Your Home is Your Biggest Investment
How to Maintain It
We've all heard the advice that if we keep up with the little things, we can often prevent larger problems later on. But is that really true?
Most of us don't know where to start. Here are some top home-care suggestions, from the nitty-gritty to the finishing touches:
How To's for Home Maintenance
- Walk around the exterior of your house as if you were a potential buyer. Keep an eye out for areas that need maintenance:
- How long has it been since the house was last painted?
- Is the roof in good condition?
- Are the gutters and downspouts in good condition?
- Walk around the interior of the house:
- Are there any safety hazards?
- Do the smoke alarms work? Do they have fresh batteries? (test & change every 6 months)
- Has the heating system been maintained?
- Are there dripping taps or clogged drains?
- Do doors and windows open and close properly?
- Prepare your home for an earthquake by having your masonry chimney inspected. Make repairs if needed or replace your wood-burning masonry fireplace and chimney with a more eco-friendly gas appliance.
- More quake prep: Secure tall bookcases to a wall, have a supply of food and water, and learn how to turn off the gas.
- Check your home for roof leaks, dry rot, cracks, mold or signs of termite infestations. If any problems are found, repair them now. Hire a home inspector if necessary.
- Weatherstrip doors and windows.
- Have your furnace and water heater inspected.
- Check your crawl space for water. Repair if found.
- Get your heating ducts tested and sealed properly, especially if you have an old furnace. The energy savings in cost and comfort are significant and immediate. We did this at our home and noticed an immediate difference in the time it took our 20-year-old furnaces to heat the home to a comfortable temperature.
- Insulate all of the exposed piping under the house, both hot- and cold-water pipes. Use slotted foam pipe sleeves, which slip on easily. Insulating the hot-water pipes will keep the water hotter as it travels. And if you're going to crawl under the house anyway, it won't take that much extra time to insulate the cold pipes as well. Cold pipes occasionally burst from freezing weather. Additionally, condensation occurs on the outside, which can cause mold.
- Clear dirt away from wood foundation walls of your home by 6 inches, so subterranean termites won't have their feasting party at your expense. This is the biggest area of dry-rot repair that we find on homes we are remodeling. Check this especially if you have had recent landscaping done and there are plants against the house.
- Check sprinklers to make sure they are not watering the house siding. This causes dry rot over time.
- Retire old toilets and replace with high-efficiency models.
- Replace five commonly used incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
- Clear leaves and debris from gutters and downspouts, and do it again every six months.
- Freshen up a tired paint job with eco-friendly no-VOC paint, available from most manufacturers. (VOC stands for volatile organic compound.)
- Thoroughly clean and touch up chipped paint on ceiling and baseboard moldings. It is amazing how the entire house looks fresh and clean when the moldings are in good shape.
- Polish hardwood floors with a wet Swiffer and a little Bruce hardwood floor cleaner. Put a coat of car wax on the ceramic tile floor in the bathroom (no, it won't get slippery).
- Change bed coverings. Do you have a quilt hiding in the back of the closet? Toss it or a colorful blanket on top of the bed to add a cozy, seasonal look.
- Enhance your home with cut flowers. Keep them fresh with a little sugar in the water and replace with new flowers about every four to five days.
