Editor's pick
The 20-minute kitchen reset that actually sticks
One loop round the room, in a fixed order, with nothing put "away for now". Here's the order and why it matters.
Tried in real homes, not labs
Small fixes that make a house work better.
Practical advice on cleaning, organising, repairs and running costs — written plainly, tested properly, and free of the twenty-step routines nobody actually keeps up.
480+Tips published
12 minAverage job time
62kWeekly readers
Find it by room or job
Every tip is filed where you'd actually look for it — not under a clever name.
Kitchen
Grease, drains, fridge order and cupboards that stay usable.
92 tipsBathroom
Limescale, damp, grout and the ventilation habit that beats both.
58 tipsStorage
Decluttering that survives contact with a normal week.
74 tipsRepairs
Jobs worth doing yourself — and the ones worth paying for.
66 tipsEnergy & bills
Where the money actually goes, and the fixes that pay back fastest.
45 tipsGarden & outside
Low-effort planting, gutters, fences and winter prep.
61 tipsRoutines
Weekly and seasonal checklists you can finish in one sitting.
39 tipsRenting
Improvements that come back off the deposit, not out of it.
33 tipsLatest from the house
New tips every Tuesday and Friday. Each one is tested in a real home before it goes up.
Laundry
Why your towels smell — and the 40°C fix
It's almost never the detergent. Three causes, ranked by how often they turn out to be the real one.
Energy & bills
Bleeding radiators: the order that matters
Ground floor first is wrong in most houses. Here's how to work out the right sequence for yours.
Storage
One shelf a day: decluttering without the weekend
A method built around ten-minute sessions, because the all-day purge is the reason most people stop.
Damp
Condensation on the inside of your windows
Usually a ventilation problem wearing an insulation costume. How to tell which one you've got.
Repairs
Filling wall holes so they disappear
Two thin coats, the right sanding grade, and the lighting trick that shows what you missed.
Garden & outside
Six plants that survive a forgetful owner
Chosen for tolerance, not looks — though three of them happen to be handsome anyway.
Five-minute wins
No shopping list, no weekend. Just things worth doing next time you walk past.
Vacuum the fridge coils
Dusty coils make the compressor work harder. Twice a year is plenty, and it takes about four minutes.
Run the tap after the dishwasher
A short hot run clears the shared waste pipe and stops that smell building up under the sink.
Turn your mattress, don't flip it
Most modern mattresses are one-sided. Rotating head-to-foot every season is the useful half of the old advice.
Wipe door seals, not just the drum
The rubber lip on a washing machine is where the black marks start. A dry cloth after each wash prevents it.
Label the stopcock
The day you need it, you'll need it fast. A luggage tag and thirty seconds now is a genuinely good trade.
Test smoke alarms on the same date
Pick the first of the month. Testing all of them together makes a missed one obvious.
About Top House Tips
We're a small team of writers, a retired plumber and one very patient tester who lets us try things in her flat. Every tip is done in a real home before it's published, and we say plainly when a job is worth handing to a professional.