5 Ways To Reduce Home Maintenance Costs

 

Regular home maintenance makes for a pleasant living environment as well as saving you money in the long run on expensive and, often avoidable, repairs. Buying property is a significant investment and one which brings with it the responsibility to care for your investment and keep it in tip-top condition.

It’s important to budget properly, taking into consideration the costs of servicing, etc, and the fact that home appliances have a life span and will need to be replaced at some point. This can be due to safety or efficiency factors, or because your appliance simply stops working. To cover these costs, the rule of thumb is to put aside the equivalent of 1% of your property’s value each year. So, if your property is valued at $300k, you should be saving $3k on a sensible budget – that’s $250 per month. Of course, you’re unlikely to spend $250 every month but don’t be tempted to start dipping into that pot if you haven’t had to replace anything after a few months as, when they do occur, maintenance costs can be quite high. Other factors to consider are the age and condition of your home, and the geography of the region which can impact the likely cost of repairs in an average year – but 1% is a good starting figure to keep in mind.

So, you’re putting money aside and you’ve got all the necessary insurances. What else can you do to try keeping those pesky home maintenance bills from slapping you in the face too often?

Let’s look at 5 simple ways to save on home maintenance and keep your home in top condition:

 

1. Do it yourself

This is one of the simplest methods of saving on maintenance bills and many tasks don’t require any special skills. If you need to put up a shelf, for example, all you need is a few simple tools such as a drill, spirit level, and screwdriver and it should be pretty straightforward.

Other simple tasks such as touching up chipped paint or washing your own windows might take you time but will be far cheaper than hiring a handyman for the job.

If you’re unsure how to carry out a job, you can find instructions for almost any home maintenance task on YouTube. So, using our example, you just need to search ‘How to put up shelves’ and you’ll find plenty of video tutorials.

Some home maintenance tasks such as plumbing or electrics will require a greater level of skill and understanding. There are videos available for some of these too, such as replacing a washer on a faucet or replacing an electrical outlet but bear in mind getting plumbing or electrics wrong can have serious and expensive consequences. Gasworks should always be carried out by a professional.

If you don’t feel confident to carry out a task yourself, think about whether a friend or family member could do it. Often, you can agree to do a task for them in return. So, maybe ask your electrician friend to change your electrical outlet – a simple task for him – in exchange for mowing his lawn.

 

 

2. Keep on top of preventative maintenance

One of the most important reasons to carry out regular home maintenance is to keep things in good working order and ensure parts are attended to so they continue to work efficiently. Regular maintenance can also help you spot problems early and deal with them before they become bigger and costlier headaches for you.

Maintaining wooden floors, staining your fence and clearing gutters are examples of simple home maintenance tasks which, if left undone can become expensive. Faulty guttering can cause dampness in the walls and lead to water damage or mold infestations, while untreated wood is susceptible to the weather and heavy usage.

Preventative maintenance also includes checking and replacing the batteries in smoke alarms, house cleaning (including a deep clean at least once a year), and protecting the exterior of your home.

These are all problems which a handyman or painter and decorator could do, but if you have the time and are able, carrying them out yourself is considerably cheaper.

 

3. Deal with issues early

All homeowners have other pressures apart from fixing little problems around the home. Sometimes money is tight or there is a major expense such as a family wedding coming up. Maybe you have plans to decorate or renovate part of the home and want to put all your funds towards that instead of ‘petty repairs’. But failure to deal with those repairs now can lead to further problems. So, don’t put things off. Get them done while they are small problems to prevent them from becoming big problems.

 

4. Insulate your home

Energy bills are one of the biggest outgoings for homeowners and tenants. A properly insulated home can save you hundreds of dollars a year. There are various methods of insulating walls, and the most appropriate one is usually determined by the construction of the wall. Insulation rolls can be bought from DIY shops and this is one of those tasks that many people are able to carry out on their own. Even if you do decide that you want to get a professional in to insulate your exterior walls, there are other insulation tasks that you can do around the home to ensure you regulate the temperature such as:

• Installing weather stripping around windows and doors (caulk is even cheaper)
• Sealing HVAC ducts using expandable filler
• Lagging pipes

HVAC filters should be changed at least once every two months (depending on usage) and an adjustable thermostat can help you control the temperature too.

 

5. Only hire quality professionals

If you do need to get someone in, make sure you get a reliable, trusted professional. Hiring someone who ends up doing a bad job can often be even more expensive than doing it badly yourself. Apart from the fact that the next professional you hire has to undo the problem before they can start on the job at hand, the problem could actually be exacerbated and excessively expensive to rectify.

If someone provides a quote which you think is too good to be true, then it probably is. Professional tradesmen expect to be paid the going rate and they charge according to their skills. You can check the going rate for the job you need done and find a reliable fully-vetted professional on the ChoreRelief app.

Finding someone local, available and with good reviews is literally at your fingertips.

 

Home maintenance can be a pain. Paying for repairs because you failed to maintain your home is an expensive pain. Which would you prefer?

 

 

 

 

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