a hinge screw that pulled loose and let a door drop. None of them cost anything to find and all of them cost a great deal to leave. Upkeep is the shelf for the work that happens before a trade is called: looking on purpose, at a fixed interval, and writing down what was seen.
The entries here divide the work three ways, because the three do not mix. Anything that arrives by season goes on a calendar with an interval and a date beside it. Anything that takes ten minutes with the tools already in the house goes on a running list and gets cleared in one pass. Anything that needs a ladder above single storey, a gas engineer or a structural opinion stops at the point of noticing. Anything found on a walk that concerns damp coming from inside the house rather than outside it belongs with textiles, where drying and ventilation are dealt with, and anything that ends up as a receipt or a service record belongs in records.
Squeaks, drips and the ten minute fix
A squeak, a slow drip and a door that catches are all ten minute jobs while they are small. Kept on a list and cleared in one pass, they never become a trade call.
What a maintenance calendar actually holds
A maintenance calendar holds jobs that arrive by season, not jobs that arrive by mood. Filters, drains, gutters, alarms and the two appliances that fail without warning.