Buying a home is a wonderful thing. For many Americans, it’s the culmination of a lifelong dream. It’s also, in many cases, a sound financial decision: All else being held equal, buying a home is typically most cost-effective than renting. Owning your own house gives you a sense of place — a sense of home.
It also, unfortunately, gives you a whole lot of responsibilities! Keeping your home comfortable and beautiful is no easy task. Nor is juggling the expenses of repairs and improvements while making sure that you maintain the value of your property over the years that you own it. Keeping up with the house can be a headache, which is why you need to stay organized, know where to direct your focus, and understand how to manage your budget and your time.
Focusing on the essentials
Every aspect of your home’s maintenance can affect its value and your comfort one some level. But not all tasks and responsibilities are created equal. An understanding of what matters most can help you prioritize your home maintenance tasks and expenses.
Among home maintenance tasks and problems, foundation repair and structural issues loom large, explain experts in foundation repair and structural wood rot repair in Florida. It doesn’t get any more serious than this: Problems with the actual structure of your home can quite literally ruin it. A big enough foundation issue can be so difficult and expensive to repair that it might not even be worth doing — though, fortunately, such extremes are rare.
You should check your foundation on a regular basis — at least once or twice a year. Look for cracks and other signs of issues in the concrete. Be mindful of cracking walls, too, as well as gaps around doors and windows that may be caused by abnormal settling.
Staying on schedule
Home maintenance is a year-round responsibility. What you actually have to do, however, can change significantly from season to season. Many of the tasks that are essential to your home’s future are seasonal ones: Fireplace inspection, for instance, is a job for fall, and fertilizing the lawn is a job for spring.
That’s why it’s so important for you to have a seasonal maintenance checklist — and, ideally, a calendar that marks out the dates that you’ll be handling all of these seasonal tasks.
Some tasks aren’t seasonal, but are still best scheduled. For instance, it doesn’t necessarily matter if you check your foundation in fall or in spring — but you must check it regularly, so you might as well add it to your schedule. Keeping things organized on a calendar can make all the difference.
The economics of home maintenance
Home maintenance tasks aren’t always cheap. But, explain repair experts who work for roofing companies in Raleigh NC, investing in repairs and maintenance as proactively as possible tends to pay off. Take roof repair: If you pay up-front to make repairs fast after a storm, you’ll get a reliable roof that is worth the money. If you put the work off, though, you could land yourself in hot water. Another storm might rip through, worsening the damage and increasing the cost of repair. Or perhaps rain will leak through, damaging your attic, insulation, and other parts of your home. Suddenly, you’ll have two things to fix instead of one.
Generally speaking, the cost of “deferred maintenance” is going to be higher than the cost of routine and preventative maintenance. Add in the fact that a well-maintained home is likely to better preserve its value, and you have a clear case for investing in maintenance right here and right now. Don’t let your short-term cheapness cost you dearly in the long term!
