In your first month, find four shutoffs and four dates. The shutoffs: the main water valve, the gas valve at the meter, the electrical panel, and the individual stops under every sink and toilet. The dates: the manufacture date on every smoke alarm, the replace-by date on every carbon monoxide alarm, the age of the water heater from its rating plate, and the date of the last heating and cooling service. Nothing on that list requires a tool.
This is a locating exercise, not a repair list. A new owner who knows where the water stops and how old the alarms are is better protected than one who owns a good toolbox and has never opened the utility closet.
Why a first time homeowner checklist starts with shutoffs and not paint
The failures that cost the most money in a first year are not the ones people plan for. A supply line under a sink lets go while nobody is home. A water heater at the end of its life starts weeping onto a finished floor. A branch circuit dies and half the kitchen goes with it. In every one of those, the difference between an inconvenience and a claim is whether somebody in the house knows where the valve or the breaker is, in the dark, without reading anything.
The other reason is timing. Every item below is easier to do in a calm week than in an emergency, and several of them will turn up a problem you want to discover on your own schedule. A main shutoff that will not turn is a plumbing appointment when you find it on a Tuesday and a flooded basement when you find it during a burst.
Week one: the four shutoffs
The main water valve. It is usually within a few feet of where the supply pipe enters the building: a basement wall facing the street, a crawl space, a garage near the water heater or laundry hookup, or, in warm climates, outside near the foundation under a lid. Oak Lodge Water Services, a public water utility, lists exactly those locations and adds the line that matters most for a new owner: the best time to find your shut-off valve is before an emergency happens. Find it, then close it and reopen it once so you know it works and so you know how many turns it takes.
The gas valve, if the house has gas. Locate it at the meter and look at it. Do not practice on it. If you smell gas at any point, the American Gas Association's instruction, read on 2026-09-08, is to leave the building immediately and take others with you, avoid anything that could spark by not turning appliances or lights on or off, find a phone away from the area, and call 911 or your natural gas utility. Restoring gas service after a shutoff is utility and licensed-professional work, not a homeowner task.
The electrical panel. Find it, open the outer door, photograph the directory and note the amperage on the main breaker. That is the whole of week one for the panel. The screwed-on cover behind the door stays on, permanently, for reasons we go into below.
The fixture stops. Under each sink there are two small valves, and behind each toilet there is one. These are what you use for a single leaking fixture, so you are not shutting the whole house off for a dripping faucet. Turn each one and then open it again. A stop that is seized is a plumber's small job now rather than an emergency later.
The four dates worth writing down
Smoke alarm manufacture dates. The U.S. Fire Administration, read on 2026-09-08, says to put alarms inside and outside each bedroom and sleeping area and on every level of the home, to test them monthly, to replace nine-volt batteries at least once a year, and to replace the entire smoke alarm every 10 years. Take each alarm down, read the date printed on the back, and write it somewhere you will find it. Sellers rarely replace alarms, so the units you inherited may already be near the end.
Carbon monoxide alarm dates and placement. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's Carbon Monoxide Information Center says to install battery-operated CO alarms, or CO alarms with battery backup, on every level of the home and outside sleeping areas, and that interconnected alarms are best because when one sounds, they all sound. If an alarm ever goes off, CPSC's instruction is to get outside to fresh air immediately and then call 911. There is no step before that one.
The water heater's age. The rating plate on the side of the tank carries the model and serial number, and the manufacturer's own serial decoding tells you the build date. Photograph the plate. Every future question about that unit, from a plumber or from a parts supplier, starts with what is on it.
The last heating and cooling service. Ask the seller or the agent, and if nobody knows, assume it has not been done. ENERGY STAR recommends an annual pre-season check-up by a contractor, in fall for heating and spring for cooling, and a first-year visit also buys you an informed opinion about how much life the equipment has left.
The water heater, looked at rather than worked on
Stand in front of it and note four things: the age from the plate, whether there is damp, rust or staining at the base, whether the relief valve has a discharge pipe running from it, and what the temperature is set to.
The temperature is the one setting with a regulator behind it. CPSC's tap water scald guidance, publication 5098, gives 120 degrees Fahrenheit as the setting that reduces or eliminates the risk of most tap water scald injuries, which matters most in households with young children, older adults, or anyone with reduced sensation or mobility.
The relief valve is not a homeowner test on this site. Rheem's own maintenance guidance, read on 2026-09-08, sends owners to pages 28 and 29 of the Use and Care Manual for the temperature and pressure relief valve, which is exactly the point: your unit's manual is the instruction that applies, and if water is discharging from that pipe, that is a fault and a call to a licensed plumber. Never cap or plug it. Anything involving the gas supply, the flue or the electrical connection to the heater belongs to the licensed trade for that service.
The panel: read the directory, leave the cover alone
A new owner should be able to point at the breaker for the kitchen, the one for the bathroom outlets and the main. Getting there means mapping the panel with the door open and the cover untouched, one circuit at a time, with somebody else calling out which lights went off.
The line that does not move: the screwed-on cover behind the door stays on. Behind it are conductors that arrive from the utility and are not switched by your main breaker, which is why turning the main off does not make the inside of a panel safe. The Electrical Safety Foundation International recommends hiring a qualified, licensed electrician for any electrical work in the home and advises never attempting a project beyond your skill level, and its guidance on breakers adds two things a first-year owner should act on: frequent trips of a breaker indicate a problem and should be inspected by a qualified electrician, and an electrical inspection is warranted if the home is older than 40 years or has had a major addition, renovation or large appliance added.
If your new house is over 40 years old, that inspection is the single professional visit with the best return in your first year.
What only fails in weather, and what to check before it does
Where the water goes. Stand outside during the first real storm and watch. Downspouts that discharge against the foundation, a grade that slopes toward the house, and a gutter that overflows at one corner are all things you can only learn by looking during rain.
The gutters. No authority publishes a universal cleaning interval, because the honest answer is that it depends on what is above them. The trigger is what is in them. If clearing them means being at a height you are not steady at, hire it out; that is not a frugality decision.
The drains you have not used yet. Guest bathroom, basement floor drain, utility sink. Run water into each so the traps fill. A dry trap is how sewer gas gets into a house.
Freeze exposure, if your climate has it. Find the outdoor spigots and any exposed pipe runs in unheated space before the first cold snap, not during it.
The appliances you inherited
You did not choose them, you do not have the manuals, and at least one of them is older than it looks. Two useful hours here.
Find the model number on each and photograph it, because every future repair conversation starts there. Then form a rough view of what each one is worth. A machine that will need a repair in its first year with you may be at the end of its economic life rather than the start of a relationship, and the way to decide that is the same for a fridge as for a dishwasher: repair or replace an aging appliance sets out the test.
While you are behind the refrigerator with a flashlight anyway, look at the condenser coils. Inherited fridges are frequently running hot simply because nobody has ever cleaned them, and how to clean refrigerator coils is a vacuum and a brush with the appliance unplugged.
Find out what your water is like
This is the item nobody puts on a new-owner list, and it quietly explains a lot of what will happen next in the house. Hard water shortens the life of faucet cartridges, fills a water heater with deposits, spots the glassware and leaves crust on aerators and shower heads. It is not a mystery you have to solve by feel: your utility publishes a water quality report, and a test kit answers it for a private well. What the evidence looks like is in the signs of hard water in the house, and knowing the answer in month one changes which maintenance jobs you will be doing for the next ten years.
What needs a professional first, before a homeowner's look
Some things are not a matter of confidence. They are a matter of licensing, equipment or consequence.
| What | Who | Why not a homeowner's look |
|---|---|---|
| A panel that is warm, buzzing, scorched, or in a house over 40 years old | Licensed electrician | The cover has to come off for the assessment, and that is licensed work |
| Anything on the gas supply, burner or flue | Licensed gas professional | Regulated work in most jurisdictions, and a CO question rather than a maintenance one |
| A chimney or wood stove of unknown service history | Certified chimney sweep or inspector | Deposits and flue defects are not visible from the room |
| A sewer line in an older house, before a big renovation | Licensed plumber with a camera | The failure mode is expensive and completely hidden |
| A water heater that is weeping, or of unknown age and near a finished floor | Licensed plumber | A tank that has begun to leak does not stop |
| Roof surfaces and any height you are not steady at | Roofer | Fall risk, and roof work is its own trade |
A workable 30-day order
- Days 1 to 3. Main water valve, gas valve at the meter, panel located and photographed, fixture stops turned.
- Days 4 to 7. Every smoke and CO alarm tested, dated and written down. Anything past 10 years replaced.
- Week 2. Map the panel with the cover on and write a real directory. Photograph the water heater plate and read the temperature setting.
- Week 3. Appliance model numbers, coils, filters. Ask the utility about water hardness.
- Week 4. Book the professional visits the list above turned up, and get the heating or cooling service on the calendar before its season.
Where this stops being yours
- Inside the electrical panel. Not with the main off, not for a moment, not to look.
- The gas supply, and restoring gas after any shutoff. Utility and licensed gas professional.
- The water heater's relief valve, and draining the tank. Licensed plumber unless the manual names it as an owner task.
- Any pipe or connection that is behind a wall or under a slab. Licensed plumber.
- If you smell gas or a CO alarm sounds: get out first, and call from outside. Nothing on this page comes before that.
FAQ
What should a first time homeowner do in the first week? Locate the main water shutoff, the gas valve at the meter, the electrical panel, and the individual stops under sinks and behind toilets. Turn the water valve and the fixture stops once so you know they work, and photograph the panel directory.
How do I know how old my water heater is? The rating plate on the side of the tank carries the model and serial number, and the manufacturer's serial decoding gives the build date. Photograph the plate. Every parts or service conversation starts with it.
Should I replace the smoke alarms in a house I just bought? Check the manufacture date printed on the back of each unit. The U.S. Fire Administration says to replace the entire alarm every 10 years, so any alarm at or past that date should be replaced regardless of whether it still chirps when tested.
Is it safe to open the electrical panel to see what is inside? Open the outer door to see the breaker handles and the directory. Do not remove the screwed-on cover behind it. Conductors arriving from the utility are not switched by your main breaker, and ESFI's guidance is to hire a qualified licensed electrician for any electrical work.
What inspection is worth paying for after moving in? If the house is older than 40 years or has had a major addition or a large appliance added, ESFI advises an electrical inspection, and that is usually the best-value first visit. In older houses, a sewer camera before any large renovation is the second.
