The Summer Home Maintenance Checklist That You Need To Start Now

For most of us, our home is the biggest purchase of our lives. So it just makes sense to give it lots of love through maintenance.

Below is our Summer Home Maintenance Checklist.

Summer Home Maintenance Checklist | This Family Life We Live

HVAC Maintenance

Late spring or early summer is the best time to have your furnace, ventilation, and air conditioning unit (HVAC) serviced. During this time it’s not cold enough to need the heating turned on and it’s also not warm enough to need the air conditioning on.

We signed up with Williams Home Comfort – Complete Comfort Plan. The Complete Comfort Plan is a monthly membership plan that provides us with the following:

Annual maintenance of our furnace and AC units – typically costs about $270 once a year
A year’s supply of standard furnace filters – would cost about $100 for the year
24/7 priority service
Free diagnostic fees – typically costs about $130 per problem diagnosis
15% off all repairs, other services, and filtration

All the above for $18/month, charged every 15th of the month to our credit card. We think this membership plan for your HVAC is the best bang for your buck!

Nope, this post is not sponsored! (Although we wish it was. LOL) We just really use Williams Home Comfort and have been extremely satisfied with their service. If you decide to use their services, please mention me (Marie Klynne Brinas) as a referral. Thank you!
– Klynne

Duct Cleaning

Duct cleaning can be easily forgotten because you typically don’t see the ducts daily.

Your duct system is like the lungs of your home, it circulates air everywhere. The air that passes through your duct system is the same air that your family breathes.

Duct cleaning will help your furnace work more efficiently by removing dust and debris that can clog up your HVAC equipment and improve the overall air quality in your house. We typically have our ducts cleaned every other year.

And since we have the Williams Home Comfort – Complete Comfort Plan, we get 15% off duct cleaning services from Williams Home Comfort. Duct cleaning typically costs about $180 – $250 depending on how many vents your home has.

Laundry Room

The laundry room is part of our home maintenance checklist for every season.

Washing Machine

We run a sanitary cycle on our machine using an Affresh Washing Machine Tub Cleaner.

After the sanitary cycle is done, remove all the water from the drain hose and clean out the filter. You can google how to do this step by step for the specific washing machine make and model you have.

Next, using a cloth dampened with bleach solution, wipe the entire machine – both inside and outside – thoroughly. Don’t forget to clean the pedestal drawers too.

Next, remove the soap drawer bin, then clean with warm soap and water – again google how to do this for the specific make and model of your washing machine. Wipe down the area where it sits in the washing machine with the bleach solution dampened cloth.

Dryer

For the dryer, I use a dryer brush to clean out the lint inside the filter area. Then I thoroughly wipe the inside and outside with the bleach solution dampened cloth.

When you’re having the ducts cleaned, make sure to ask the service provider to include the dryer vents. Some companies will count this as one of the vents while some companies will include this as a bonus service.

Having clean dryer vents not only ensures that your clothes dryer is running efficiently, it also prevents home fires.

Vent and Behind the Machines

To round up the quarterly maintenance of the laundry room:

Clean the vents using a Swiffer duster
Clean behind the washing machine and clothes dryer – make sure to unplug the machines before moving them! Safety first.
Mop the floors
Wipe down the cabinets and doors using a bleach solution dampened cloth.

Hot Water Tank

Summer is the best time to do the hot water tank maintenance, because who needs hot water when it’s scorching outside?!

We typically DIY this item – this is a good step by step guide.

Home Maintenance Summer Checklist | This Family Life We Live

External Maintenance

Rain Gutter

Rain gutter cleaning is recommended to be done twice a year if you have lots of trees in your area. Since we don’t have a lot of trees, we have opted to get our rain gutters cleaned once a year.

In the past 5 years we have used different companies and have not found one that has wowed us with their service.

If you’re in YYC, let us know in the comments below if you have a company you recommend.
– Klynne

Make sure that the rain gutter cleaning company you hire also check the down spouts for clogs and clear them.

Great rain gutter cleaning companies also inform you if your gutters need repairs or replacement after the cleaning service is performed.

Sidings and Windows

Summer is also the best time to have the windows and sidings cleaned.

We try to support local people in our area that do this, so we don’t have a specific company recommendation. We have our windows and sidings cleaned every other year.

Finance Tip: Stagger this item with duct cleaning – one year get the ducts cleaned, the next year get the siding and windows cleaned. This just helps with cash flow during the summer.
– Klynne

Good window and siding cleaning companies will also inform you of repairs that need to be done. Most of the time this is either replacing broken sidings and/or re-caulking window seals.

Driveway Seal

Another DIY project during the summer is re-sealing our concrete driveway. This is a good DIY guide if you want to try doing this one yourself!

We’ve only done this once in the last 5 years – we didn’t know better but we’re learning! However, it is recommended to re-seal concrete driveways yearly.