The First-Year Homeowner's Maintenance Calendar for Southwestern Ontario
You get the keys, the lawyer's envelope, and no instructions. Most first-year problems in an Ontario home are not bad luck — they are maintenance nobody told the new owner about, discovered in February.
This is the calendar, organised by season, with the reasoning included so you can judge what matters for your particular house.
Do These in the First Month
Before any seasonal work, get your bearings.
- Find the main water shutoff. Usually in the basement near the front wall where the supply enters. Turn it off and on once so you know it works and you are not learning its location during a leak.
- Find the electrical panel and label the breakers. Tedious for an hour, invaluable afterwards.
- Locate the furnace filter and note its size. Write the size on the furnace itself.
- Test every smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. In Ontario, working CO alarms are required near sleeping areas in homes with a fuel-burning appliance or attached garage. Replace batteries regardless of what the previous owner said.
- Read your home inspection again. The things it flagged as "monitor" are your first year's to-do list.
Autumn: The Season That Prevents the Expensive Problems
Autumn work in this climate is not tidying. It is what stops water and ice from finding their way in.
Clear the eavestroughs. Blocked gutters overflow against the foundation and, once it freezes, back up under the shingles. This single job prevents both basement seepage and ice dams. Do it after the leaves have finished dropping, not during.
Disconnect and drain outdoor hoses, and shut off the exterior taps. Water left in a hose bib freezes, expands and splits the pipe — often inside the wall, discovered when it thaws.
Have the furnace serviced. Before you need it, not during the first cold snap when every technician in the city is booked. A service catches a failing heat exchanger, which is a safety issue and not just a comfort one.
Seal gaps where pipes and wires enter the house. This is also how mice get in, and autumn is when they start looking.
Check the grading around the foundation. Soil should slope away from the house. If it has settled into a bowl against the wall, you are directing meltwater at your basement.
Winter: Watch, Don't Wait
Watch for ice damming. Icicles along the eaves look charming and are a warning: heat escaping the attic is melting snow that refreezes at the cold edge, forcing water back under the shingles. The fix is attic insulation and ventilation, not chipping at the ice.
Keep exhaust vents clear of snow. High-efficiency furnaces and some water heaters vent through a side wall. A drift over that vent can shut the system down or, worse, push exhaust back inside.
Run bathroom fans during and after showers. Winter condensation is how mould starts in a well-sealed house.
Know where your sump pump discharges and make sure the outlet is not frozen shut before the spring thaw arrives.
Spring: Inspect What Winter Did
Walk the exterior. Look for lifted or missing shingles, cracked caulking around windows, gaps in the mortar, and any new cracks in the foundation. Note them; photograph them; watch whether they move.
Test the sump pump. Pour a bucket of water into the pit and confirm it kicks on and discharges. Do this before the first heavy rain, not during it.
Clear the eavestroughs again and check that downspouts carry water well away from the foundation — extensions should discharge several feet out, not at the wall.
Service the air conditioner before the first hot week, for the same booking reason as the furnace.
Check window wells and basement windows for debris and drainage.
Summer: The Slower Jobs
Reseal the driveway if it needs it, and fill cracks before winter water gets into them and freezes.
Trim vegetation back from the house. Branches against siding trap moisture and give animals a route to the roof.
Check for wasp and hornet nests under eaves and in soffits early, while they are small.
Clean the dryer vent duct — not just the lint trap. It is a genuine fire risk and it is invisible until it is not.
Every Month, Year-Round
- Replace or check the furnace filter. Monthly if you have pets, otherwise every two to three months.
- Run water in unused drains so the traps do not dry out and let sewer gas in.
- Test one smoke or CO alarm on rotation.
Which Jobs Are Worth Hiring Out
Some of this is genuinely DIY. Some is not, and the deciding factor is usually whether a mistake is dangerous or expensive rather than whether the task is difficult.
Hire out: furnace and AC servicing, any electrical work beyond replacing a fixture, roof work, chimney inspection and cleaning, anything involving gas.
Do yourself: filters, eavestroughs if you are comfortable on a ladder, caulking, grading, hose bibs, alarm testing, dryer vent cleaning.
The honest test for the ladder jobs: if you are not confident on it, the eavestrough cleaning is cheaper than the fall.
Budget for It
A common rule of thumb is to set aside roughly one percent of the home's value per year for maintenance. It is a blunt figure — an older home needs more, a new build under warranty needs less in the early years — but the point holds. Maintenance is not an unexpected expense. It is a predictable one that arrives unpredictably.
The first year is the one where it all feels like a lot. By the second, it is a weekend in autumn and a weekend in spring.
Thinking about buying your first home in London or the surrounding area? Talk to us — we would rather you knew what you were taking on before you got the keys than after.