The walk around: 12 things to check on your property before summer

This is what we're actually looking at when we walk a property. None of it needs a consultant. Do it with a phone in your hand, take photos of the problems, and you'll know what you're dealing with.

Around the buildings

Start at the house and work out. Is the grass short for at least the first 20 metres, more if it slopes away downhill. Is there anything stacked against a wall, firewood, pallets, timber offcuts, hay. Are the gutters clear of leaves and are the leaves piling up in corners against the cladding. Can you see daylight through vents or gaps under the deck where an ember could get in.

Then look up. Is there a canopy hanging over the roof, and is there a ladder of vegetation running from the ground up into that canopy. That ladder is how a grassfire becomes a house fire.

Out on the land

Walk your boundary. Is there a break between you and the neighbour or the roadside reserve. Are the fence lines clear enough to slash. Is there woody regrowth coming back through country you cleared a few years ago, because that turns into scrub fast and it's cheaper to mulch now than to clear later.

Check the dead stuff. Standing dead timber, old heaps of pushed up scrub, rubbish piles, drums, tyres. If it's been sitting there since the last owner, it's fuel now.

Access and water

Drive in and out slowly. Would a truck fit through the gate, under the branches and around the corners, and could it turn around at the house. Is your number visible from the road. Can you get to your water supply if the power's off, and does the tank have a fitting a crew can actually use.

What to do with the list

Split it into what you can do yourself and what needs machinery. Gutters, firewood stacks and rubbish are a weekend. Long grass on acreage, woody regrowth, crown lifting over a driveway and widening an entrance are ours.

Send us the photos with your address and we'll come out, walk it with you and put a written quote together on what's worth doing first. We'd rather sort the access and the area around your house properly than clear the whole property for the sake of it.

Got a job in mind? Send your address and we'll come out, have a look, and put a written quote together. No obligation.