Orange County, California
April in Orange County
- Pull mulch and wood off the foundation line
Mulch is great for plants and terrible pressed against a house: it holds moisture against the foundation and it IS food, piled where the diners live.
- Build your defensible space before fire season
You're in a high-wildfire-risk area, and this is the most consequential landscape task on your entire calendar — treat it like the safety task it is, not yard work.
- Test the water heater's relief valve
On top or high on the side of your tank is a brass valve with a flip lever — the temperature-pressure relief (TPR) valve.
- Clear window weep holes and wash the screens
Look at the bottom outside edge of any vinyl or aluminum window and you'll find two or three little slots.
- Walk the perimeter — grading and drainage check
Your foundation has one enemy with a thousand disguises, and it's water sitting where it shouldn't.
- Hot tub quarterly care
First, the honest gate: no hot tub, no task — skip this card and enjoy your quarter.
- Spring cooling-system checkup
Where you live, the AC is the hardest-working system in the house — it matters more than your heat, and it's planned that way in your year.
- Walk the perimeter like a mouse
Pest control that works is mostly carpentry: animals and insects get in through openings, and the openings are findable.
- Check your expansion tank
Water expands when it heats.
- Replace your HVAC filter
Every bit of air your system heats or cools passes through one filter.
- Clean the dishwasher filter
Older dishwashers had hard food grinders.
The rest of Orange County's year
Not from around here? The national April list casts a wider net.
Close — but it's not your house yet.
This page plans for a typical local house. The app asks twelve questions about yours and rebuilds the year around the answers — your systems, your dates, your prices.
Free to start · the whole year is $24 · no card required