January Home Maintenance Checklist – FREE printable!

Owning a home has a lot of benefits, but one of the big struggles for many home owners is home maintenance. Here are the home related tasks to tackle in January to keep your home running smoothly!

I love owning a home, but the maintenance can be overwhelming to think about.

It’s easy enough to fix a problem in your home, but preventative maintenance is key to keeping problems from developing in the first place.

You can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by staying on top of the maintenance for your home. Set a monthly schedule and stick to it!

Here is some essential home maintenance tasks that you can do this January to keep your home in tip top shape.

Click here to see our Winter seasonal home maintenance checklist!

10 January Home Maintenance Tasks

Clean up from the holidays

Many people decorate their homes inside and out for Christmas. Your big task to start the month will be putting away all of those decorations.

Pack everything up carefully and assess it as you do. If anything is damaged, make a plan to fix it or trash or recycle it.

If there are things that you didn’t use this year and don’t plan to use again, go ahead and donate or trash them.

Clearing up the storage space with less holiday decor will make you feel cleaner and more organized in the new year.

Deep clean the fridge

Whether you hosted for the holidays or just cooked for yourself, chances are you had more food than usual in your fridge.

Set aside an hour this month to completely empty your fridge. Wipe down every drawer or shelf and toss any expired or unwanted foods.

It’s surprising how quick this process it, but it can really make you feel like you are getting a fresh start!

Here is our guide to deep cleaning a refrigerator!

Clean your fridge coils

After cleaning the inside of your fridge, don’t forget to clean the coils!

Dirty coils mean the fridge has to work harder to keep cool, which is a waste of electricity and can put a strain on your fridge.

The coils will either be on the back of your machine or on the bottom front behind a plastic grate.

Always unplug your fridge before cleaning it, just to be safe. Keep the door closed and replug it in after just a few minutes and the food will be totally fine.

Use a brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner to clean the coils of all of the nasty dust, dirt, and hair.

Don’t forget to plug the fridge back in when you are done!

Inventory any valuables

You might have recieved or purchased some nice new items for the holidays. Whether it’s electronics, jewelry, or furniture, document what you have.

Take photos and store them to a cloud-based server like Dropbox. Make a note listing specifics of any item that might be insurable and be sure it’s kept in a safe place or backed up electronically.

Having a detailed home inventory could be the difference of thousands of dollars of home insurance reimbursement should the worst happen.

Stock up on storm essentials

In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, January and February are the coldest months of the year. With that cold weather often comes large snow and ice storms.

Take the time to be sure that you have a good emergency kit. You will especially want to make sure you have batteries, flashlights, and bottled water incase you lose power or your pipes freeze during a winter storm.

Here’s what we put in our storm kit.

Replenish your first aid kit

While you are working on your storm essentials, assess your first aid kit, too.

The best practice is to totally empty the kit and inspect each item. If something is running low, replenish it. If something is damaged, replace it.

Make sure your kit is stored in a convenient place. It might be a good idea to have a smaller first aid kit in your car, too.

Organize documents

The new year is a great time to get organized. While we live in a paperless time period, there are still some papers that you need to keep.

Try to gather them all in one place. Decide if you want to keep them in a file cabinet, binder, or box.

Flip through and recycle or shred anything that you no longer need.

Organize everything else in the most logical way possible.

Don’t forget to scan anything that you want a backup electronic copy of!

Protect exposed pipes

If you live in a cold climate, freezing pipes might be a worry for you in January and February. Take a moment to be sure any exposed pipes are protected.

Adding a layer of insulation to exposed pipes and spigots can help to keep them from freezing and prevent a costly burst pipe.

You can use foam pipe insulation or pipe wrap tape. It’s easy to add inexpensive foam faucet covers over your spigots, too!

Change your range hood filter

Did you know that there is a filter inside the hood in the range over your stone? If not, I bet yours is really nasty!

These filters should be changed once or twice a year, and more often if you cook a lot of greasy or oily food.

Swapping out these filters will ensure that your hook works efficiently and doesn’t get clogged or damaged.

Change your air + water filters

January is a great time to get a fresh start on all of your filters. If your heat is running a lot, you want to change those filters especially.

Also take the time to change any water filters if your fridge has a water dispenser. Usually this will speed up the water and improve the water pressure, too!

Here are our tips for changing HVAC filters and measuring for new filters!

What January home tips might I be missing?