Find a ContractorTotal Spring Home and Property Maintenance Checklist
Following a seasonal home maintenance checklist, particularly in the spring, helps homeowners avoid unexpected, expensive surprises. It’s the perfect time to assess your home, both indoors and outdoors, to ensure you maintain your home’s property value for years to come.
Spring is an ideal season to complete both interior and exterior home maintenance tasks, give your home a good clean and get your vehicles and other motorized equipment ready for the season ahead. It is also the perfect time to assess for any major damages your home may have incurred over the winter months and give your yard and garden some much-needed TLC.
Follow along with IKO’s Spring Home Maintenance Checklist to ensure your home, yard, garden, and vehicle are ready for the season ahead.
Table of Contents:
- Spring Roof Maintenance
- Spring Air Conditioner Maintenance
- Check Outside Faucets
- Spring Vehicle and Motorized Equipment Maintenance
- Early Spring Lawn and Yard Maintenance Tips
- Spring Flower Bed Maintenance
- Prune Summer Flowering Deciduous Shrubs
- Restain Decks and Other Exterior Woodwork
- Inspect Your Basement
- Replace Batteries in Smoke Alarms and Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Exterior Home Maintenance Tasks to Complete This Spring
Winter snowstorms can do a number on your home, so be sure to assess and complete any necessary maintenance and repairs this spring.
Spring Roof Maintenance
The best spring roof maintenance starts with a quick visual assessment outdoors. Have your roof checked for loose or exposed nails and loose or missing shingles, then repair or replace them accordingly. Some homeowners may notice algae or moss stains while going over their spring maintenance checklist. If so, be sure to have it removed.
Have your roof checked this spring as well for any cracked or missing caulking at the flashings. Failing to do so is a recipe for a leaky roof, which can lead to all sorts of problems both indoors and out.
Your roofer should paint or replace any rusted metal flashing and conduct a quick inspection for any damaged gutters or downspouts.
Falling branches in a winter storm can easily knock or crush gutters, which can lead to drainage issues. Look out for rotted or damaged fascial, or any damage to your chimney if you have one and be sure to check that all ventilation works properly.
Spring Air Conditioner Maintenance
If you’re lucky enough to have air conditioning, spring is the time to conduct a thorough inspection and AC maintenance checklist. While you should definitely have your AC unit inspected by a professional HVAC technician at least twice annually (we recommend doing so in the spring and fall), there are a few items you can cross off the checklist all on your own.
Central air conditioning units should be free of any and all debris.
Ideally, there should be 3 to 4 feet of clear space around any outdoor AC unit. This means removing any leaves or large weeds that could impede it and pruning back any large shrubs or bushes that could potentially damage or block the unit. Doing so will ensure your AC unit always has optimal airflow.
You can also replace the filter of your HVAC unit but ensure that a professional HVAC technician tends to any mechanical issues or electrical components. Once you have crossed all these pieces off your spring maintenance checklist, you can sleep easy knowing you’ll stay nice and cool on those hot summer nights ahead.
Check Outside Faucets
Assessing your outdoor faucets (also often referred to as spigots) is a relatively simple, straightforward spring maintenance checklist item, but an important one nonetheless!
Sometimes a burst pipe may cause a slow leak, or, if you have a valve indoors that you turn off in the winter, the damaged section of the pipe might not have enough water in it to be evident until you turn the exterior faucet back on in the spring.
This is an important aspect of your spring home maintenance checklist because a damaged outdoor faucet can often result in damage to the interior of your home. If you have an indoor valve for your outdoor faucet, check for any leaks around the pipe inside and the surrounding interior walls when you turn it back on.
When you turn your outdoor faucet on, check for leaks along the exterior wall. If there is water coming from behind an exterior wall, it is a fairly good indication that the spigot or connecting pipe needs to be replaced.
Spring Vehicle and Motorized Equipment Maintenance
While this technically doesn’t fall within the category of home maintenance, vehicle maintenance and lawn mower maintenance are important spring tasks.
Spring lawn mower maintenance might include changing the oil, replacing the air filter, sharpening the blades and cleaning the deck of either a push lawn mower or a riding lawn mower.
It is also the perfect time for general maintenance on your vehicle, as just like our homes, winter conditions can do a number on our cars.
So, consider scheduling your vehicle for an appointment this spring to have the oil changed, swap over your winter tires for summer tires and get your brakes checked.
Spring Property Maintenance Checklist
Your gardens, lawn, deck and fencing all need a bit of a refresh around this time of year, just like the interior and exterior of your home.
Early Spring Lawn and Yard Maintenance Tips
The first item to check off your spring lawn maintenance checklist is to rake gently. This is to remove any thick (half an inch or more) layers of thatch, which is a layer of dead grass from the previous season.
If you notice any patches of grass that look stuck together, snow mold may be the culprit. These thick, matted layers will make it difficult for new grass to penetrate; but going over your lawn gently with a rake should help to break them up.
Another important aspect of spring lawn maintenance is checking the health of your soil, generously seeding any bare patches and applying a light layer of fertilizer to prepare your lawn for the season ahead.
Spring Flower Bed Maintenance
One of the most exciting aspects of spring is anticipating those first few blooms of the year! While you patiently wait for your tulips and daffodils to poke their heads out of the soil, you can give your garden beds a quick cleanup.
Remove dead leaves, cut back the previous season’s foliage if you didn’t already do so in the fall and pull back protective winter mulch from your perennials.
Early spring is also an ideal time to divide fall-blooming perennials (dividing spring-blooming perennials should be left until fall) and expand your garden without spending a penny. Some perennials need to be divided every few years anyway. A telltale sign that your iris or tiger lily might need to be divided is if you notice a bare patch in the center of the plant.
Once you have pulled back mounded, protective winter mulch and removed any leftover debris from the winter, you can spread a fresh new layer of mulch to start the spring off with a polished garden.
It will help keep weeds at bay throughout the season and continue to protect the roots of your precious perennials.
Prune Summer Flowering Deciduous Shrubs
You can prune most hydrangeas, roses, and other summer-flowering shrubs, like the pink spirea and the butterfly bush, in early spring before they start to show buds, and again to remove spent flowers. The same goes for flowering vines, like honeysuckle and clematis.
With that said, a general rule of thumb to follow for this spring maintenance checklist item is to avoid pruning spring-flowering shrubs in the spring.
Spring-flowering shrubs, like forsythia and lilacs, develop their flower buds in early summer, so if you prune them before that (i.e., in spring, winter or fall), you risk cutting off the flower buds for the season ahead. Rather, prune these shrubs immediately after their blooms finish flowering.
Restain Decks and Other Exterior Woodwork
Late spring (or early fall) is a great time to complete some deck maintenance, like power-washing and applying a fresh new coat of stain. While many people tend to leave this task until the summer, it’s not actually the ideal time to apply stain.
Summer poses a problem as high temperatures can cause the stain to evaporate too quickly, which keeps it from properly penetrating the wood of your deck boards.
Early spring can also pose a challenge if your area experiences high humidity levels or a lot of precipitation, but a dry late spring can be ideal!
Keep an eye on the forecast and try to restain your deck (or any other exterior woodwork, like fencing or deck furniture) with at least two days of dry weather ahead, as rain also has the potential to wash all your hard work away.
Spring Maintenance Around the House
There’s a reason why spring cleaning is so popular — it is unbelievably satisfying. After being cooped up indoors with all your windows sealed tight all winter long, there is no better feeling than letting that spring breeze air out your home.
But, aside from general spring cleaning, like dusting and cleaning your windowsills, there are some important indoor maintenance tasks to check off the checklist as well.
Inspect Your Basement
Spring melt can do some serious damage to the basement of your home, so it is imperative to conduct a thorough inspection as part of your spring maintenance checklist to avoid any major headaches down the road.
Any puddles or large cracks in your foundation should be tended to immediately. Discolored concrete and even mildew, mold or newly developed musty smells could also indicate a leaky basement.
If you have a sump pump, make sure that it is in working order before the ground starts to thaw!
Replace Batteries in Smoke Alarms and Carbon Monoxide Detectors
It is a good practice to include changing the batteries in your home’s smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors as part of your spring home maintenance checklist. Most homeowners tend to complete this task when the time “springs forward” or “falls back.”
Completing a thorough spring maintenance checklist will help to ensure that your home, property, yard and even your vehicle are in tip-top shape throughout the coming seasons. For more home and roof maintenance tips, tricks, and ideas, be sure to check back to the IKO blog regularly.
