A twelve-month schedule built for your home, your climate and your systems — with every task marked as yours to do or a job for a licensed professional.
The cheap consumable nobody changes is what shortens the life of the expensive thing it sits inside. That's most of home maintenance in one sentence.
Water heater flush, dryer vent, caulking, gutters. If you weren't taught, you don't know what you don't know — and the house doesn't remind you.
A burst pipe at midnight is a different price from the same job booked on a Tuesday. Prevention is mostly about avoiding the emergency premium.
It's probably the most expensive thing you own, and it arrived with no maintenance plan whatsoever.