Get Your Rented Home Ready For Winter: The Checklist

An afternoon in October is worth a great deal in January. Most of what goes wrong in a rented home over winter is preventable, and a fair amount of it is your landlord's job to sort out before the cold arrives rather than during it.

This is the autumn checklist. For getting through the season once it's started, see keeping a rented home right through winter.

The short version

• Test the heating in September, while an engineer can come next week rather than next month.
• Report anything that needs fixing now, in writing, before it becomes an emergency.
• Find the stopcock and the consumer unit before you need them in the dark.
• Most useful draught-proofing is removable, so it needs no permission.

Test the heating before you need it

The single most valuable thing on this list.

Turn the heating on for an hour on a mild day in September and check:

• Every radiator gets hot, all the way up. Cold at the top means air, and bleeding it is a two-minute job with a key that costs about a pound.
• Boiler pressure, usually between 1 and 1.5 bar on the gauge.
• The thermostat and timer work, and the batteries are good.
• Hot water reaches temperature at every tap.
• No odd noises, banging, or a boiler that fires and cuts out.

Anything wrong, report it now in writing. A boiler fault in September is a routine repair. The same fault in December is an emergency, competing with everyone else's, and you'll be cold while you wait.

Ask about the annual gas safety check

Your landlord must arrange one every twelve months and give you a copy of the certificate. Autumn is a sensible time to ask when yours is due.

If you've never seen one, ask in writing. That's a criminal matter rather than an administrative oversight. If the boiler breaks.

Test the alarms

Press and hold the test button on every smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. It takes about thirty seconds for a whole house.

Winter means more heating, more time indoors and more risk, and carbon monoxide has no smell. If any alarm doesn't sound after a new battery, report it, because a faulty alarm is the landlord's to repair or replace. Whose job are the batteries.

Draughts, the removable kind

All of this comes with you when you leave and needs no permission.

• Draught excluders at the base of external doors, and internal doors to unheated rooms.
• Self-adhesive foam strips around door and window frames. Removable, though test a small patch first on painted surfaces.
• Letterbox and keyhole covers.
• Thermal or lined curtains, hung so they don't cover the radiator. Close them at dusk.
• Secondary glazing film, the shrink-fit kind. Genuinely effective on single glazing and it peels off in spring.
• Radiator reflector panels on external walls.
• Rugs on hard floors in ground floor rooms.

What not to do: block airbricks or trickle vents. Very tempting, and it converts a draughty room into a damp one.

What to report before winter, not during

These are the landlord's, and autumn is the time to raise them.

• Windows or doors that don't seal properly, or won't close squarely
• Broken or failed double glazing, where units have misted
• Blocked or damaged gutters and downpipes. An overflowing gutter causes penetrating damp all winter
• Missing or slipped roof tiles
• Extractor fans that don't work in the kitchen or bathroom
• Any existing damp, however minor it looks in September
• Poor or missing loft insulation, if you can see into the loft
• Unlagged pipes in the loft or an unheated space

Report in writing, with photographs. Ask for a timescale. Doing this in October rather than January is the difference between a repair and a crisis. What your landlord must fix.

Find these three things now

Ten minutes, and it matters enormously at two in the morning.

• The stopcock, usually under the kitchen sink or near the front door. Check you can actually turn it, because they seize.
• The consumer unit, and which switch does what.
• The gas shut-off valve, by the meter.

Save the out-of-hours number for your landlord or agent, plus 0800 111 999 for gas emergencies and 105 for power cuts. What counts as an emergency repair.

Pipes and the garden

Frozen pipes do more damage than anything else on this list.

• Ask about lagging for pipes in the loft or an unheated garage. Cheap, and the landlord's responsibility.
• Turn off and drain the outside tap if there's an internal isolating valve.
• Clear leaves from accessible gullies and drains, which is usually yours.
• Move or empty pots that will crack in a freeze.
• Secure anything that blows about, bins, garden furniture, loose fence panels.

Who looks after the garden.

Sort the energy side

• Submit a meter reading before the cold starts, so winter bills are based on real usage rather than estimates that drift upwards.
• Check what tariff you're on. Moving in and doing nothing puts you on the supplier's default rate.
• Look at the EPC if you haven't. It tells you what heating this property should cost, which is useful for knowing whether a bill is unreasonable or the building is.
• Check what you can claim. Council Tax Reduction, Discretionary Housing Payments, the Household Support Fund and supplier hardship funds all go underclaimed.

Saving money when renting and what renting actually costs.

Set up the habits early

Easier to start in October than to retrofit in January when mould has already appeared.

• Wipe window condensation in the mornings
• Run extractor fans during and after showering and cooking, door shut
• Leave gaps behind furniture on external walls
• Dry washing outside where possible, and in one ventilated room where not
• Keep low background heat rather than short blasts

Damp and mould.

The honest summary

Test the heating in September and report anything wrong immediately. Test the alarms. Draught-proof with things you can take with you. Find the stopcock.

And get the landlord's jobs on their list in October, in writing, rather than discovering in January that a gutter has been overflowing into a bedroom wall since November.

And if your landlord left you cold last winter, that belongs on the record. Reviewing the property is how the next tenant finds out before signing in the summer.

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This guide covers England and reflects the position at August 2026. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differ. General information rather than legal advice. Sources: GOV.UK, private renting repairs, GOV.UK, alarm regulations guidance.