A first-year homeowner's maintenance guide

You bought a house. Now what?

Congratulations. The keys are in your pocket, the boxes are everywhere, and somebody on the internet has probably told you that owning a home is a part-time job. That's an exaggeration, but only a small one.

Here's the honest version. Most houses don't fall apart from disasters. They decline from small things ignored. The furnace nobody serviced. The gutters that filled up over three seasons. The water heater that nobody flushed. Small attention adds up. So does no attention.

The good news: it's not actually that much work, if you know what to do and when.

The first week

Walk the house slowly with a notebook, top to bottom. Note anything that looks worn, missing, or odd. You'll forget half of it by next month, so write it down now.

A few specific things:

• Find your shutoffs. Main water, gas (if you have it), and the breaker box. Label them if they aren't already. If the pipe ever bursts at 2 a.m., you do not want to be searching.
• Change the locks. Or rekey them. You don't know who's still walking around with a copy.
• Test the smoke and CO detectors. Press the button on each. Replace any battery that chirps. Note which ones look more than ten years old (replace those entirely).
• Read the water meter once. Note the number. You can compare next month to spot any silent leak.

The first month

The systems are now yours. Get to know them.

• Change the HVAC air filter. Whatever the previous owner did or didn't do, start fresh. The filter slot is usually behind the return vent or next to the furnace. Note the size on your phone for next time.
• Check the water heater temperature. Most are factory-set too hot. 120°F is the sweet spot for safety and energy. There's a dial on the side.
• Walk the attic, basement, and crawlspace. You're looking for water stains, daylight where it shouldn't be, rodent droppings, anything that smells off. If everything looks dry and intact, that's the baseline you'll compare against later.
• Locate the breaker for every room. Label the panel. Future-you will thank present-you.

The first three months

This is when you handle the seasonal stuff that depends on what time of year you moved in. Pick the relevant ones:

• Spring or summer move: clean the gutters, check the roof from the ground with binoculars, inspect outdoor faucets and the irrigation system, look at the deck or fence.
• Fall move: clean the gutters, wrap exposed pipes if you're somewhere it freezes, get the furnace serviced before it gets cold, store hoses.
• Winter move: check the attic insulation, run the bath fans (they vent moisture you want out), service the furnace if there's no record of recent work.

See the spring and fall checklists for the full versions.

The first six months

By now you've lived through a season and you know the house. Time to inventory the big stuff.

Make a list of every major system: furnace, central AC, water heater, roof, windows, major appliances (fridge, dishwasher, washer, dryer), garage door opener, sump pump if you have one. For each, find out:

• When was it installed? Ask the previous owner, check stickers on the unit, or look at receipts they left behind.
• What's the typical lifespan? We have a full lifespan guide, but rough numbers: furnace 15–25 years, water heater 8–12, roof 20–30, central AC 12–18.
• Where are you on that timeline? A 20-year-old furnace isn't broken. It's just on borrowed time. That's worth knowing when you're planning the year ahead.

You're not making a replacement schedule. You're making a "no surprises" list.

The first year

By the time the year is up, you'll have seen one full cycle of weather, one cycle of bills, one cycle of seasonal tasks. The house will feel less like a stranger.

A few things to do at the one-year mark:

• Walk the same loop you did in week one. Compare. What got worse? What got better? What did you mean to fix and never did?
• Reassess the budget. Most owners underestimate annual maintenance in year one. A realistic number is 1% of the home's value per year, averaged over time.
• Build a system. Whether that's a spreadsheet, a paper notebook, a calendar full of reminders, or an app built specifically for this, you need somewhere outside your head to track the recurring stuff. Once you have a system, the cognitive load drops to almost nothing.

The point isn't to be perfect. The point is to not let small things become big ones. A homeowner who does the small stuff steadily ends up with a house in better shape than one who waits for trouble and reacts. That's the whole game.

What to track going forward

The recurring tasks that keep a house in good shape are not exotic. They're mostly the same handful, on different cadences:

• HVAC filter, every 1–3 months
• Smoke and CO detectors, twice a year
• Gutters, twice a year (or more in heavy tree areas)
• Furnace service, annually
• Water heater flush, annually
• Roof and exterior walk, twice a year
• AC service, every 1–2 years
• Tree and shrub trim, as needed

It's a manageable list. The hard part is remembering it. Which is, frankly, why we built Stell. But whether you use us or a paper calendar, the discipline matters more than the tool. Get the small things done. Watch the big ones. The house will be fine.