May home maintenance checklist — UK edition

May is the sweet spot in the British home maintenance year. The weather is dry enough to get on a ladder without being dangerous, warm enough that exterior paint actually cures, and the garden is growing but not yet out of hand. Most of the jobs on this list take less than an hour and save you a callout fee, a frozen pipe, or a failed insurance claim later in the year.

None of this is theoretical. It is the list I work through on my own house every year, in roughly the order I do it. Feel free to cherry-pick.

Outside the house (90 minutes, spread over the month)

Exterior jobs benefit most from doing them now rather than November, when you will be doing them in the rain with a head-torch.

• Clear the gutters. April showers will have dumped blossom, leaves and grit. If you can see green growing out of a gutter from the ground, that is an overflow waiting to happen in the first heavy rain. Scoop, flush with a hose, check the downpipe runs clear.
• Scan the roof from the ground. Binoculars, not a ladder. Look for slipped slates, lifted flashing round the chimney, and any daylight visible in the loft from below. One missing slate is a twenty quid fix today and a four-figure ceiling repair in December.
• Check the render and brickwork. Hairline cracks are normal. Step-cracks that follow the brick courses are not. Anything getting bigger year-on-year needs a look.
• Touch up exterior paint. Window frames, fascia boards, the garage door. Dry, warm, not too sunny. Do it before the wasps start building nests in the eaves.
• Fences and gates. Post caps, latches, the bit where the bottom of the gate drags on the patio. Ten minutes with a chisel saves you buying a new gate.

Inside the house (45 minutes)

• Test the smoke alarms. Proper test, not just a button press. Hold a smouldering incense stick under the sensor. If it does not respond in 10 seconds, change the battery. If it still does not respond, change the unit. They last about 10 years, and the date is printed on the back.
• Test the CO alarm. Same deal. If you do not have one and you have gas appliances, get one today. A twenty quid device vs carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Bleed the radiators. Not because the heating is on, but because May is the only month the system has had the whole winter to build up air in the top of the rads. Bleed now and you are ahead of the panic in October.
• Clean the extractor fan filters. The kitchen one will be horrifying. Hot soapy water and a wire brush. Bathroom fans just need the dust pulled off the grille.

Appliances (30 minutes, very cheap insurance)

The jobs manufacturers hope you will skip so the product breaks sooner.

• Washing machine maintenance wash. Empty drum, 90°C cotton cycle, no detergent. Wipe the door seal. Pull the filter at the front (towels down first). The smell you have been trying to ignore will go away.
• Dishwasher filter. Bottom of the cabinet, unscrew, rinse. It should look clean. If it does not, you have just found why the glasses have been coming out cloudy.
• Fridge door seal and condenser coils. Wipe the rubber seal so it still seals. Pull the fridge out, hoover the black grille on the back. Your electricity bill will thank you.
• Tumble dryer lint trap and vent. Lint trap every load, obviously. Once a year get a long brush down the exhaust vent. Lint build-up is a genuine house-fire cause.

Annual rituals that only come round once a year (so they are easy to forget)

• Book the boiler service. Every manufacturer warranty requires annual servicing by a Gas Safe registered engineer, and most people are one missed service away from having no warranty at all. May is a quiet month for gas engineers so you get better prices and faster bookings than October, when everyone panics at once.
• Check your Gas Safety Certificate expiry. Landlords, this is a legal requirement — CP12 every 12 months. Owner-occupiers, you do not have to, but if something goes wrong without evidence of service you can say goodbye to the warranty.
• Check your EICR. The electrical installation condition report. Valid for 5 years in owner-occupied homes, 5 years for rented, 10 for new builds. You have one somewhere. It tells you when the next one is due.
• Chimney sweep if you burn wood. Booked in summer it is half the price of booked in October.
• Service the pressure washer, mower, strimmer. Fresh fuel, air filter, new spark plug if needed, sharpen the mower blade. Takes 30 minutes per machine and every one of them will outlast its cheap replacement.

The admin that usually gets forgotten

• MOT and car tax dates. Check now, not a day before. You can renew tax a month in advance with no downside, and book the MOT up to a month before expiry while keeping the original renewal date.
• Buildings and contents insurance renewal. If it renews in May or June, do not auto-renew. Get three quotes and either switch or use them as leverage to haggle with your current insurer. The saving is usually three figures.
• Home emergency policy — do you actually have one? Most people either think they do and do not, or pay for one twice through two different providers. Check the paperwork.
• Bin collection changes. Simpler Recycling rules rolled out across England in March. If your council changed the days, colours, or what goes in each bin, you probably got one leaflet and then forgot. Check the council website for your current collection calendar.
• Renew the car breakdown cover, if you have separate cover from your insurance. Annual, easy to forget, awful to need and not have.

The one outside job that matters more than any of the above

Check the drains. The ones at ground level around the house. If one of them has a slow gurgle, or you can see a ring of dried scum near the top, there is a blockage forming. Rods from the nearest hardware shop are about fifteen quid, an hour of unpleasant work, and it is the difference between sorting it in May sunshine and sorting it in February with sewage coming up through the shower drain.

Keeping track of all of this

The reason I built Kepthouse in the first place is that I lost track of exactly this kind of list. I would service the boiler, put the certificate in a drawer, and then not be able to find it when the letting agent asked for it nine months later. I knew the MOT was due some time in September, but not which week. I paid for a home emergency policy for two years without realising I had cancelled it once and it was on the credit card under a different name.

None of that is a technology problem. It is a "things I only do once a year have no system for remembering themselves" problem. So I built the system.

The fastest way to capture a reminder now is the new Add a Reminder wizard: tap the wand icon on the dashboard, type "boiler service", pick a date, choose "yearly", done. 20 seconds. The app reminds you a week before and again the day before, and when you tick it off, the next one rolls round to the same date next year automatically. Because it lives alongside the actual appliance the boiler is on, you can attach the service receipt, the engineer's Gas Safe number, and the next service due date to one item and not lose any of them.

Same thing for MOT, insurance renewals, chimney sweep, EICR. Each one takes less time to set up than it took me to find this year's Gas Safety Certificate in the file cabinet.

It is free. 15 items on the free tier, which is enough to cover a house’s annual maintenance rhythm without thinking about it.

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FAQ

Why is May a better month than any other for this list?

The weather is dry enough for ladder work, warm enough that exterior paint cures properly, and the trades are not as booked up as they will be in October. You also have the whole summer to sort anything you find.

How often should a gas boiler be serviced in the UK?

Once a year by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Most manufacturer warranties require it or they will not honour a claim. Landlords also need an annual CP12 Gas Safety Certificate by law.

Do I legally need an EICR if I own my home?

No. Landlords do (5-yearly for most tenancies). Owner-occupiers do not, but it is the safest way to know your wiring is not going to catch fire, and a mortgage valuation sometimes asks for one.

How much does an annual boiler service cost in the UK in 2026?

Usually between £80 and £120 depending on your region and engineer. Booked in summer, closer to the lower end. Booked in the first cold week of October, closer to the higher end.

What is Simpler Recycling and does it affect me?

It is the new standard for household waste collection in England. Most councils now separate food waste, and the bin schedule may have changed. Check your council’s website or set up bin day reminders in an app so you are not relying on remembering a changed colour.