The fall checklist: twelve things to do before the first freeze

Every trade has a busy season, and for most of them it starts with the first hard freeze. The furnace that limped through last winter quits on the coldest night. The hose bib nobody drained splits inside the wall. The gutter full of leaves turns into an ice dam. None of it is bad luck. Almost all of it is a job that took ten minutes in October and did not get done.

Here is the list. Do it in this order, top of the house to the bottom, and it takes one afternoon.

Up top

• Clean the gutters and check the downspouts run clear. Leaves left in a gutter freeze into a block, and that block is where ice dams start.
• Look at the roof from the ground with binoculars. You are looking for lifted or missing shingles, a rubber pipe boot that has cracked, and flashing that has pulled away from the chimney. Any of those is a call to a roofer now, not in February.
• Trim branches that hang over the roof. Snow load breaks them, and they land on the shingles.

The heating system

• Change the furnace filter, and buy the next three so you have them.
• Turn the heat on for a full cycle before you need it. A furnace that has not run since March will tell you in the first minute whether it needs a service call, and the Pro's calendar is empty in October.
• Test the carbon monoxide alarms. Press the button, replace the batteries, and check the date on the back. They expire, usually at seven or ten years.
• If you have a heat pump, clear leaves and debris from around the outdoor unit and make sure nothing will drip on it and freeze.

Water

• Disconnect and drain every garden hose, then shut off and drain the outside faucets if you have interior shutoffs. A frost-free hose bib still splits if a hose is left on it.
• Know where your main water shutoff is and make sure it turns. Every burst-pipe story includes twenty minutes of searching for it.
• Flush the water heater. A bucket of sediment out of the drain valve is a bucket that was not insulating your burner from the water.

The envelope

• Walk the outside of the house and look at every place something goes through the wall: dryer vent, hose bib, cable, AC line set. Gaps get caulked or foamed. This is where cold air and mice come in.
• Check weatherstripping on the doors. If you can see daylight at the bottom, you are heating the porch.

What to leave to a Pro

Anything on the roof itself, the inside of the furnace, the gas line and the electrical panel. The rest of the list is a homeowner's job and a Saturday's work. If something on it turns up a problem, the earlier you call the more choice you have about who comes and when.