Getting Your Home Ready When You Can't Do the Work Yourself

Last updated September 30, 2026

Practical options for older homeowners, people with health limits, and adult children helping parents from out of town — including who to hire, what to ask, and where to find help paying for it.

Most wildfire preparation advice is written as though you are going to climb onto your own roof.

Plenty of people cannot. The work involves ladders, chainsaws, brush in August heat, and hauling debris. If you are in your seventies, recovering from surgery, living alone, or helping a parent from three hours away, the standard checklist is not a plan. It is a list of things you cannot do.

Here is what to do instead.

Start with what actually matters

You do not have to do everything. A short list of jobs delivers most of the protection, and knowing that keeps the task from feeling impossible.

In rough order of value per dollar:

1. Clear the first five feet around the house. Remove bark mulch, shrubs against the walls, and anything stored against the siding. Mostly labor, no materials beyond gravel.
2. Screen or replace the vents. Embers get into attics through open vents. Cheap and fast.
3. Clean the gutters and roof, then fit metal gutter guards so it stops being an annual job.
4. Clear the grass and brush out to 100 feet, then keep it cleared.
5. Move the firewood at least 30 feet from the house.
6. Cut back branches over the roof and within 10 feet of the chimney.

Everything beyond this — roofing, decks, siding, windows — is real and worth doing, but it is money and scheduling rather than something to worry about this week.

Get one written assessment first

If you are hiring anyway, the cheapest useful first step is a wildfire home evaluation. Someone comes out, inspects the property, and gives you a written, photographed report saying what to fix and in what order.

This is worth it for three reasons. It tells you what your specific house needs rather than what houses in general need. It gives you a document to hand to contractors, which makes quotes comparable. And it is exactly the kind of documentation an insurer or grant program wants.

For an adult child helping from out of the area, a written report is the single most useful thing you can arrange. It turns a vague worry into a list you can work through and share with siblings.

Look for Senior-Friendly listings

In this directory, Senior-Friendly means something specific. It means the business:

• does the physical work rather than telling you what to do,
• will help with the paperwork for insurance or grants,
• explains things in plain language and does not rush you.

Contractors marked Grant Experience have worked with homeowners using grant funding and know what those programs need documented.

You can filter for both on any town or service page.

Help paying for it

• The Safe Homes Grant Program (AB 888) was reported to be opening applications in 2026 for income-qualified homeowners, to help pay for home hardening. Check the current status before counting on it — program timing has shifted before.
• Insurance discounts under Safer from Wildfires and the FAIR Plan’s hardening discounts reduce your premium rather than paying for work up front, but over several years they offset real money. See the FAIR Plan discount checklist.
• Local chipping programs. Butte County Fire Safe Council and similar organizations have at times offered free or low-cost chipping of brush piles, which removes the hardest part of clearing — hauling it away. Availability varies by year and area, so ask locally.
• Your local fire district may offer free defensible space inspections, which tells you what needs doing and gives you a document for your insurer.
• Area Agency on Aging and 211. For general help at home, 211 can point you to local services. Some areas have volunteer programs that help older residents with yard work.

Hiring safely

Disaster and fire-risk work attracts people who prey on older homeowners. Some precautions:

• Verify the license. California contractors are licensed by the CSLB, and you can check a license number against their name before any work starts. Tree services and landscapers may not need one for all work, but ask.
• Ask for proof of insurance, including workers’ compensation if they have employees. If someone is hurt on your property and they are uninsured, that becomes your problem.
• Never pay the full amount up front. California caps the down payment on home improvement contracts at 10% or $1,000, whichever is less.
• Get it in writing — scope, price, and timeline — before work begins.
• Be wary of pressure. “This price is only good today,” an unsolicited knock at the door, or a claim that a rule requires immediate work are all reasons to slow down and get a second quote.
• Do not pay cash without a receipt.
• Get three quotes for anything substantial. Prices for the same brush job vary more than people expect.

If someone claims the government requires the work, be especially careful. As of this writing the Zone 0 regulation is not in force, and defensible space requirements are enforced by fire agencies through inspection, not by contractors going door to door.

If you are helping from out of town

• Arrange the evaluation first, and ask for the report by email. Now you can see the property’s problems without being there.
• Use the quote request form on this site with your parent’s town. Requests go to businesses that serve that area, and you can take the calls yourself.
• Be present by phone for the first visit. Ask the contractor to call you when they arrive and walk you through what they are seeing.
• Set up recurring brush clearing rather than one-time work. An annual arrangement before fire season is far easier than remembering to organize it every spring.
• Get copies of everything — invoices, photos, the license number — and keep them where you can find them for the insurance conversation.
• Ask about access. Long driveways, locked gates and low branches matter for fire trucks too, not just contractors.

A realistic yearly rhythm

Fire preparation is maintenance. Brush grows back.

Late winter / early spring. Book brush clearing and tree work before everyone else does. Contractors are booked solid by June.

Spring. Clear the perimeter, check the vents, clean the gutters.

Early summer. Final grass cut, move the woodpile, walk the five-foot zone again.

Any time. Photograph completed work and send documentation to your insurer at renewal.

One arrangement with one contractor who comes annually solves most of this permanently.

Where to start

• Wildfire home evaluators — get the written report first
• Defensible space clearing — the recurring job
• Ember-resistant vents and gutter guards — cheap and high value
• Tree services — branches over the roof
• Or send a quote request and let local businesses come to you

If you are not sure where to begin, choose “Not sure — help me figure it out” on the quote form. That is a normal answer, and it is what the form is for.