How Do I Prevent Major Home Repairs?
We’d all like to avoid major home repairs. They’re often expensive, disruptive, require us to act immediately even when it’s a serious inconvenience, and are a hassle generally.
The good news here is that performing maintenance and addressing small repairs as the need arises can often eliminate the need for major house repair. Here are some basic tasks that deserve your attention.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Checking Your Home
You can’t fix a minor problem and potentially stop a serious one from developing if you never notice the minor problem. Checking your home for house repair issues will keep you on top of things. So perform a walk-though every so often, perhaps once a week. If something’s different, you’ll see it if you’re really looking.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Keeping a List
Write down the last time something received maintenance and the time when it should receive maintenance again. That will keep you from forgetting regular maintenance chores.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Keeping an Eye Out for Plumbing Problems
We’ve already noted that you’ll be watching for developing problems in general, but because serious plumbing problems can be particularly expensive to fix, it pays to keep a special eye out for them. A wet patch in your backyard could mean that a buried pipe has broken, and ominous noises when the water is running or a drain is draining could indicate trouble as well.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Fixing Cracks Promptly
If they’re not repaired, cracks in concrete just keep growing and growing, so get them repaired promptly when you notice them. You may have concrete throughout your garage and driveway, so be sure to check everywhere that it is.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Maintaining Your HVAC
Your home needs the HVAC working properly, especially in hot summer weather. An HVAC needs a fair amount of maintenance to operate as it should, Cleaning it and changing the filters will make it work better and extend its lifespan, and a service call by a reputable local HVAC company can provide all the technical help you need.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Checking the Roof
Even if you’re diligently inspecting the rest of the house on a regular basis, it can be a temptation to avoid the bother of climbing onto the roof. But it’s important to look for cracks and damaged shingles in need of replacement. The roof, after all, protects everything underneath it, your whole house, in other words, and if the roof is allowed to deteriorate to the point where it needs to be replaced, that’s quite expensive. For obvious reasons, inspecting the roof is easier and more pleasant if you do it before winter or the rainy season begins.
Prevent Major Home Repairs by Having a List of Emergency Companies Handy
A refrigerator door is a good place. You want to be able to contact the appropriate company quickly if an emergency develops.
You might actually want to have two lists. One will list your preferred companies, those you know and trust and would prefer to hire. The other will list companies that provide service 24/7 if you preferred companies don’t.
Follow these pointers and you’ll have gone a long way toward eliminating unnecessary major home repairs.