Most people put these jobs off until it is too late. But there are a few weeks each autumn when the weather is still mild enough to work outside and the heating has not gone on properly yet, and every one of them is easier in October sunshine than in a November gale.
1. Clear the gutters
Leaves block the gutters within two weeks, and water then runs down the wall instead of through the downpipe. By February you will have a damp patch inside if you do not get on with it. Climb up a ladder or hire someone to clear out the leaves once they have dropped. Pouring a bucket of water in at the top will check that the downpipes are running.
2. Check the roof from the ground first
You do not need to risk your neck climbing onto the roof. Stand across the road with binoculars and look for slipped or cracked slates, loose cement flashing around the chimney, and moss building up in the valleys. A single slipped slate is a cheap fix now but expensive after a winter of water getting in underneath.
3. Get the air out of the radiators
Turn on the heating for 20 minutes, then feel each radiator. If it is cold at the top and warm at the bottom, there is trapped air. Turn off the heating, open the bleed valve with a radiator key until water appears, and close it again. If a radiator is warm at the top and cold at the bottom instead, that is sludge, and a job for a plumber.
4. Service the boiler
Engineers are quiet in September but booked solid by December, when every boiler in the street decides to fail at once. A cheap annual service keeps the warranty valid on newer boilers and catches small faults before they become big ones.
5. Find the draughts on a windy day
Walk round the house with the back of your hand on a blowy day. Letterboxes, keyholes, gaps under doors, loft hatches and the edges of old windows are the usual culprits. Brush strips, letterbox flaps and a draught excluder along the hatch cost a few pounds each. Draughts at a window sash can often be fixed with a new gasket, but cold air coming through the frame itself is a sign the window is near the end of its life and may need to be replaced with new windows.
6. Check the doors close properly
Timber doors swell in wet weather and start to catch. A door that needs a shoulder to shut is letting cold air in all the way round and putting strain on the lock. Adjust the keep, plane the edge if it is timber, or have the hinges adjusted if it is composite or uPVC. Oil the hinges and the lock while you are there.
7. Insulate exposed pipes
Any pipe in the loft, the garage or against an outside wall needs foam lagging. It is sold by the metre and takes ten minutes to fit. If you have a cold water tank in the loft, make sure it has a jacket and a lid. A burst pipe in January is the most expensive thing on this list to leave undone.
8. Drain and store the outside tap and hose
Turn off the isolating valve for the outside tap if there is one, open the tap to drain it, and bring the hose inside. A frozen outside tap can split the pipe inside the wall, and you only discover it when it thaws.
9. Sort the garden furniture and the shed
Anything that will rot or rust goes under cover. Empty the mower's petrol or run it dry, sharpen the blades, and check the shed roof felt has not lifted at the edges. Cut back anything overhanging the gutters you have just cleared.
10. Test the alarms and the torch
Press the button on every smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm, and replace the batteries if they are more than a year old. Put fresh batteries in a torch and leave it somewhere you can find in the dark. Power cuts come with the first big storm, not the last one.
None of this is fun, and most of it gets put off until it is too late. Pick a dry Saturday, work down the list, and the house will be warmer and cheaper to run by the time the clocks change.