Residential · Ocean County, NJ · · By Nick Sheridan
A house at the Jersey Shore doesn't get a season off. Salt air settles on the siding and the glass. The gutters fill with pine needles most of the year and oak leaves in November. Humidity grows algae on whatever sits in the shade. The AC puts in more hours here than it would inland, and the dryer vent clogs faster in the damp. It's slow damage, and it gets expensive if nobody's looking.
Below is the checklist we run on the Quarterly Maintenance Plan, one visit a season, four a year. Each season has what we do and what you can check without a ladder.
Winter checklist, January to March
The first visit of the year is mostly indoors, where the fire safety items are. By January the dryer's been running heavy since the holidays, and a Shore vent fills faster than one inland. Summer humidity leaves the lint damp, so it coats the duct instead of clearing the hood, and a season of beach towels adds more of it every load.
- Dryer vent cleaning, the full duct run, dryer to outside hood, plus a check that the joint behind the dryer has a real elbow sealed with foil tape, not a sagging hose or a pair of binder clips.
- Smoke and CO alarms tested and the batteries swapped.
- HVAC filter changed. This one's on all four visits.
- Bathroom exhaust vents cleaned.
- Range hood and microwave filters, dishwasher filter, and refrigerator coils cleaned.
- The handyman list, since we're already inside and it's no weather for ladders.
What you can check yourself: run a load and go stand outside by the vent hood. The flap should be open with steady air coming out. Back inside, put a hand on the dryer when the cycle ends. Hot to the touch means the heat isn't leaving.
Spring checklist, April to June
Spring is the one trip that does the whole outside before summer. Around here the north side of a house dries last, and the green film starts there. Salt holds the dirt against the siding, and black mildew shows up low, along the bottom courses and behind the shrubs. Late spring is also when the oak catkins and maple seeds land on top of the pine needles and pack the gutters with a wet mat that won't drain.
- Soft wash house washing, every side of the siding plus the soffits, the fascia, and the gutter faces. Every 12 to 18 months is the right pace at the Shore, and the plan does it every spring.
- Power washing on the driveway and the walks, the patio or pool deck, and the fence. Sand grinds into concrete and pavers, and the damp side of a patio grows algae all spring. Once a year does it for most hard surfaces.
- Gutter cleaning and downspout flushing, the first of two a year. Whatever collected over the winter comes out, and each downspout gets flushed from the top until what comes out at the bottom is clean.
- HVAC filter.
What you can check yourself: stand across the street and look at the north side of the house for a green tint. On the patio, look in the shaded corner for black or green patches. A driveway that's still gray and dull when it's wet is due.
Summer checklist, July to September
Summer is when the AC runs its longest days and the windows look their worst. Salt haze dries onto any glass facing the ocean or the bay, and rain won't move it. Sand blows into the tracks. Out back, the condensing unit is pulling pollen and cottonwood fluff through its fins all day while the salt in the air works on the aluminum.
- Window cleaning, inside and out. Screens out and washed, tracks and sills cleaned, then the glass gets a scrub and a squeegee, no streaks.
- AC coil cleaning. The panels come off and the debris comes out of the base. Then the coil gets a low-pressure wash from the inside of the unit outward so the fins stay straight.
- Water heater flush. We drain the tank until what's coming out runs clean, and the sediment sitting on the bottom goes out with it.
- HVAC filter.
What you can check yourself: listen to the water heater. Popping and rumbling is sediment, and so is a shower that goes cold faster than it used to. Outside, look at the AC fins. Silver is right. Gray or green, or a coat of fluff on the outside, means the unit's working harder than it should.
Fall home maintenance checklist, October to December
Fall is the visit that sets the house up for winter. In Ocean County most of the leaves are off the trees by the end of November, and the oaks go last, so we wait for them. The trouble spot is the downspout elbow up at the gutter. It fills first, and from the yard the gutter above it can look empty. Water backs up over the rear edge onto the fascia, which stays wet and rots. Then it freezes, and a gutter full of ice is heavy enough to tear the hangers out. On the bay side it's pine needles, not leaves, and they slip right past gutter guards.
- Gutter and downspout cleaning, round two. This is the one that counts. If the flush won't shift the needles, we take the elbow off and dig them out.
- Handyman and light landscaping, closing out the list before the cold.
- Low ceiling fans cleaned.
- Garage door tuned up.
- HVAC filter.
What you can check yourself: wait for a hard rain and walk the house. Water should be pouring out of the bottom of every downspout. If one's dry while the rain's coming down, it's blocked. A trench in the mulch under the gutter line means it's been spilling over for a while. Leave the ladder in the garage. November ground is wet, and nobody needs that fall.
You can book each of these on its own. Most lists like this don't survive the year, though. The Quarterly Maintenance Plan puts the whole list on a calendar. 20+ services over four visits, one discounted price, one invoice. Each visit closes with a written report and before and after photos, time-stamped, for every item, so you see what came out of the gutter without going up to check. The furnace tune-up is somebody else's job, so this isn't an HVAC membership. It's everything around one.
Being in the house four times a year is also how things get caught. The roof leak in Lavallette wasn't on any checklist. We were there for the quarterly visit, so we saw it. The binder clips behind a Wall Township dryer were the same kind of find. We'd come to clean the vent, and pulling the dryer out is what turned them up. A house doesn't tell you what's wrong until it's expensive, so somebody has to go look. Anywhere in Ocean or Monmouth County, one call to (732) 362-4425 or a quote request through the site puts your house on the schedule. The license is NJHIC #13VH13963600, and we're bonded and insured.
