Yearly Home Reset: A Deep Cleaning Checklist

Some jobs only come round once a year. Nobody remembers when the oven was last cleaned, the space behind the fridge is a mystery, and the extractor fan filter has been the same colour for a while.

A yearly reset fixes that. Not as one exhausting weekend, but as a checklist you can do in one go or spread across the year.

The yearly checklist by room

Kitchen

Clean the oven, including racks and the door glass
Pull out the fridge, clean behind and underneath it, vacuum the coils if you can reach them
Defrost and clean the freezer
Clean or replace the extractor fan filter
Empty and wipe every cupboard, throw out expired food and spices
Descale the kettle, coffee machine and taps
Clean the dishwasher filter and run an empty hot cycle

Bathroom

Descale the showerhead and taps
Wash or replace the shower curtain and bath mat
Clear out the medicine cabinet and return expired medicines to a pharmacy
Clean the extractor fan grille
Check the sealant around the bath and shower for mould

Bedrooms

Vacuum and turn or rotate the mattress (check the label)
Wash duvets and pillows, or have them cleaned
Wash curtains, or vacuum them if they can’t be washed
Go through the wardrobe: donate what nobody wore this year

Living areas

Clean windows inside and out, including frames and sills
Move furniture and vacuum underneath
Wash cushion covers and throws
Clean light fittings and lampshades
Dust the tops of cupboards, door frames and skirting boards

House and admin

Test smoke alarms. The NFPA advises testing them once a month and replacing them after ten years, so the yearly reset is the moment to check the date on the back
Clear gutters and drains, or book someone
Bleed radiators and check the boiler service date
Sort the paperwork drawer: warranties, manuals, contracts
Check insurance, energy and internet contracts before they renew

Spread it over the year

Forty jobs in one weekend is how yearly resets get postponed to next year. Spread over twelve months it’s one or two jobs a month, mostly under an hour each.

Month	Jobs
January	Paperwork drawer, contracts, wardrobe clear-out
February	Oven, extractor fan filter
March	Windows inside and out
April	Mattresses, duvets and pillows
May	Behind and under the fridge and washing machine
June	Curtains, cushion covers, light fittings
July	Kitchen cupboards and spices
August	Bathroom: descaling, sealant, medicine cabinet
September	Gutters, drains, radiators, boiler service
October	Freezer defrost, dishwasher filter
November	Move furniture, vacuum underneath, skirting boards
December	Smoke alarm dates, light check before the dark months

Add the monthly jobs from your normal routine to the same list and you have a whole-year plan. For the daily and weekly layer underneath it, see the 10-minute daily routine and the weekend reset.

Why yearly jobs get forgotten

Weekly chores have a rhythm that reminds you. Yearly jobs don’t. Nobody notices the oven getting a bit worse each week, so it’s never the obvious thing to do today.

That’s also why these jobs usually land on whoever notices first. One person sees the black ring in the oven, thinks “someone should do that”, and becomes the someone. Over a few years that person carries the whole invisible calendar of the house. It’s a classic piece of the mental load: not the cleaning itself, but remembering it exists.

For yearly jobs, ownership works better than taking turns. Rotating a job you do once a year means nobody learns how to do it, and nobody remembers whose turn it was.

Instead:

Go through the checklist together once.
Each job gets an owner. The owner decides when it happens, does it or books someone, and buys what’s needed.
Balance by time, not by count. The oven and the windows are not the same as descaling a tap. The chore split calculator helps if you want numbers.
Swap a few owners next year if someone ended up with all the unpleasant ones.

With roommates or kids

In a shared house, yearly jobs are the first to fall through the cracks, because nobody feels they’re theirs. Two things help:

Split by shared and private. Everyone does their own room. Shared spaces go on the yearly list with owners, like any other chore. The roommate chore chart has a monthly group-clean option that fits a few of these jobs.
Use a group clean for the big ones. Windows, moving furniture, clearing out the shed: these go faster with three people for an hour than one person for an afternoon. Put on music, order food afterwards, done.

With kids, give them a real job of their own, not “helping”. A ten-year-old can wipe skirting boards and sort a toy box. A teenager can clean the windows on the ground floor. It takes longer, but it teaches them that the house doesn’t clean itself.

The reset that isn’t cleaning

A yearly reset is also a good moment to look at the system, not just the house. Ask each other three questions:

Which chores kept slipping this year?
Does the split still feel fair to everyone?
Is anything changing next year that changes the load: a new job, a baby, a new roommate?

If the answers are uncomfortable, why household work still feels unequal is a good next read, followed by how to divide household chores fairly.

FAQ

What should be on a yearly cleaning checklist?

The jobs that do not fit in weekly or monthly routines: behind and under appliances, the oven, windows inside and out, mattresses, curtains, the extractor fan filter, gutters, drains, wardrobes and the paperwork drawer. The full list by room is on this page.

Should I do a deep clean all at once?

You can, but spreading it out works better. One or two yearly jobs per month take an hour or so each, and nothing has to wait for a free weekend that never comes.

When is the best time for a yearly reset?

Many people pick spring or the weeks after New Year. The month matters less than the plan. If you spread it, January and September are good months for the bigger jobs because they come after holidays.