Owning a home means taking care of it and spending money on maintenance. On average, homeowners spend anywhere from 1% to 4% of a home’s value on maintenance every year, and that amount tends to increase as the house gets older. There are many home maintenance issues that you will be faced with. Here are a few of the most common.
One of the most important home maintenance tasks is taking care of your HVAC system. Having to replace a furnace or air conditioner is expensive, so you want to be sure you take good care of your system. Common maintenance tasks include replacing the filter often, hosing down your condenser unit outside the home a couple of times a year and having annual maintenance done by an HVAC technician.
Another critical component of your home you need to take care of is your roof. Roof care and roof maintenance are important to ensure your roof doesn’t fail before its useful life is up. It’s important to inspect your roof a couple of times a year and call a roofer to do roof repair if you see any problems such as missing or broken shingles. Typically, roofs last at least 20 years but can last as long as 50, depending on the materials used. Make sure you observe all roof safety precautions when inspecting your roof and doing any minor repairs.
A roofer also should be able to do repairs needed to your gutters and downspouts, but there are plenty of things you can do yourself to head off problems. Keeping your gutters free of leaves and debris will prevent damage and also ensure proper drainage around your home. You also want to make sure that you don’t have any gutters or downspouts that are damaged or hanging off of your home. You also want to ensure in the winter that snow and ice melt and drain off of your roof and gutters properly. Buildups of ice called ice dams can damage both your roof and your gutters and cause water damage. If you see an ice dam, you might want to have a roofer take a look at it.
Another good area of home maintenance to focus on is weatherization. Making sure your doors and windows don’t have any cracks or gaps that reduce your energy efficiency will save you a lot of money on your heating and cooling costs. If your doors and windows are really old, you might want to look at having them replaced to improve your energy efficiency.
Spending money on maintenance is a given when you own a home. But spending a little bit up front can save you a lot in the long run by preventing large problems that can be expensive to fix.
