The House Year

Montgomery County, Maryland

December in Montgomery County

6 tasks for a typical local house (crawlspace, heat pump) ·adjust for yours

  1. Audit your extension cords and power strips

    Extension cords are for Saturday projects, not infrastructure.

    $215–$485to hire out here

  2. Holiday fire safety — the indoor edition

    December stacks every indoor fire ingredient into one week: a drying evergreen in the living room, open flames on the mantel, the year's most ambitious cooking, and a house full of distraction.

    $80–$160to hire out here

  3. Frozen pipe? Here's the drill

    Your winter-prep card works to keep this day from coming; this card is for when it comes anyway.

    $215–$540to hire out here

  4. Hang the holiday lights without the ER trip

    Two risks share this card.

    $325–$865to hire out here

  5. Tune your doors and windows for the season

    Doors and windows move, sag, and shrink with every season; their seals age out quietly.

    $160–$430to hire out here

  6. Heat pump winter: what's normal

    Heat pumps do things in winter that LOOK broken to anyone raised on furnaces, and with ~95 freeze days a year in Montgomery County, yours will do all of them.

    $95–$195to hire out here

The rest of Montgomery County's year

Not from around here? The national December list casts a wider net.

Your county's checklist, one email a month. What's due, what it should cost, and a heads-up when the weather changes the plan. No drip campaigns — we don't have the patience for them either.

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.

Build your house's yearGet the iPhone app

Free to start · the whole year is $24 · no card required