How the schedule is put together
Every home gets the basics: testing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms each month and changing replaceable batteries once a year, as the U.S. Fire Administration advises, plus a few twice-yearly looks at the roof, sealant and draught strips. Each feature you tick adds its own jobs in the month they make most sense: gutters after spring blossom and again once the leaves are down, a heating check-up in autumn and a cooling one in spring (the timing ENERGY STAR suggests), the chimney inspected before the first fire.
Some jobs follow longer cycles. A septic tank should be inspected at least every three years and is typically pumped every three to five, so May's task is to check when it was last done. Private wells get an annual water test. Choose Mild winters to drop the frost jobs, such as draining outdoor taps; choose Southern hemisphere and every job moves six months.
Tick tasks as you finish them: ticks stay in this browser, so you can come back each month. Clear them at the start of a new year. Print gives a compact list, a few months to a page, for the fridge door or the garage wall.