Fall Home Maintenance Checklist for Bakersfield Homeowners

Bakersfield summers are hard on a house. As the weather cools, it's the right time to walk your home and take care of a few small things before winter rains arrive. Here's the checklist we recommend to our homeowners.

Outside

• Clean gutters and downspouts. Make sure water drains away from the foundation, and that splash blocks or extensions are in place.
• Check grading and drainage. Soil and landscaping should slope away from the house. Keep planters and mulch below the weep screed at the base of the stucco.
• Adjust your irrigation. Cut back watering times as temperatures drop, and make sure sprinklers aren't spraying the walls.
• Look over caulking. Check around windows, doors, and exterior penetrations. Small gaps are normal as a new home settles — reseal them before the rain.

Inside

• Replace your HVAC filter and test the heating before the first cold night.
• Test smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and replace batteries.
• Know your shutoffs. Make sure everyone in the home knows where the main water shutoff and the electrical panel are. It's the single most useful thing you can do before an emergency.
• Check under sinks for any sign of moisture or slow drips.
• Run the garage door's safety reverse test.

Service request or emergency?

Most items you find — a sticking door, a caulk gap, a nail pop in drywall — are routine. If your home is within its warranty period, submit an online service request and our team will schedule a visit. Adding photos and your lot number helps us get it right the first time.

A true emergency is something that makes the home unsafe, such as:

• A complete electrical failure in your home (not a neighborhood outage)
• Heating or air conditioning failure during extreme weather
• A complete shutdown of your plumbing system
• Water damage from a plumbing, roof, or exterior leak

For those, first protect your household and stop the water if you can, then call our emergency line right away. The number and full details are on our Emergencies page.

Taking an hour each season to walk your home goes a long way. And if something doesn't look right, let us know — that's what we're here for.